146 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTOET. [Book XIX. 



omit the facts, that in the consulship 92 of C. Valerius and M, 

 Herennius, there was brought to Rome, from Cyrenae, for the 

 public service, thirty pounds' weight of laserpitium, and that 

 the Dictator Caesar, at the beginning of the Civil War, took 

 from out of the public treasury, besides gold and silver, no 

 less than fifteen hundred pounds of laserpitium. 



"We find it stated by the most trustworthy among the Greek 

 writers, 93 that this plant first made its appearance in the vicinity 

 of the gardens of the Hesperides and the Greater Syrtis, im- 

 mediately after the earth had been soaked on a sudden by a 

 shower as black as pitch. This took place seven years before 

 the foundation of the city of Cyrense, and in the year of Rome 

 143. The virtues of this remarkable fall of rain extended, 

 it is said, over no less than four thousand stadia of the African 

 territory ; and upon this soil laserpitium began universally to 

 grow, a plant that is in general wild and stubborn, and which, 

 if attempted to be cultivated, will leave the spot where it has 

 been sown quite desolate and barren. The roots of it are 

 numerous and thick, the stalk being like that of fennel-giant, 

 and of similar thickness. The leaves of this plant were known 

 as "maspetum," and bore a considerable resemblance to parsley; 

 the seeds of it were foliaceous, and the plant shed its leaves 

 every year. They used to feed the cattle there upon it ; at 

 first it* purged them, but afterwards they would grow fat, the 

 flesh being improved in flavour in a most surprising degree. 

 After the fall of the leaf, the people themselves were in the 

 habit of eating 94 the stalk, either roasted or boiled : from the 

 drastic effects of this diet the body was purged for the first 

 forty days, all vicious humours being effectually removed. 95 



The juices of this plant were collected two different ways, 

 either from the root or from the stalk ; in consequence of which 

 these two varieties of the juice were known by the distinguish- 

 ing names of " rhizias " and " caulias," 96 the last being of in- 

 ferior quality to the other, and very apt to turn putrid. Upon 



92 A.U.C. 661. 



93 Fee remarks, that if Pliny here alludes to Theophrastus, Hist. 

 Plant. B. vi. c. 3, he has mistaken his meaning. 



94 This, as Fee says, could hardly apply to the Ferula asafbetida of 

 Linnaeus, the stalk of it being extremely acrid, and the juice fetid in the 

 highest degree. 



95 " Vitia his omnibus." The reading here is probably corrupt. 



96 "Root-juice/' and "stalk-juice." 



