Transcriber’s notes:
Italic text is denoted _thus_.
See further note at the end of this volume.
BOHN’S CLASSICAL LIBRARY.
NATURAL HISTORY OF PLINY.
VOL. IV.
THE
NATURAL HISTORY
OF
PLINY.
TRANSLATED,
WITH COPIOUS NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS
BY THE LATE
JOHN BOSTOCK, M.D., F.R.S.,
AND
H. T. RILEY, ESQ., B.A.,
LATE SCHOLAR OF CLARE HALL, CAMBRIDGE.
VOL. IV.
LONDON:
HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
MDCCCLVI.
CONTENTS
OF THE FOURTH VOLUME.
BOOK XVIII.
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF GRAIN.
CHAP. Page
1. Taste of the ancients for agriculture 1
2. When the first wreaths of corn were used at Rome 3
3. The jugerum of land 4
4. How often and on what occasions corn has sold at a remarkably
low price 7
5. Illustrious men who have written upon agriculture 9
6. Points to be observed in buying land 11
7. The proper arrangements for a farm-house 13
8. Maxims of the ancients on agriculture 16
9. The different kinds of grain 19
10. The history of the various kinds of grain _ib._
11. Spelt 24
12. Wheat 25
13. Barley: rice 27
14. Polenta 28
15. Ptisan 29
16. Tragum _ib._
17. Amylum _ib._
18. The nature of barley 30
19. Arinca, and other kinds of grain that are grown in the
East 31
20. Winter wheat. Similago, or fine flour 32
21. The fruitfulness of Africa in wheat 35
22. Sesame. Erysimum or irio. Horminum 36
23. The mode of grinding corn _ib._
24. Millet 38
25. Panic _ib._
26. The various kinds of leaven _ib._
27. The method of making bread: origin of the art 39
28. When bakers were first introduced at Rome 40
29. Alica 41
30. The leguminous plants: the bean 43
31. Lentils. Pease 46
32. The several kinds of chick-pease _ib._
33. The kidney-bean 47
34. The rape _ib._
35. The turnip 48
36. The lupine 49
37. The vetch 51
38. The fitch _ib._
39. Silicia _ib._
40. Secale or asia 52
41. Farrago: the cracca _ib._
42. Ocinum: ervilia _ib._
43. Lucerne 53
44. The diseases of grain: the oat 54
45. The best remedies for the diseases of grain 57
46. The crops that should be sown in the different soils 59
47. The different systems of cultivation employed by various
nations 60
48. The various kinds of ploughs 62
49. The mode of ploughing _ib._
50. The methods of harrowing, stubbing, and hoeing, employed
for each description of grain. The use of the harrow 66
51. Extreme fertility of soil 67
52. The method of sowing more than once in the year 68
53. The manuring of land _ib._
54. How to ascertain the quality of seed 69
55. What quantity of each kind of grain is requisite for
sowing a jugerum 71
56. The proper times for sowing 72
57. Arrangement of the stars according to the terrestrial days
and nights 74
58. The rising and setting of the stars 77
59. The epochs of the seasons 78
60. The proper time for winter sowing 79
61. When to sow the leguminous plants and the poppy 81
62. Work to be done in the country in each month
respectively _ib._
63. Work to be done at the winter solstice 82
64. Work to be done between the winter solstice and the
prevalence of the west winds 83
65. Work to be done between the prevalence of the west winds
and the vernal equinox 84
66. Work to be done after the vernal equinox 86
67. Work to be done after the rising of the Vergiliæ:
hay-making 88
68. The summer solstice 92
69. Causes of sterility 97
70. Remedies against these noxious influences 101
71. Work to be done after the summer solstice 102
72. The harvest 103
73. The methods of storing corn 104
74. The vintage, and the works of autumn 107
75. The revolutions of the moon 111
76. The theory of the winds 113
77. The laying out of lands according to the points of the
wind 114
78. Prognostics derived from the sun 117
79. Prognostics derived from the moon 119
80. Prognostics derived from the stars 120
81. Prognostics derived from thunder 121
82. Prognostics derived from clouds _ib._
83. Prognostics derived from mists 122
84. Prognostics derived from fire kindled by man _ib._
85. Prognostics derived from water _ib._
86. Prognostics derived from tempests 123
87. Prognostics derived from aquatic animals and birds _ib._
88. Prognostics derived from quadrupeds 124
89. Prognostics derived from plants 125
90. Prognostics derived from food _ib._
BOOK XIX.
