BOOK XXI. IX. I2-X. 15 



prisoner was brought in and ordered by her to drink, 

 who died on the spot. About flowers, besides the 

 authors already mentioned, an account has been 

 written by Theophrastus among the Greeks, and 

 some of our own writers have composed books of 

 Aniholngica. Nobody has, however, followed up the 

 subject of flowers fully, so far as I can discover. Nor 

 sliall I now, of course, put chaplets together" — for that 

 vvould be mere trifling — but I shall incUide every- 

 thing about flou ers that will seem worthy of record. 



X. Our countrymen knovv among garden plants Roses. 

 very fevv kinds of chaplet flowers, practically violets 

 only and roses. The rose grows on what is not so 

 much a shrub as a thorn,appearing also on a bramble ;** 

 there too it has a pleasant though faint perfume. 

 Every bud appears at first enclosed in a shell full of 

 grains, which presently svvells and, after sloping 

 itself into a green cone like a jierfume box, gradually 

 reddens, spHtting and spreading out into a cup, which 

 encloses the yellow points that stand out of its 

 centre.'' To make chaplets is about the least of the 

 uses of the rose. It is steeped in oil, a process known 

 even at the time of the Trojan war, as Honier bears 

 witness.'^ Fin-thermore, it has made its way, as we 

 have said,*" into ointments. By itself it possesses 

 medicinal properties. It is an ingredient of plasters 

 and of e3'e-salves by reason of its subtle pungency, 

 even being used as a coating for the delicacies of our 

 tables, being quite harmless./ The most famous 



" Iliad XXIII. 186. 



See Book XIII § 9. 



f In defetice of his conjecture MayhofF refers to Pausanias 

 IX. 41, 7. where the unguent of the rose is said to preserve 

 vvood from decay. 



171 



