BOOK XXV. XXI. 51-53 



popular that most scholars took it regularly to 

 sharpen their brains for their studies. It is well 

 known that Carneades, when preparing to reply to 

 the works of Zeno, (purged himself with hellebore), 

 and that Drusus " among us, most illustrious of our 

 tribunes of the people, who was cheered by all the 

 commons standing before him ^ but charged by the 

 aristocrats with causing the Marsic War, was on the 

 island of Anticp-a cured of epilepsy by means of 

 this medicine. For there it is very safe to take the 

 drug because they add to it sesamoides, as I have 

 ah-eady said."^ In Italy it is called verati'um. 



Both hellebores v.hen ground to powder, either by 

 themselves or combined \\ath that of radicula, with 

 which I said ** wool is washed, cause sneezing, and 

 both cause sleep. But the roots selected are the 

 thinnest, short, and as it were cut off; only the 

 bottom is used, for the top, which is very thick and 

 hke an onion, is given as a purge only to dogs. The 

 old physicians used to choose the root with the most 

 fleshy skin, thinking that the pithy part they ob- 

 tained from such was more dehcate. This tliey used 

 to cover with moist sponges, and when it swelled 

 they would spht it lengthwise with a needle ; then 

 they would dry the thin strips in the shade, and so 

 use them. Today they administer the shoots them- 

 selves, just as they are, that grow from roots with the 

 heaviest * skin. The best hellebore has a sharp, hot 



" See XXII. § 133. Anticyra is a peninsula. 



" See XIX. §4 and XXTV. § 9. 



* There seems no need to change gravissimi to grandissimi 

 or crassissimi. " Heaviest " may well be " thickest." The 

 reading dantes, I think, has arisen from ulentes just above. 

 The whole sentence, however, is in any case very clumsy, 

 with a loose, almost formless, structure. 



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