Natural History, Vol. 3

since such is the condition of life that for many, death is even the best harbor. M. Varro records that Servius Clodius, a Roman knight, driven by the intensity of pain in his gout, anointed his legs with poison and thereafter lacked all sensation just as much as he lacked pain in that part of the body. But what was the merit in showing how minds might be unsettled, how births might be thwarted, and many such things? I do not mention abortifacients, nor even love potions, mindful that the most famous commander Lucullus perished from a love potion. Nor do I mention other magical portents, except where they must be guarded against or refuted, having first condemned their reliability. It was enough work, and abundantly sufficient for life, to have named the salutary ones and those discovered thereafter.

Of Moly, and Dodecatheon, and Paeonia, or Pentorobos, or Glycysida, and Panaces, or Asclepios, and Heraclion, and Panaces Chironium, and Panaces Centaureum, or Pharmaceum, and Heracleum Siderium, and Hyoscyamus, or Apollinaris, or Altercum. Chap. IV.

The most daring of herbs is that which Homer thinks is called moly by the gods, and he assigns its discovery to Mercury, and demonstrates it against the highest sorceries. They say that it grows today around Pheneus and on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, of the appearance described by Homer, with a round, black root of the size of an onion and the leaf of a squill; it is dug up with difficulty. Greek authors have depicted its flower as yellow, whereas Homer wrote that it was white. I have found from those expert in medicinal herbs that it also grows in Italy, and that some [samples] were brought to me from Campania after being dug up with difficulty from amidst rocky obstacles, with a root thirty feet long, and not even then whole, but broken off. From this herb comes the greatest authority, which they call dodecatheon, commending the majesty of all the gods.