BOOK XII. Liv. 115-118 



in colour, is inferior. The branch is thicker than Modeof 

 that of a myrtle ; incision is made in it with a piece '"^^"^ "■**• 

 of glass or a stone, or with knives made of bone — it 

 strongly dishkes having its vital parts M'oimded with 

 steel, and dies oifat once, though it can stand having 

 superfluous branches pruned with a steel knife. The 

 hand of the operator making the incision has to be 

 poised under skilful control, to avoid inflicting a 

 wound going below the bark. The juice that oozes 

 out of the incision is called opobalsamum ; it is ex- 

 tremely sweet in taste, but exudes in tiny drops, 

 the trickle being collected by means of tufts of wool 

 in small horns and poured out of them into a new 

 earthenware vessel to store ; it is Hke rather thick 

 oHve-oil and in the unfermented state is white in 

 colour ; later on it turns red and at the same time 

 hardens, having previously been transparent. When 

 Alexander the Great was campaigning in that coun- 

 try, it was considered a fair whole day's work in 

 summer to fill a single shell,'* and for the entire 

 produce of a-rather large garden to be six congii and 

 of a smaller one congius, at a time moreover when its 

 price was twice its weight in silver: whereas at the 

 present day even a single tree produces a larger 

 flow. The incision is made three times in every 

 summer, and afterwards the tree is lopped. There 

 is a market even for the twigs too ; within five years By-products 

 of the conquest of Judaea the actual loppings and °l^^'^^ 

 the shoots fetched 800,000 sesterces. These trim- 

 mings are called wood of balsam ; they are boiled 

 down in perfumes, and in manufacture they have 

 taken the place of the actual juice of the shrub. 

 Even the bark fetches a price for drugs; but the 

 tears are valued most, the seed coming second, 



83 



