ENCOMIUM

original: "Encomium" — a speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something highly. Here, it likely refers to the title of the work or a specific section on the history of medical arts.

Cto conquer the corrupt eagles. This refers to Roman military standards (the eagles) being overcome not by enemies, but by internal decadence. We seek such justifications for our vices, so that by this "right," perfumes may even be worn under a soldier's helmet. When this first penetrated the Roman character, I could not easily say; it is certain that after King Antiochus and Asia were defeated, in the 565th year of the City Approximately 189 BCE, the censors P. Licinius Crassus and L. Julius Caesar issued an edict that no one should sell "exotic ointments." For that is what they called them. But by Hercules, nowadays some even add these to their drink; and the bitterness is so great that they might enjoy the lavish scent from both parts of their body. A crude reference to the scent being detectable both in the mouth and in one's waste. It is well known that Lucius Plotius—the brother of Lucius Plotius, who was twice consul and censor—was discovered in his hiding place at Salerno by the smell of his ointment while being hunted during the Proscriptions of the Triumvirs The political purges of Mark Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus; by which disgrace the entire proscription was justified. For who would not rightly judge that such men deserved to perish?

Book 15, chapter 26. What care is also given to the Cornel-cherry and the Lentisk tree The source of mastic resin, as if to ensure that nothing exists that is not born for the sake of the human belly. Flavors are mixed, and one is forced to please by means of another. Indeed, the very regions of the earth and sky are mingled, and in a single kind of food, India is summoned. In another, Egypt, Crete, Cyrene, and every land are called upon. Nor is there any pause in the making of these "potions" original: veneficiis—this word can mean medicine-making, sorcery, or poisoning, reflecting Pliny’s distrust of complex compounds, so long as life devours everything. This will become even clearer in the study of the nature of herbs.

Book 9, chapter 20. Vices have no end, and it pleases men to play with great expense, and to double the game by mixing things again, thus adulterating the very adulterations of nature.

Chapter 21 of the same. It is not enough to have stolen the name of a gemstone; the Amethyst original: Amethystus, once it has been polished, is "intoxicated" again with Tyrian purple dye, so that from both there is a shameful name: "Tyrian Amethyst," a double luxury at once.

DBook 9. Almost no mortal is now valued more highly than the one who most skillfully sinks his master's estate. Pliny is critiquing the high prices paid for expert chefs or pharmacists who encourage ruinous spending.

Book 12, in the preface. For a long time, the benefits of the earth were hidden, and the greatest gift given to man was understood to be the trees and forests. From these came his first nourishment; their soft leaves were his cave-bed, and their bark his clothing; even now, some nations live this way. Because of this, it is more and more a wonder that from such beginnings, we have come to carve mountains into marbles, to seek garments from the Seres The "Silk People," referring to the Chinese, to seek the pearl in the depths of the Red Sea, and the Emerald in the deepest parts of the earth. And thus far we have recited the words of Pliny; since today they call him a grammarian rather than a physician, we shall proceed to show what others also think about these sorts of "mixed concoctions." original: μεμιγμένοις (memigmenois)

On adulterated Theriacs.

The same author, in his work on medicine, Book 3, chapter 52. Physicians praise the Mithridatic Antidote A famous "universal" antidote named after King Mithridates VI of Pontus, consisting of dozens of ingredients, and they offer various compositions of it; to promote these pigments, which are precious because of their rarity, they demand huge sums of money. For they weigh out single pounds for twenty sestertia A very high sum of Roman currency. They also circumvent the credulity of the unfortunate with this cleverness, persuading them to buy things that actually cause harm. For some of these ingredients hurt the stomach, others weigh down the head, others bring on a paleness and aggravate the wasting of the body; and thus it frequently happens that those who have used their Antidotes die more miserably, as if they had drunk poison.

Plutarch.

Plutarch is a grave and trustworthy author; no good man or person educated in the better letters denies this, I believe. And he so agrees with Pliny in the second decade of his Table Talk original: τῶν συμποσιακῶν (Tōn symposiakōn)—a collection of essays on various philosophical and scientific topics that he has even openly declared: "But," he says, "it is much worse when one mixes those 'royal' and 'poison-averting' powers, which Herophilus used to call the 'hands of the gods.' But Erasistratus refutes this..." original: ἀλλὰ... πολὺ μᾶλλον ὅτε ἂν μιγνύῃ τις τὰς βασιλικὰς καὶ ἀλεξιφαρμάκους ἐκείνας δυνάμεις. ἃς θεῶν χεῖρας ὠνόμαζεν. ἐρασίστρατος δὲ ἐλέγχει — Plutarch is discussing the danger of complex polypharmacy (mixing many drugs), which the famous physician Herophilus once called "the hands of the gods" because of their potency.