BOOK XIX. xv. 41-45 



\Ve find it stated in the most reliable authors of Pmvenance 

 (M-eece that this plant first sprang up in the vicinity ""^pJluun/ 

 of the Gardens of the Hesperids and tlie Greater 

 Syrtis after the ground had been suddenly soaked 

 by a shower of rain the eolour of pitch, seven years 

 before the foundation of the town of Cyrenae, which 

 was in the year of our city 143 ; that the effect of this 6II b.c. 

 rainfall extended over 500 miles of Africa ; and that 

 (he laserwort plant grew widely in that country 

 as an obstinate weed, and if cultivated, escaped into 

 the desert ; and that it has a large thick root and a 

 stalk Hke that of fcnnel and equally thick. The 

 leaves of this plant used to be called maspehtm ; they 

 closely resembled parsley, and the seed was Hke a 

 leaf, the actual leaf being shed off in spring. It used 

 to be customary to pasture cattle on it ; it first acted 

 as a purgative, and then the beasts grew fat and 

 produced meat of a marvellously agreeable quality. 

 After the plant had shed its leaves the people them- 

 selves used to eat ihe actual stalk, cooked in all sorts 

 of ways, boiled and roasted ; with them also it operated 

 as a purge for the first six wecks. The juice used to 

 be obtained in two ways, from the root and from the 

 stalk, and the two corresponding names for it were 

 rizias and caulias,'^ the latter inferior to the former 

 andHaI)le togobad. Theroot had ablack rind. The 

 juice itself was adulterated for tradc purposes by 

 being put into vessels ^vith a mixture of bran added 

 and thcn shaken up tiU it was brought into ripe 

 condition ; without this treatment it went bad. A 

 proof of its bcing ripe was its colour and dryness, the 

 damp juice having completely disappeared. Other 

 accounts say that the plant had a root more than 18 

 inches long, and that at all events there was an 



447 



