BOOK XXV. V. 9-1 1 



V. For this reason the other writers have given 

 verbal accounts only ; some have not even given 

 the shape of the plants, and for the most part have 

 been content with bare names, since they thought it 

 sufRcient to point out the properties and nature 

 of a plant to those wilhng to look for it. To gain 

 this knowledge is no ditficult matter ; I at least 

 have enjoyed the good fortune to examine all but 

 a very few plants through the devotion to science 

 of Antonius Castor, the highest botanical authority 

 of our time ; I used to visit his special " garden, in 

 which he would rear a great number of specimens 

 even when he passed his hundredth year, having 

 sufFered no bodily ailment and, in spite of his 

 age, no loss of memory or physical vigour. Nothing 

 else will be found that aroused greater wonder 

 among the ancients than botany. Long ago was Andent 

 discovered a method of predicting ecHpses of the Mmy! 

 sun and moon — not the day or night merely but the 

 very hour. Yet there still exists among a great num- 

 ber of the common people an estabUshed conviction 

 that these phenomena are due to the compelhng power 

 of charms and magic herbs, and that the science 

 of them is the one outstanding province of women. 

 At any rate tales everywliere are widely cur- 

 rent about Medea of Colchis and other sorceresses, 

 especially Circe of Italy, who has even been enrolled 

 as a divinity. This is the reason, I think, why 

 Aeschylus, one of the earhest poets, declared ^ that 

 Italy abounds in potent herbs, and many have said the 

 same of Circeii, where she hved. Strong confirmatory 

 evidence exists even today in the fact that the Marsi, 

 a tribe descended from Circe's son, are well-known 

 snake-charmers. Homer indeed, the first ancestor 



143 



