tie Aster History; ANONUMOS 
EARLY BYZANTINE WRITERS 
XXII. ANoNuUMOS 
Anonymi carmen Graecum de herbis, is the caption long used 
for a fragment of 215 Greek hexameters, from an unknown author 
of perhaps 400 A. D., whom we may for convenience name as 
Anonumos. It was first printed, Venice, 1518, in the second 
Aldine edition of Dioscorides; its best edition is that of Choulant, 
Leipsic, 1832. Termed by Meyer not the work of a physician or 
naturalist but of one enchanted by the spells of rhetoric, the poem 
was filled by its nameless sire with mythological and medicinal 
lore, and an air of distinction was sought by use of the old Ionic 
dialect. The plants described number 16 or 17, including the 
following : 
Chamaemelum, yapatuyiov, which is prescribed, line 1, for 
fevers, with oil of roses ; 
_ Buphthalmon, fovgbaipoy, lines 128-132, which the poet de- 
scribes as under the protection “of Ilithyia, the increasing Moon, 
light-diffusing lustrous maid,” and directs the user to “take Up 
Buphthalmon, invoking Ilithyia,” so securing it as defence against 
fears and evil spirits and spells of magic and baneful drugs.” Then 
follows a line connecting the plant with Zeus or Jove— 
132. Tabtyy thy Botdyyy Ado bypba mac vopatet, 
7. e., This plant every one calls by the name of Jove’s-eyebrow. 
Anthemis.—After a gap of uncertain length, the poem is resumed 
with the name Anthemis, assumed by editors to be here used for 
the previous Buphthalmon and to continue the same description ; 
if so, it is doubtless the same as the ypvatocaw dvlépocay to the 
beauty of which Sappho had likened the loveliness of her daughter 
Cleis. But the dvOenic of Anonumos may instead be the same 4 
that of Dioscorides. The line reads : ; 
as 133. Apvowrdy otthfe mapuTevavxhog dvbepic 480% 
i. ¢., With gold-face gleams delicate Anthemis, circled with her 
purple hem. 
The purple border is appropriate if the author meant Ast’ 
Amellus L., by his Anthemis ; or if he meant Anthemis rosea DC., 
deemed by Sibthorp to be the ’AvOepic zopyupdvOys of Dios 
