196 Aster History; STRABUS 
His Herbarum mater, line 181, is a name for motherwort, or 
mugwort (7. ¢., midge-wort), Artemisia vulgaris \.., and is so used 
for Artemisia by Macer Floridus, perhaps in quotation from 
Strabus. 
XXXVIII. Macer FLoripus 
Macer, a writer known (since 1500 only), as Macer Floridus, 
r “ Macer of the Flowers,” was the chief mediaeval poet of plants, 
and though not a brilliant poet, still a faint star wins our notice if 
it shine alone. His identity and nationality have long been a dis- 
puted problem. Evidence now indicates that he was a Calabrian 
Greek, * perhaps of the name Maxpov “ great,” by birth, by profes- 
* That Macer was a Frenchman was claimed by Haller, followed by owed by Choulant and 
Lacroix, from Macer’s use of the plant-names Gaisola (but Gaisdo in best MSS. ) for 
Isatis, Maurella for Solanum ni. rum, Jusquiamus for Hyoscyamus, Paratella for Lapa- 
thum; and Gingiber. Lacroix believed his date to be about 800. 
at Macer was a Salernitan of about 1130 A. D. was maintained by Renzi (Col- 
lectio arenas I: 213) showing that the preceding names were all in use in Italy 
n France ; and that many of Macer’s lines are to be found in the poem the 
Regimen Shige: I101 
Th it Mcer was an Unteritaliener or from southern Italy was claimed by Meyer, 
3: 429+; agreeing in part with Renzi; and adding the following proofs of Macer $ 
origin from Unteritalien or MagnaGraecia. 1. Macer was familiar with Graecisms, and 
used certain peculiar plant names of Greek origin and of current use in Magna Graecia, 
as Brassica, and apparently Elva and Lolium ; as chs as using other Greek words 
incorporated into his Latin, as cacostomachon sciasis. Hence the rhetor- 
ically-minded formed a low opinion of his ities Watt, for paren calling it ‘*a et 
barous and jejune poem”; echoing Pulteney who had termed it ‘‘a barbarous poem” 
and a ‘‘ jejune performance.’’ 2. Macer shows a knowledge of ancient Greek as well 
of Roman writers which Meyer thinks that no one then in France possessed $ he 
cites eas twenty times or more, and Palladius ; and among the Greeks, Dioscorides, 
Galen and Oribasius. 3. Macer’s attitude to Greek mythology is such as to suggest 
. Greek » nativity. 4. Macer’s lines are often woven into the Regimen Salerni, suggest: 
ing that he was of the Salernitan school or of its neighborhood, and that = writings 
were thus easily accessible to the Salernitan masters who compiled the Regim 
That Macer’s Magna Graecian home may stormed Uae been in Calabria 
ible to some ; but it would not have seemed so to S ymonds, who pangs ( Renaissance 
ce’? 
