290 
flint's NATUilAL HISTORY. 
[Book XXVIIl. 
is quite sufficient to spit into that organ, to make it come out. 
Among* the counter-charms too, are reckoned, the practice of 
spitting into the urine the moment it is voided, of spitting into 
the shoe of the right foot before putting it on, and of spitting 
while a person is passiug a place in which he has incurred any- 
kind of peril. 
Marcion of Smyrna, who has written a work on the virtues 
of simples, informs us that the sea scolopendra will burst 
asunder if spit upon ; and that the same is the case with bram- 
ble-frogs,®* and other kinds of frogs. Opilius says that serpeuts 
will do the same, if a person spits into their open mouth ; and 
Salpe tells us, that when any part of the body is asleep, the 
numbness may be, got rid of by the person spitting into his 
lap, or touching the upper eyelid with his spittle. If we are 
ready to give faith to such statements as these, we must be- 
lieve also in the efficacy of the following practices : upon the 
entrance of a stranger, or when a person looks at an infant 
while asleep, it is usual for the nurse to spit three times upon 
the ground ; and this, although infants are under the especial 
guardianship of the god Fascinus,^^ the protector, not of infants 
only, but of generals as well, and a divinity whose worship is 
entrusted to the Yestal virgins, and forms part of the Eoman 
rites. It is the image of this divinity that is attached beneath 
the triumphant car of the victorious general, protecting him, 
like some attendant physician, against the effects of envy 
while, at the same time, equally salutary is the advice of the 
tongue, which warns him to be wise in time,^"^ that so Fortune 
84 ^'Eubetas." See B. viii. c. 48, B. xi, cc. 19, 76, and 116, and B. 
XXV. c. 76. 
85 This divinity was identical with Mutinus or Tutinus, and was 
worshipped under the form of a phallus, the male generative organ. As 
the guardian of infants, his peculiar form is still unconsciously represented 
in the shape of the coral bauble with which infants are aided in cutting 
their teeth. 
Hence the expression ^' prsBfiscini," ^' Be it said without envy," sup- 
posed to avert tlie effects of the envious eye, fascination, or enchantment. 
^'^ " Resipiscere " seems to be a preferable reading to " respicere," adopted 
by Sillig. This passage is evidently in a very corrupt state ; but it is most 
probable that reference is made to the attendant who stood behind the 
ji^eneral in his triumph, and reminded him that he was a man — or, according 
to Tzetzes, bade him look behind him. Pliny speaks of a servant attending 
the triumphant general, with a golden crown, in B. xxxiii. c. 4. Hardouiu 
attempts another explunatiou, but averj confused and improbable one. 
