Natural History of Gaius Plinius Secundus, Vol. 2

...of Mende, of ben-oil with resin mixed, and even more so with metopium. This oil is pressed from bitter almonds in Egypt. To this they have added unripe olive oil, cardamom, rush, calamus, honey, wine, myrrh, balsam seed, galbanum, and terebinth resin. And it is indeed among the cheapest today, for which reason it is believed that it was also among the most ancient, consisting as it does of myrtle oil, calamus, cypress, cyprus, lentisk, and pomegranate bark. But I would judge rose-scent to be the most widely circulated, as the rose is grown in the greatest quantity everywhere. Therefore, the mixture of rose-scent was for a long time very simple, with the flower of the rose added to unripe olive oil, saffron, cinnabar, calamus, honey, rush, salt-flower or alkanet, and wine. A similar method applies to saffron-scent, with the addition of cinnabar, alkanet, and wine; a similar one also for marjoram-scent, with the admixture of unripe olive oil and calamus. This is best in Cyprus and Mitylene, where there is the most marjoram. Cheaper types of oil are also mixed in, made from myrtle and laurel, to which are added marjoram, lily, fenugreek, myrrh, cassia, nard, rush, and cinnamon. From quinces and "struthea" (a type of quince) also comes an oil (as we shall describe), the Melinum, which passes into ointments with the admixture of unripe olive oil, cypress-oil, sesame, balsam, rush, cassia, and southernwood. Lily-scent (susinum) is the most delicate of all. It consists of lilies, ben-oil, calamus, honey, cinnamon, saffron, myrrh, and aspalathos. And the same for cypress-scent (cyprinum), from cyprus, unripe olive oil, cardamom, calamus, aspalathos, and southernwood. Some also add myrrh and panax to the cypress-scent. This is best in Sidon, and next in Egypt, if sesame oil is not added. It lasts even for four years. It is enlivened by cinnamon. Telinum is made from fresh oil, galingale, calamus, melilot, fenugreek, honey, melinum, marum, and marjoram. This was most famous in the age of the comic poet Menander.