300 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Rook XX. 



extracted from them as an antidote against the stings of all 

 kinds of venomous animals: it is inscribed in verse 94 upon a 

 stone in the Temple of JEsculapius at Cos. 



Take two denarii of wild thyme, and the same quantity of 

 opopanax and meum respectively ; one denarius of trefoil 

 seed ; and of aniseed, fennel-seed, ammi, and parsley, six 

 denarii respectively, with twelve denarii of meal of fitches. 

 Beat up these ingredients together, and pass them through a 

 sieve ; after which they must be kneaded with the best wine 

 that can be had, and then made into lozenges of one victoria- 

 tus 95 each : one of these is to be given to the patient, steeped 

 in three cyathi of wine. King Aritiochus 96 the Great, it is 

 said, employed this theriaca 9T against all kinds of venomous 

 animals, the asp excepted. 



SUMMARY. Remarkable facts, narratives, and observations, ^ 

 one thousand, five hundred, and six. 



AUTHORS QUOTED. Cato 1 the Censor, M. Yarro, 3 

 Pompeius Lenceuft, 8 C. Yalgius, 4 Hyginus, 5 Sextius Niger 61 



94 Galen gives these lines, sixteen in number, in his work De Antidot. 

 B. ii. c. 14; the proportions, however, differ from those given by Pliny. 



95 Half a denarius ; the weight being so called from the coin which was 

 stamped with the image of the Goddess of Victory. See B. xxxiii. c. 13. 



96 Antiochus II., the father of Antiochus Epiphanes. 



97 Or " antidote." In this term has originated our word " treacle," in 

 the Elizabethan age spelt " triacle." The medicinal virtues of this com- 

 position were believed in, Fee remarks, so recently as the latter half of 

 the last century. The most celebrated, however, of all the u tlieriacse" 

 of the ancients, was the " Theriaca Andromuchi," invented by Androma- 

 chus, the physician of the Emperor Nero, and very similar to that com- 

 posed by Mithridates, king of Pontus, and by means of which he was ren- 

 dered proof, it is said, against all poisons. See a very learned and inter- 

 esting account of the Theriaca of the ancients, by Dr. Greenhili, in Smith's 

 Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. His articles " Phannaceu- 

 tica," and " Therapeutica," will also be found well worth attention by the 

 reader of Pliny. 



1 See end of B. iiL 2 See end of B. ii. 



3 See end of B. xiv. 



4 He is also mentioned in B. xxv. c. 2, as having commenced a treatise 

 on Medicinal Plants, which he did not live to complete. It is not im- 

 probable that he is the same Valgius that is mentioned in high terras by 

 Horace, B, i. Sat, 10. 



6 See end of B. iii. ' 6 See end of B. xii. 



