Chap. 18.] THE NATURE OF ODOUES. 321 



it is prevented from degenerating. It is never 20 used for chap- 

 lets, being a plant with an extremely narrow leaf, as fine almost 

 as a hair ; but it combines remarkably well with wine, sweet 

 wine in particular. Reduced to a powder, it is used to per- 

 fume 2l the theatres. 



Saffron blossoms about the setting of the Vergilice, for a few 

 days 22 only, the leaf expelling the flower. It is verdant 23 at 

 the time of the winter solstice, and then it is that they gather 

 it; it is usually dried in the shade, and if in winter, all the 

 better. The root of this plant is fleshy, and more long-lived 24 

 than that of the other bulbous plants. It loves to be beaten 

 and trodden M under foot, and in fact, the worse it is treated 

 the better it thrives : hence it is, that it grows so vigorously 

 by the side of foot-paths and fountains. (7.) Saffron was 

 already held in high esteem in the time of the Trojan War ; 

 at all events, Homer, 26 we find, makes mention of these three 

 flowers, the lotus, 27 the saffron, and the hyacinth. 



CHAP. 18. THE NATURE OF ODOURS. 



All the odoriferous 28 substances, and consequently the plants, 

 differ from one another in their colour, smell, and juices. It 

 is but rarely 29 that the taste of an odoriferous substance is not 



20 He contradicts himself here ; for in c. 79 of this Book, he says that 

 chaplets of saffron are good for dispelling the fumes of wine. 



" Ad theatra repleuda." It was the custom to discharge saffron-water 

 over the theatres with pipes, and sometimes the saffron was mixed with 

 wine for the purpose. It was discharged through pipes of very minute 

 bore, so that it fell upon the spectators in the form of the finest dust. See 

 Lucretius, B. ii. 1. 416 ; Lucan, Phars. ix. 1. 808810 ; and Seneca, Epist. 



22 It flowers so rapidly, in fact, that it is difficult to avoid the loss of a 

 )art of the harvest. 



The whole of this passage is from Theophrastus, De Odorib, 



This statement, though borrowed from Theophrastus, is not consis- 



ent with fact. The root of saffron is not more long-lived than any other 



julbs of the Liliacese. 



23 Because, Dalechamps says, all the juices are thereby thrown back into 

 he root, which consequently bears a stronger flower the next year. 



26 II. xiv. 1. 348. 27 s ee B< xiii c 32 . 



28 All these statements as to the odours of various substances, are from 

 .heophrastus, De Causis, B. vi. c. 22. 



29 He does not say, however, that it is but rarely that a bitter substance 

 s not odoriferous ; a sense in which Fee seems to have understood him, as 

 \Q says, " This assertion is not true in general, and there are numerous 



TOL. IV. y 



