Chap. 5.] GREEK AUTHORS WHO H AYE WEITTEN ON PLANTS. 81 



any bodily ailment, and neither his memory nor his natural 

 vigour had been the least impaired by the lapse of time. 



There was nothing more highly admired than an intimate 

 knowledge of plants, in ancient times. It is long since the 

 means were discovered of calculating before-hand, not only 

 the day or the night, but the very hour even at which au 

 eclipse of the sun or moon is to take place ; and yet the greater 

 part of the lower classes still remain firmly persuaded that 

 these phenomena are brought about by compulsion, through the 

 agency of herbs and enchantments, and that the knowledge of 

 this art is confined almost exclusively to females. What 

 country, in fact, is not filled with the fabulous stories about 

 Medea of Colchis and other sorceresses, the Italian Circe in 

 particular, who has been elevated to the rank of a divinity 

 even ? It is with reference to her, I am of opinion, that 

 ^Eschylus, 12 one of the most ancient of the poets, asserts that 

 Italy is covered with plants endowed with potent effects, and 

 that many writers say the same of Circeii, 13 the pla<;e of her 

 abode. Another great proof too that such is the case, is the 

 fact, that the nation of the Marsi, 14 descendants of a son of 

 Circe, are well known still to possess the art of taming ser- 

 pents. 



Homer, that great parent of the learning and traditions of 

 antiquity, while extolling the fame of Circe in many other 

 respects, assigns to Egypt the glory of having first discovered 

 the properties of plants, and that too at a time when the 

 portion of that country which is now watered by the river 

 Nilus was not in existence, having been formed at a more recent 

 period by the alluvion 15 of that river. At all events, he states 16 

 that numerous Egyptian plants were sent to the Helena of his 

 story, by the wife of the king of that country, together with 

 the celebrated nepenthes, 17 which ensured oblivion of all 

 sorrows and forgetfulness of the past, a potion which Helena 

 was to administer to all mortals. The first person, however, 

 of whom the remembrance has come down to us, as having 



12 There is little doubt that he alludes to the passage of jEschylus, 

 quoted by Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. B. ix. c. 15. Tvpprjvwv -ytviav 

 QapfiaicoTroibv iQvoQ " The race of the Tyrrheni, a drug-preparing nation.'* 



13 See B. ii. c. 87, B. iii, c. 9, B. xv. c. 36, and B. xxxii. c. 21. 



14 See B. vii. c. 2. ]5 See B. ii. c. 87. 

 16 Od. iv. 228, et seq. 17 See B. xxi. c, 91. 



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