[471] [The stigmata of Botanists.]
[472] Plin. lib. xxi. cap. 6. Geopon. lib. xi. cap. 26, and Theophrast.
Histor. Plant. lib. vi. cap. 6, where Joh. Bod. von Stapel, p. 661,
has collected, though not in good order, every thing to be found in
the ancients respecting saffron. The small aromatic threads, abundant
in colour, the only parts of the whole plant sought after, were by
the Greeks called γλωχῖνες, κροκίδες, or τρίχες; and by the Romans
_spicæ_. They are properly the end of the pistil, which is cleft into
three divisions. A very distinct representation of this part of the
flower may be seen in plate 184 of Tournefort’s Institut. Rei Herbariæ,
[or in Stephens and Churchill’s Medical Botany.]
[473] On this account we often find in prescriptions, Recipe croci
Orientalis....
[474] Jena, 1670, 8vo.
[475] See Beroald’s Observations on the 54th chapter of the Life of
Nero by Suetonius; and Spartian, in the Life of Adrian, chap. 19.
[476] Lucan, in the ninth book of his Pharsalia, verce 809, describing
how the blood flows from every vein of a person bit by a kind of
serpent found in Africa, says that it spouts out in the same manner as
the sweet-smelling essence of saffron issues from the limbs of a statue.
[477] Petron. Satyr. cap. 60.
[478] Of the method of preparing this salve or balsam, mentioned by
Athenæus, Cicero, and others, an account is to be found in Dioscorides,
lib. i. c. 26.
[479] Plin. lib. xxix. cap. iv.
[480] Martial, b. xiii. ep. 43, praises a cook who dressed the dugs of
a sow with so much art and skill, that it appeared as if they still
formed a part of the animal, and were full of milk. A dish of this
sort is mentioned by Apicius, lib. vii. cap. 2. The same author gives
directions, book vii. chap. i. for cooking that delicious dish of
which Horace says, op. i. 15, 41, “Nil vulva pulchrius ampla.” Further
information on this subject may be found in the notes to Pliny’s
Epistles, lib. i. 15; Plin. lib. xi. c. 37; Martial. Epig. xiii. 56;
and, above all, in Lottichii Commentar. in. Petronium, lib. i. cap. 18.
[481] Apologie pour Herodote, par H. Estiene. A la Haye, 1735, 2 vols.
8vo.
[482] Meninski, in his Turkish Lexicon, has _Zae’ feran_, crocus.
Golius gives it as a Persian word. That much saffron is still
cultivated in Persia, and that it is of the best kind, appears from
Chardin. See his Travels, printed at Rouen, 1723, 10 vols. 12mo. iv.
p. 37. That the Spaniards borrowed the word _safran_ from the Vandals
is much more improbable. It is to be found in Joh. Marianæ Histor. de
Rebus Hispaniæ. Hagæ, 1733, fol. i. p. 147. The author, speaking of
foreign words introduced into the Spanish language, says, “Vandalis
aliæ voces acceptæ feruntur, _camara_, _azafran_,” &c.
[483] Rozier, Cours complet d’Agriculture, i. p. 266.
[484] It is reported at Saffron-Walden, that a pilgrim, proposing to do
good to his country, stole a head of saffron, and hid the same in his
palmer’s staff, which he had made hollow before on purpose, and so he
brought this root into this realm, with venture of his life; for if he
had been taken, by the law of the country from whence it came, he had
died for the fact.--Hakluyt, vol. ii. p. 164.
[485] Clusii Rar. Plant. Hist. 1601, fol. p. 207.
[486] Traité de Police, par De la Mare, iii. p. 428.