310 PLINY'S NATTJEAL HISTOET. [Book XXI. 



lets, mixed up with their drink. Who, under such circumstances 

 as these, could have apprehended treachery? Accordingly, 

 the leaves were stripped from off the chaplet, and thrown into 

 the cup. Just as Antonius was on the very point of drinking, 

 she arrested his arm with her hand. " Behold, Marcus An- 

 tonius," said she, " the woman against whom you are so care- 

 ful to take these new precautions of yours in employing your 

 tasters ! And would then, if I could exist without you, either 

 means or opportunity of effecting my purpose be wanting to 

 me?" Saying this, she ordered a man to be brought from 

 prison, and made him drink off the potion ; he did so, and 

 fell dead 38 upon the spot. 



Besides the two authors above-mentioned, Theophrastus, 39 

 among the Greeks, has written on the subject of flowers. 

 Some of our own writers also have given the title of " Antho- 

 logica" to their works, but no one, to my knowledge at least, 

 has treated expressly 40 of flowers. In fact, we ourselves have 

 no intention here of discussing the mode of wearing chaplets, 

 for that would be frivolous 41 indeed ; but shall proceed to 

 state such particulars in relation to flowers as shall appear to 

 us deserving of remark. 



CHAP. 10. (4.) THE EOSE: TWELVE VAEIETIES or IT. 



The people of our country were acquainted with but very 

 few garland flowers among the garden plants, and those fe\v 

 hardly any but the violet and the rose. The plant which bears 

 the rose is, properly speaking, more of a thorn than a shrub 

 indeed, we sometimes find it growing on a bramble 42 even ; 

 the flower having, even then, a pleasant smell, though by no 

 means penetrating. The flower in all roses is originally en- 

 closed in a bud, 43 with a grained surface within, which gra- 

 dually swells, and assumes the form of a green pointed cone, 

 similar to our alabaster 44 unguent boxes in shape. Gradually 



, Fee remarks that we know of no poisons, hydrocyanic or prussic acid 

 / excepted, so instantaneous in their effects as this ; and that it is very 

 doubtful if they were acquainted with that poison. 

 39 Hist. Plant. B. vi. cc. 6, 7. 40 " Persecutes est." 



41 A characteristic, it would appear, of the greater part of the inform- 

 ation already given in this Book. 

 43 He alludes to the wild rose or eglantine. See B. xvi. c. 71. 



43 " Granoso cortice." 



44 Boxes of a pyramidal shape. See B. ix. c. 56. 