THE NATURE AND CULTIVATION OF FLAX, AND AN ACCOUNT OF VARIOUS
GARDEN PLANTS.
1. The nature of flax—marvellous facts relative thereto 129
2. How flax is sown: twenty-seven principal varieties of it 131
3. The mode of preparing flax 135
4. Linen made of asbestos 136
5. At what period linen was first dyed 138
6. At what period coloured awnings were first employed in the
theatres _ib._
7. The nature of spartum 139
8. The mode of preparing spartum 140
9. At what period spartum was first employed 141
10. The bulb eriophorus _ib._
11. Plants which spring up and grow without a root—plants
which grow, but cannot be reproduced from seed 142
12. Misy; iton; and geranion 143
13. Particulars connected with the truffle 144
14. The pezica _ib._
15. Laserpitium, laser, and maspetum _ib._
16. Magydaris 147
17. Madder 148
18. The radicula _ib._
19. The pleasures of the garden 149
20. The laying out of garden ground 154
21. Plants other than grain and shrubs 155
22. The natural history of twenty different kinds of plants
grown in gardens—the proper methods to be followed in
sowing them respectively _ib._
23. Vegetables of a cartilaginous nature—cucumbers. Pepones 156
24. Gourds 158
25. Rape. Turnips 161
26. Radishes 162
27. Parsnips 165
28. The skirret 166
29. Elecampane 167
30. Bulbs, squills, and arum 168
31. The roots, flowers, and leaves of all these plants.
Garden plants which lose their leaves 170
32. Varieties of the onion 171
33. The leek 173
34. Garlic 174
35. The number of days required for the respective plants to
make their appearance above ground 177
36. The nature of the various seeds 178
37. Plants of which there is but a single kind. Plants of
which there are several kinds 179
38. The nature and varieties of twenty-three garden plants.
The lettuce; its different varieties 180
39. Endive 182
40. Beet: four varieties of it 183
41. Cabbages; the several varieties of them 185
42. Wild and cultivated asparagus 188
43. Thistles 190
44. Other plants that are sown in the garden: ocimum; rocket;
and nasturtium 191
45. Rue _ib._
46. Parsley 192
47. Mint _ib._
48. Olusatrum 193
49. The caraway 194
50. Lovage _ib._
51. Dittander 195
52. Gith _ib._
53. The poppy 196
54. Other plants which require to be sown at the autumnal
equinox 197
55. Wild thyme; sisymbrium _ib._
56. Four kinds of ferulaceous plants. Hemp 198
57. The maladies of garden plants 199
58. The proper remedies for these maladies. How ants are best
destroyed. The best remedies against caterpillars and
flies 200
59. What plants are benefitted by salt water 201
60. The proper method of watering gardens _ib._
61. The juices and flavours of garden herbs 202
62. Piperitis, libanotis, and smyrnium 203
BOOK XX.
REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE GARDEN PLANTS.
