Macer’s MEDIAEVAL REPUTATION 208 
who never forgot the Greek blood in his veins. Another for 
whom an epithet is used by Macer is Zhebana Olympias or 
Thebanis Olimpias (1278), a Theban authoress on medicine men- 
tioned by Pliny, Pollux and Plinius Valerianus, and from whom 
Macer cites three lines on Malva apparently at first hand. Local 
appellatives like Theban are rare in Macer, and the Greek divinities 
appear by the bare name only. One other reference to a Greek 
occurs with his line 2034, under Cicuta, 
‘Great Socrates perished by hemlock,’’ 
where his magnus seems as satisfying as it is natural. He makes 
it evident also that those Greeks who wrote copiously of plants 
commanded his admiration ; mentioning that Chrysippus had writ- 
ten a whole book concerning the powers of Brassica, and Themison 
one concerning Plantago. 
Macer was in great repute during the middle ages. He was 
first mentioned by Sigebert Gemblacensis, 1030-1112 (as already 
indicated, p. 197). About 1101 his poem was used, as if Salerni- 
tan common property of unnamed origin, in the composition of 
the poem Regimen Salerni. Matteo Plateario, who died 1130- 
1160, cites Macer often. A copy of Macer found its way to 
Denmark and was used in the next century by Henrik Harpe- 
streng,* who died 1244, as basis of his Danske Lagebog on 115 
Plant remedies. Citations from Macer occur often in the works 
of the great encyclopedic compilers who immediately followed 
Harpestreng; as in Bartholomaeus Anglicus, c. 1256, Vincent 
Bellovacensis, who cites 51 of the 77 chapters, and Matteo 
Silvatico, 1313. About 1373, Macer was translated into Eng- 
lish by Master John Lelamar, of Hereford School. 
* Henrik Harpestreng, of Denmark, whose gravestone, fide Meyer 3: 537; tells us 
all we know of him, that he was canon of Roeskild and died 1244. A Danish MS. by 
him was discovered in the Danish Royal Library and was published by Molbech at 
Copenhagen, 1826, as the ‘‘ Danske Lagebog,”’ etc.; a rare octavo of 206 pages (ex. 
bibl. Meyer, Dresden and Goettingen). Molbech deemed it a prose version of Macer 
Floridus. Meyer shows that it is more, differing in arrangement from its basis, Macer ; 
including all of his plants except Isatis, but adding 18 mineral or animal remedies, and 
eines 39 plant remedies, remarkable for their number of exotics, and including 
Z Eupatorium,”” but ad ing no other composite; introducing in his 2 , 
Boraga,”” and ‘« Basilisca or Gentiana, Skaersetae” also Marochus (see #/ra, P- 
nee Harpestreng gives no descriptions; and synonyms seldom. Each chapter be- 
8ins with the Latin name used by Macer, and its Danish equivalent. 
