INTRODUCTION 



and of the principles of textual criticism, is certain to 

 be influenced unduly by the subjective element in 

 his reasoning. A translator, however, although he 

 would prefer to spend all his tirae and care on his 

 proper task of translating, is sometimes compelled to 

 defend a new reading or suggest an emendation, 

 because in his opinion such a course is required by the 

 sense of the passage. But the extra caution neces- 

 sary in these cases has made me refrain from mention- 

 ing some emendations of my own that I thought 

 possible or even hkely. It is, moreover, often for- 

 gotten that an ancient author — and this perhaps 

 appHes especially to PHny — may himself have made 

 mistakes, even bad ones, that escaped the notice 

 of his corrector, if he had one. 



SOME DlFFICULT WoRDS IN PlINY. 

 THE ADJECTIVE PINOUIS APPLIED TO LEAVES 



There are in PUny few words more perplexing than 

 pinguis when applied to leaves. ForcelUni says 

 " pinguia folia: crassa et veluti carnosa." PHny, 

 however, uses it to translate Xnrapog, which is very 

 common in Dioscorides, and is rendered by Hort 

 " glossy " (leaves) in his edition of Theophrastus. 



It is therefore tempting to use " glossy " to trans- 

 late PHny's pinguis (and the Xnrapog of Dioscorides) 

 on all occasions, but there are difficulties. The latter 

 has (IV 170) : KXcova? Xnrapovg, and " glossy twigs " 

 seems unUkely ; while PHny in XXV § 124 speaks of 

 radicibus pinguibus, which is surely " juicy roots." It 

 would appear that " juicy " is at least a possible 

 translation of pinguis, especially as PHny often speaks 

 of leaves having a sucus. Examples are : sucus 



