BOOK XXVII. I. 3-II. 5 



tains, and peaks soaring into the clouds, their 

 ofFspring and also their plants. May this gift 

 of the gods last, I pray, for ever ! So truly do they 

 seem to have given to the liunian race the Romans 

 as it were a second Sun. 



II. But who could revere enough the diUgent A.conite. 

 research of the ancients ? It is estabUshed that 

 of all poisons the quickest to act is aconite, and that 

 death occurs on the same day if the genitals of a 

 female creature are but touched by it. This was the 

 poison that Marcus CaeHus accused Calpurnius Bestia 

 of using to kill his wives in their sleep. Hence the 

 damning peroration of the prosecutor's speech ac- 

 cusing the defendant's finger. Fable has it that 

 aconite sprang out of the foam of the dog Cerberus 

 when Hercules di-agged him from the underworld, and 

 that this is why it grows around Heraclea in Pontus, 

 where is pointed out the entrance to the underworld 

 used by Hercules. Yet even aconite the ancients 

 have turned to the benefit of human health, by finding 

 out by experience that administered in warm \vine it 

 neutralizes the stings of scorpions. It is its nature 

 to kill a human being unless in that being it finds 

 something else to destroy. Against this alone it 

 struggles, tregarding it as more pressing than the 

 find.t [This is the only fight, when the aconite 

 discovers a poison in the viscera.] " What a marvel ! 



occurs praesentis veneni. The reading of Hermolaus Barbarus 

 is brilliant, but if it is the original how did praesentius arise ? 

 I leave the text and translation within daggers, as I con- 

 sider my own suggestion too conjectural. The sense, however, 

 of the text of Hermolaus Barbarus is excellent : " as though it 

 had found inside a foe to match it." Professor Andrews thinks 

 that the text is sound, with the sense : " as though it had 

 found something more urgent, and so fights solely with this." 



