Natural Htflory of the Ancients. 1 67 



Leeks, onions, and garlic reached England alfo 

 from Rome, as they came there from the Eaft. In 

 Egypt they were efteemed facred, and even gods, 

 fo that oaths were taken upon them. Hence 

 Juvenal lames the Egyptians (xv. 9) : 



" Porrum et cajpe nefas violare ac frangere morfu ; 

 O fanftas gentes, quibus hasc nafcuntur in hortis 

 Nuraina." 



It will be remembered how the Jews on leaving 

 Egypt grumbled at miffing " the fifh, which we 

 did eat in Egypt freely ; the cucumbers, and the 

 melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the 

 garlic " (Numbers xi. 5). Their fondnefs for 

 thefe latter dainties gave them that " foetor 

 Judaicus " which was popularly afcribed to them 

 by the ancients, and which the garlic-eating 

 natives of Italy and Spain have now inherited. 

 When Marcus Aurelius was travelling through 

 Paleftine into Egypt, he was much difgufted at the 

 crowds of ftrongly-fmelling Jews which flocked 

 around him, and is faid to have exclaimed : " O 

 Marcomanni, O Quadi, O Sarmatas, tandem alios 

 vobis inertiores inveni I" 1 Mr. Darwin in his 

 laft book mews that the earthworm's greateft 

 vegetable dainty is an onion. Herodotus faw en- 

 graved on one of the pyramids the exacl: amount 

 which had been expended during its building on 

 radifhes, onions, and garlic for the workmen, and 

 was told by his interpreter that the fum was 

 1,600 talents of filver. 2 The ftrip of land 



1 Amm. Marcel, xxii. 5, 5 (quoted by Vidor Hehn). 



2 Herod., ii. 125. 



