Natural History, Vol. 3

who, it is certain, spoke twenty-two languages; nor was any man of the subject nations addressed by him through an interpreter during the fifty-six years that he reigned. Therefore, in the rest of the greatness of his genius, he was especially curious about medicine, seeking out individual things from the subjects who inhabited a great part of the earth, and he left the chest of these notes and + exemplars, and their effects, among his secret papers. Pompey, however, having obtained all the royal spoils, ordered his freedman Lenaeus, a man most learned in the art of grammar, to translate them into our language; and he was no less useful to life by that deed than was that victory to the Republic. Besides these, Greek authors have produced works on medicine, which we have mentioned in their proper places. Among these are Euax, King of the Arabians, who wrote to Nero concerning the effects of simples; Crateuas, Dionysius, and Metrodorus, who wrote with a most pleasing method, but one by which almost nothing is understood except the difficulty of the subject. For they painted images of the herbs, and underneath inscribed their effects. But both painting is deceptive, and in so many colors, especially in the emulation of nature, the varying luck of those who transcribe them degenerates greatly. Furthermore, it is of little use to paint them at a single age, since they change the appearance of their face with the fourfold variations of the year. Wherefore the rest have handed them down in speech; some without even indicating an image, and most have been content with naked names, since it seemed sufficient to demonstrate the powers and forces to those wishing to seek them. Nor is it difficult to recognize them. Certainly, for us, with very few exceptions, it has been possible to contemplate the rest through the science of Antonius Castor, who held the highest authority in that art in our age, by visiting his little garden in which he reared very many, exceeding his hundredth year, having experienced no bodily ailment, nor even having his memory or vigor shaken by age. Nor will any other thing more marvelous be found in antiquity. A method has long since been discovered for predicting the hours, not only the days and nights, of the eclipses of the sun and moon. Yet the handed-down persuasion remains among a great part of the populace that this is compelled by spells and herbs, and that this science of women prevails. Indeed, what have Medea of Colchis and others, especially Circe the Italian, not filled with fables, even being ascribed among the gods? From this I believe it was born that Aeschylus, from the most ancient times, reported in poetry that Italy was replete with the power of herbs; and many point to the Circeii, where she lived, as a great argument still enduring in the people born from her son in the Marsian land, who are known to be tamers of serpents. Homer, indeed, the first and father of doctrines and antiquity, while admiring Circe in many other ways, attributes the glory of herbs to Egypt, even when that land which Egypt irrigates was not yet there, brought in later by the mud of the river. He recounts that many Egyptian herbs were certainly handed down by the King’s wife to her Helen, and that noble Nepenthes, bringing oblivion of sorrow and release, was to be offered by Helen to all mortals. But Orpheus, of all those whom memory knows, was the first to produce something more curiously about herbs. After him, we have told how much Musaeus and Hesiod admired the herb polium. Orpheus and Hesiod recommended fumigations. Homer also celebrates other herbs by name, which we shall mention in their proper places. After him, Pythagoras, illustrious in wisdom, was the first to compose a volume on their effect, assigning the invention and origin to Apollo, Aesculapius, and in total to the immortal gods. Democritus also composed works, both having traveled through Persia, Arabia, Ethiopia, and Egypt