Chap. 5.] GREEK ATTTHOES WHO HAVE WlilTTEK ON PLANTS. 81 
any bodily ailment, and neither his memory nor his natural 
vigour had been the least impaired by the lapse of time. 
There was nothing more highly admired than an intimate 
knowledge of plants, in ancient times. It is long since the 
means were discovered of calculating before-hand, not only 
the day or the night, but the very hour even at which an 
eclipse of the sun or moon is to take place ; and jet the greater 
part of the lower classes still remain firmly persuaded that 
these phsenomena are brought about by compulsion, through the 
agency of herbs and enchantments, and that the knowledge of 
this art is confined almost exclusively to females. What 
country, in fact, is not filled with the fabulous stories about 
Medea of Colchis and other sorceresses, the Italian Circe in 
particular, who has been elevated to the rank of a divinity 
even? It is with reference to her, I am of opinion, that 
^schylus,^^ one of the most ancient of the poets, asserts that 
Italy is covered with plants endowed with potent effects, and 
that many writers say the same of Circeii,^^ the place of her 
abode. Another great proof too that such is the case, is the 
fact, that the nation of the Marsi,^^ descendants of a son of 
Circe, are well known still to possess the art of taming ser- 
pents. 
Homer, that great parent of the learning and traditions of 
antiquity, while extolling the fame of Circe in many other 
respects, assigns to Egypt the glory of having first discovered 
the properties of plants, and that too at a time when the 
portion of that country which is now watered by the river 
Mlus was not in existence, having been formed at a more recent 
period by the alluvion^^ of that river. At all events, he states^^ 
that numerous Egyptian plants were sent to the Helena of his 
story, by the wife of the king of that country, together with 
\ the celebrated nepenthes," which ensured oblivion of all 
I sorrows and forgetfulness of the past, a potion which Helena 
was to administer to all mortals. The first person, however, 
of whom the remembrance has come down to us, as having 
^2 There is little doubt that he alludes to the passage of ^schylus, 
! quoted by Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. B. ix. c. 15. Tvpprjvwv yevfav 
(jtapiLaKoiroibv eOvog — " The race of the Tyrrheni, a drug-preparing nation." 
\ See B. ii. c. 87, B. iii. c. 9, B. xv. c. 36, and B. xxxii. c. 21. 
See B. vii. c. 2. is See B. ii. c. 87. 
^6 Od. iv. 228, et seq. gee B. xxi. c. 91. 
VOL. V. c^ 
