368 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES. 



the odour during the time they are handling 

 and preparing this food, with their fine amber 

 knives, and silver vessels about them. He 

 also observes, that mushrooms are eaten with 

 some danger, although they have so delicate 

 and pleasant a taste. This food was brought 

 into discredit by Agrippina, who poisoned 

 her husband, the Emperor Tiberius Clau- 

 dius, by the aid of this vegetable. 



It is related by Pliny*, that a whole house- 

 hold in Rome died by eating mushrooms ; 

 and, in another instance, all the company at 

 a feast, who ate at the same table, perished 

 by this poisonous vegetable ; also, that An- 

 naeus Serenus, captain of Nero's guard, with 

 several other officers, died from eating of this 

 dish at one dinner. 



Horace *f notices mushrooms as a dange- 

 rous food : 



" Pratensibus optima fungis 



Natura est : aliis male creditur." 



and which is thus translated by an old herb- 

 alist : 



" The meadow mushrooms are in kind the best : 

 It is but ill-trusting to any of the rest." 



None but the peasants who gather them, 



* Book xxii. chap. 23. + Lib. ii. Sat. 4. 