1. Introduction 206
2. The wild cucumber: twenty-six remedies 207
3. Elaterium: twenty-seven remedies 208
4. The anguine or erratic cucumber: five remedies 209
5. The cultivated cucumber: nine remedies 210
6. Pepones: eleven remedies 211
7. The gourd: seventeen remedies. The somphus: one remedy 212
8. The colocynthis: ten remedies _ib._
9. Rape: nine remedies 213
10. Wild rape: one remedy 214
11. Turnips; those known as bunion and bunias: five
remedies _ib._
12. The wild radish, or armoracia: one remedy 215
13. The cultivated radish: forty-three remedies _ib._
14. The parsnip: five remedies. The hibiscum, wild mallow, or
plistolochia: eleven remedies 218
15. The staphylinos, or wild parsnip: twenty-two remedies _ib._
16. Gingidion: one remedy 219
17. The skirret: eleven remedies 220
18. Sile, or hartwort: twelve remedies 221
19. Elecampane: eleven remedies 222
20. Onions: twenty-seven remedies _ib._
21. Cutleek: thirty-two remedies 223
22. Bulbed leek: thirty-nine remedies 225
23. Garlic: sixty-one remedies _ib._
24. The lettuce: forty-two remedies. The goat-lettuce:
four remedies 228
25. Cæsapon: one remedy. Isatis: one remedy. The wild lettuce:
seven remedies _ib._
26. Hawk-weed: seventeen remedies 229
27. Beet: twenty-four remedies 232
28. Limonion, or neuroides: three remedies 233
29. Endive: three remedies _ib._
30. Cichorium or chreston, otherwise called pancration or
ambula: twelve remedies 234
31. Hedypnoïs: four remedies _ib._
32. Seris, three varieties of it: seven remedies borrowed
from it 235
33. The cabbage: eighty-seven remedies. Recipes mentioned
by Cato _ib._
34. Opinions of the Greeks relative thereto 237
35. Cabbage-sprouts 239
36. The wild cabbage: thirty-seven remedies 240
37. The lapsana: one remedy 241
38. The sea-cabbage: one remedy _ib._
39. The squill: twenty-three remedies _ib._
40. Bulbs: thirty remedies 243
41. Bulbine: one remedy. Bulb emetic 244
42. Garden asparagus; with the next, twenty-four remedies 245
43. Corruda, libycura, or orminum _ib._
44. Parsley: seventeen remedies 246
45. Apiastrum, or melissophyllum 247
46. Olusatrum or Hipposelinon: eleven remedies. Oreoselinon:
two remedies. Helioselinon: one remedy 248
47. Petroselinon: one remedy. Buselinon: one remedy _ib._
48. Ocimum: thirty-five remedies 249
49. Rocket: twelve remedies 250
50. Nasturtium: forty-two remedies 251
51. Rue: eighty-four remedies 252
52. Wild mint: twenty remedies 256
53. Mint: forty-one remedies 257
54. Pennyroyal: twenty-five remedies 259
55. Wild pennyroyal: seventeen remedies 260
56. Nep: nine remedies 261
57. Cummin: forty-eight remedies. Wild cummin: twenty-six
remedies 262
58. Ammi: ten remedies 263
59. The capparis or caper: eighteen remedies 264
60. Ligusticum, or lovage: four remedies 265
61. Cunila bubula: five remedies _ib._
62. Cunila gallinacea, or origanum: five remedies 266
63. Cunilago: eight remedies _ib._
64. Soft cunila: three remedies. Libanotis: three remedies _ib._
65. Cultivated cunila: three remedies. Mountain cunila: seven
remedies 267
66. Piperitis, or siliquastrum: five remedies _ib._
67. Origanum, onitis, or prasion: six remedies 268
68. Tragoriganum: nine remedies _ib._
69. Three varieties of Heracleotic origanum: thirty remedies _ib._
70. Dittander: three remedies 270
71. Gith, or melanthion: twenty-three remedies _ib._
72. Anise: sixty-one remedies 271
73. Where the best anise is found: various remedies derived
from this plant 272
74. Dill: nine remedies 274
75. Sacopenium, or sagapenon: thirteen remedies _ib._
76. The white poppy: three remedies. The black poppy: eight
remedies. Remarks on sleep. Opium. Remarks in disfavour
of the potions known as “anodynes, febrifuges,
digestives, and cœliacs.” In what way the juices of
these plants are to be collected 275
77. The poppy called rhœas: two remedies 278
78. The wild poppy called ceratitis, glaucium, or paralium:
six remedies _ib._
79. The wild poppy called heraclium, or aphron: four remedies.
Diacodion _ib._
80. The poppy called tithymalon, or paralion: three remedies 279
81. Porcillaca or purslain, otherwise called peplis:
twenty-five remedies 280
82. Coriander: twenty-one remedies 282
