CRATEVAS’ PLANT-FIGURES 128 
may have formed originals for the figures still found in early manu- 
scripts of Dioscorides.—Since writing this last sentence I find 
that Wellmann in his remarks on Cratevas in 1897 had anticipated 
me in my suggestion that the figures in MSS. of Dioscorides may 
be due ultimately to Cratevas and may retain some traces of the 
figures which he and his fellow plant-painters supplied. For Well- 
mann, after reviewing the early codices of Dioscorides which pos- 
sess colored figures, remarks (pp. 29, 30) that the foundation for 
the illustrations in the MSS. of Dioscorides ‘lies in something 
before Dioscorides, in an illustrated herbarium (e2 ¢lustriertes 
herbarium) composed in the manner and in the age of Cratevas, 
Dionysius and Metrodorus.”’ 
Cratevas’ chief contribution to the knowledge of Aster consists of 
his painting, lost but perhaps surviving in traces in MSS. of 
Dioscorides ; and in his folk-lore as to the properties of the plant. 
VI. VERGIL. 
For the next reference to the Aster we turn to the Romans, 
and we find it in Vergil. Cato (234-149 B. C.) and Varro (117— 
26 B. C.) mentioned respectively 125 * and 107 * plants, but 
among them few Compositae—except Absinthium. Vergil (70- 
19 B. C.), though a poet, mentioned 164 * plants—a greater num- 
ber than those of the professed writers on agriculture. Meyer + 
remarks the fact that Cato gives descriptions of a few plants, Varro 
not of a single one; but Vergil of at least one, and that one our 
Aster Amellus. : 
Vergil knew this flower by the name Amellus, { and located it 
among the banks of the river Mella, from which river Servius 
Says it received its name. 
The Amellus was evidently a favorite flower with Vergil ; it 
was the only flower singled out in the Georgics for detailed de- 
scription ; Vergil’s description is very accurate, as Keightley ob- 
serves ;$ and Fée remarks || that it is written ‘avec une sorte 
* Meyer's figures. 
+ Geschichte, 1: bee 
} See p. 23 for the identification of this Amellus with the Aster Atticus of Dios- 
corides ; early made, 1544 probably, by Matthioli. Bodaeus, 1644, says, ‘‘ Aster Atti- 
cus, ut dixi, Amellus est.’’ 
* Thos. Keightley, Flora Virgiliana, 377, in his edition of Vergil, 1847. 
Vol t Fée, Flore de Virgile in OEuvres de Virgile, par M. Charpentier, Paris, 1835 ;— 
ol. 4. 
