184 Aster History: SERAPION 
plant-remedies in 365 chapters, and then follows with a few from 
minerals and from animals. Often our text of Dioscorides differs 
greatly from that of similar passages in Serapion. Older critics, 
as Leonicenus, attributed these differences to Serapion’s supposed 
lack of familiarity with Greek; more recent critics, as Sprengel 
and Meyer, ascribe the differences not to Serapion, but to some 
older translator of Dioscorides into Arabic, who had a better 
Greek text than our existing MSS. Sprengel, therefore, praises 
Serapion as a source for the correct text of Dioscorides, deeming 
him ‘“uberrimus,*”” and his writings an ‘“egregium opus,’ t 
‘“‘much more important for the natural history of plants than any 
previous writer in Arabic.” 
In this connection it becomes of especial interest to observe 
that Serapion in his article on Aster Atticus, which is substantially 
that of Dioscorides, includes all Dioscorides’ statements which 
Sprengel separated as spurious or doubtful. In the disputed read- 
ing as to color of Aster flowers, purple or yellow, or purple and 
yellow, Serapion reads or, 7, not zat, which Marcellus Vergilius 
inserted ; see p. 141. 
Serapion’s greatest peculiarity, as regards Aster Atticus, was 
his identification of the plant with Centum capita, or Eryngium. 
The light he throws on the probable text of Dioscorides is more 
important but less remarkable. The identification of Aster Atticus 
with Eryngium was made in set terms by Matteo Silvatico in his 
Pandects ; and he was led to it by Serapion’s confusion.or exten- 
sion of the name Centum capita. Serapion’s words were quoted i 
by Giacomo da Manlio or de Manliis, about 1450, as follows : 
“ Etiam in Serapion ait, ‘Ascaracon, id est, Centum capita, est 
coelestis coloris,’ inferius dicitur ‘ Iringi.’ Sed Centum capita alba, 
est species spinae.”’ 
Serapion’s version (in Simon Januensis’ translation) of the name 
Aster Atticus, Astaraticon, is printed as Ascaracon. Serapion in- 
terpreted a blue flower which he knew as Centum capita, aS the 
original of Dioscorides’ Aster Atticus, Whether his “celestial 
colored’ Centum capita was our Aster Amellus (which may have 
*Sprengel's Dicsetrides, ef. = tC(“sti< 
t Sprengel’s Geschichte. 
{ Brunfels’ De vera, 170. 
