88 
Pliny's katueal histoet. 
[Book XXV. 
gods. The discovery of it he attributes to Mercury, who was 
also the first to point out' its uses as neutralizing the most 
potent spells of sorcery. At the present day, it is said, it 
grows in the vicinity of Lake Pheneus, and in Cyllene, a dis- 
trict of Arcadia. It answers the description given of it by 
Homer, having a round black root, about as large as an onion> 
and a leaf like that of the squill : there is no^'-^ difficulty ex- 
perienced in taking it up. The Greek writers have deline- 
ated^^ it as having a yellow flower, while Homer,"^^ on the 
other hand, has spoken of it as white. I once met with a 
physician, a person extremely well acquainted with plants, 
who assured me that it is found growing in Italy as well, and 
that he would send me in a few days a specimen which had 
been dug up in Campania, with the greatest difficulty, from a 
rocky soil. The root of it was thirty^^ feet in length, and even 
then it was not entire, having been broken in the getting up. 
CHAP. 9. — THE PODECATHEOS I OI^TE EEMEPY. 
The plant next in esteem to moly, is that called dodeca- 
theos,"^^ it being looked upon as under the especial tute- 
lage of all the superior gods.'^^ Taken in water, it is a cure, 
they say, for maladies of every kind. The leaves of it, seven 
in number, and very similar to those of the lettuce, spring 
from a yellow root. 
CHAP. 10. THE P^ONIA, PENTOROBUS, OE GLTCYSIPE I ONE 
EEMEPY. 
The plant known as ^^pseonia"^^ is the most ancient of them 
all. It still retains the name^^ of him who was the first to 
derives the name "Moly'^ from the Arabic, and identifies it with the 
Allium nigrum of Linnaeus. 
^2 Homer says that there is difficulty to men, but not to the gods. 
In their pictures, mentioned in c. 4. 
Ovid, Galen, and Theophrastus, say the same. 
There must either he some error in the reading here, or the physician 
must have attempted to impose upon our author's credulity. 
Or the twelve gods." 
Generally identified with the Primula vulgaris or officinalis of Lin- 
nneus. Its leaves, however, are of varying number, and not like those of 
the lettuce. The Dodecatheos Meadia, or Virginian cowslip, it must be 
remembered, is an American plant. 
The Paeonia officinalis of Linnaeus, our Peony. 
Paeon, the physician, mentioned in the Iliad, B. v. 1. 401, as healing 
Pluto, when wounded by Hercules. 
