Chap, 9.] 
DATES. 
177 
ilour.'^ It grows upon a shrub, with branches a cubit in 
length : it has a broad leaf, and the fruit is round, and larger 
than an apple. The name of this date is coix."^^ It comes 
to maturity in three years, and there is always fruit to be 
found upon the shrub, in various stages of maturity. The 
date of Thebais is at once packed in casks, with all its natu- 
ral heat and freshness ; for without this precaution, it quickly 
becomes vapid ; it is of a poor, sickly taste, too, if it is not 
exposed, before it is eaten, to the heat of an oven. 
The other kinds of dates appear to be of an ordinary nature, 
and are generally known as " tragemata but in some parts of 
Phoenicia and Cilicia, they are commonly called balani," a 
name which has been also borrowed by us. There are nume- 
rous kinds of them, which dilfer from one another in being 
round or oblong ; as also in colour, for some of them are black, 
and others red — indeed it is said that they present no fewer 
varieties of colour than the fig : the white ones, however, are 
the most esteemed. They differ also in size, according to the 
number which it requires to make a cubit in length ; some, 
indeed, are no larger than a bean. Those are the best adapted 
for keeping which are produced in salt and sandy soils, Judsea, 
and Cyrenaica in Africa, for instance : those, however, of Egypt, 
Cyprus, Syria, and Seleucia in Assyria, will not keep : hence 
it is that they are much used for fattening swine and other 
animals. It is a sign that the fruit is either spoilt or old, 
when the white protuberance disappears, by which it has ad- 
hered to the cluster. Some of the soldiers of Alexander's army 
were choked by eating green dates and a similar effect is 
produced in the country of the Gedrosi, by the natural quality 
of the fruit ; while in other places, again, the same results arise 
from eating them to excess. Indeed, when in a fresh state, they 
are so remarkably luscious, that there would be no end to 
*6 From Theophrastus, B. i. c. 16. 
^"^ KvKMQ in the Greek. It is supposed by Sprengel to be the same as 
the Cycas circinnalis of Linnseus ; but, as Fee remarks, that is only found in 
India. 
From the Greek, meaning " sweetmeats," or " dessert fruit he pro- 
bably means that in Syria and some parts of Phoenicia they were thus called. 
This story, which is borrowed from Theophrastus, B. iv. c. 5, is 
doubted by Fee, who says that in the green state they are so hard and 
nauseous, that it is next to impossible to eat sufficient to be materially in- 
commoded by them. 
VOL. Ill, If 
