34 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 



the Greeks had a scientific system of medi- 

 cine at the time when " The Agriculture " 

 was composed. Greece, he observes, might 

 very well have had a popular pharmacopoeia 

 and such receipts as are found in the heroic 

 age, 1500 years before Christ. Doubtless ; 

 but such popular pharmacopoeias are not 

 precisely such as are quoted in scientific 

 books, and form a school. It is evident 

 that it here treats of a written Botany, and 

 posterior to Theophrastus. In the chapter 

 on garlic, the author himself says : 1 " Con- 

 cerning this plant, the Chaldaeans tell many 

 tales, in some of which the Greeks agree 

 with them. 7 ' Elsewhere the author exults 

 in the coincidence which exists between the 

 opinions of the Greeks and the Chaldaeans 

 as regards the influence of the moon on 

 plants. 2 It is not clear that he treats here 

 of a written, regular science no less of the 

 Greeks than of the Chaldseans. 



But the most striking passage in "The 

 Book of Nabatha3an Agriculture" relating 



1 Pp. 88, 89. 2 Pp. 89-91. 



