198 Aster History; MAcrer 
sion a Salernitan physician,* and serving later, it may be, under 
Lothair I., King of Lotharingia and Italy ; whose domain included 
Brabant, the region from which we first hear Macer mentioned. 
He seems to have written his poem in or shortly after 850, which 
is as distant a date as can be assigned it from the time of its first 
mention, about 1100, when his date was already thought to be 
indefinitely ancient. ; 
Macer’s poem De Viribus Herbarum + consists of 2,269 Latin 
hexameters, treating 77 different plants; besides 20 spurious 
chapters, of 487 lines, including 12 more plants and some ani- 
mal and mineral remedies, as Fel, Alumen, etc. Among these 
spurious chapters, two classes are distinguished by Choulant; an 
addition earlier than Matteo Silvatico, 1313, including Aaron, 
Bryonia, Alga palustris ; and a later addition, including Quzngque- 
Solium and Sambucus. 
* A physician, but a layman, Meyer deems Macer; from his use of his mytholog- 
ical knowledge ; remarking that ‘in Saterno before goo A. D.,-and in other places in 
southern Italy, a physician could obtain high standing though outside of the poet 
ood ;”? whereas in France, th ful physici has the Bishop of Amiens, 
subsequent instructions given there by ‘* Abdena Saracenus, Solonus Ebraeus, Tetulus 
Graecus, and Michael Scottus,’’ and others of foreign birth, A. D. 950-1200. he 
900 persuaded Prince Waimar of Salerno to give real estate to the Benedictine © 
se Salerno ; the Prince giving this “for the health of his soul and at the persuasion 
his physician Ragenifrid and his father-confessor the priest Ermenald.’’ So here 
of 
1482, at Milan by 
Zarot armensis ; numerous editions followed, 20 being enumerated by Choulant 
(followed by Pritzel) ending with 1590, after which came only Choulant’s critical edi- 
tion, Leipsic, 1832, € most noted editions before were those of At octanus, Basle, 
1527, of Cornarius, printed by Egenolph, Frankfort, 1540, and of Pictorius, Basle 
1559. Woodcuts began to appear first in the 1482 edition ; a copious commentary a! 
us P: 
