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 Chaldeans tell many 

 tales, in some of which the Greeks agree 

 with them." Elsewhere the author exults 

 in the coincidence which exists between the 

 opinions of the Greeks and the Chaldeans 

 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 Nabathsean Agriculture" relating 



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