83. Orage: fourteen remedies _ib._
84. The mallow called malope: thirteen remedies. The mallow
called malache: one remedy. The mallow called althæa or
plistolochia: fifty-nine remedies 283
85. Wild lapathum or oxalis, otherwise called lapathum
cantherinum, or rumex: one remedy. Hydrolapathum: two
remedies. Hippolapathum: six remedies. Oxylapathum:
four remedies 287
86. Cultivated lapathum: twenty-one remedies. Bulapathum: one
remedy 288
87. Mustard, the three kinds of it: forty-four remedies _ib._
88. Adarca: forty-eight remedies 290
89. Marrubium or prasion, otherwise linostrophon, philopais,
or philochares: twenty-nine remedies _ib._
90. Wild thyme: eighteen remedies 292
91. Sisymbrium or thymbræum: twenty-three remedies 293
92. Linseed: thirty remedies 294
93. Blite: six remedies 295
94. Meum, and meum athamanticum: seven remedies _ib._
95. Fennel: twenty-two remedies 296
96. Hippomarathron, or myrsineum: five remedies _ib._
97. Hemp: nine remedies 297
98. Fennel-giant: eight remedies 298
99. The thistle or scolymos: six remedies 299
100. The composition of theriaca _ib._
BOOK XXI.
AN ACCOUNT OF FLOWERS, AND THOSE USED FOR CHAPLETS MORE
PARTICULARLY.
1. The nature of flowers and gardens 304
2. Garlands and chaplets _ib._
3. Who invented the art of making garlands: when they first
received the name of “corollæ,” and for what reason 305
4. Who was the first to give chaplets with leaves of silver
and gold. Lemnisci: who was the first to emboss them 306
5. The great honour in which chaplets were held by the
ancients _ib._
6. The severity of the ancients in reference to chaplets 307
7. A citizen decked with flowers by the Roman people 308
8. Plaited chaplets. Needle-work chaplets. Nard-leaf chaplets.
Silken chaplets _ib._
9. Authors who have written on flowers. An anecdote relative
to Queen Cleopatra and chaplets 309
10. The rose: twelve varieties of it 310
11. The lily: four varieties of it 314
12. The narcissus: three varieties of it 316
13. How seed is stained to produce tinted flowers 317
14. How the several varieties of the violet are respectively
produced, grown, and cultivated. The three different
colours of the violet. The five varieties of the yellow
violet _ib._
15. The caltha. The scopa regia 318
16. The bacchar. The combretum. Asarum _ib._
17. Saffron: in what places it grows best. What flowers were
known at the time of the Trojan war 319
18. The nature of odours 321
19. The iris 324
20. The saliunca 325
21. The polium or teuthrion _ib._
22. Fabrics which rival the colour of flowers 326
23. The amaranth 327
24. The cyanos: the holochrysos 328
25. The petilium: the bellio _ib._
26. The chrysocome, or chrysitis 329
27. Shrubs, the blossoms of which are used for chaplets _ib._
28. Shrubs, the leaves of which are used for chaplets _ib._
29. The melothron, spiræa, and origanum. The oneorum or
cassia; two varieties of it. The melissophyllum or
melittæna. The melilote, otherwise known as Campanian
garland 330
30. Three varieties of trefoil: the myophonum _ib._
31. Two varieties of thyme. Plants produced from blossoms and
not from seed 331
32. Conyza 332
33. The flower of Jove. The hemerocalles. The helenium. The
phlox. Plants in which the branches and roots are
odoriferous 333
34. The abrotonum. The adonium: two varieties of it. Plants
which reproduce themselves. The leucanthemum 334
35. Two varieties of the amaracus _ib._
36. The nyctegreton, or chenamyche, or nyctalops 335
37. Where the melilote is found _ib._
38. The succession in which flowers blossom: the spring
flowers. The violet. The chaplet anemone or phrenion.
The herb œnanthe. The melanthium. The helichrysos.
The gladiolus. The hyacinth 336
39. The summer flowers—the lychnis: the tiphyon. Two varieties
of the pothos. Two varieties of the orsinum. The
vincapervinca or chamædaphne—a plant which is an
ever-green 337
40. The duration of life in the various kinds of flowers 339
41. Plants which should be sown among flowers for bees. The
cerintha _ib._
42. The maladies of bees, and the remedies for them 340
43. The food of bees _ib._
44. Poisoned honey, and the remedies to be employed by those
who have eaten it 341
45. Maddening honey 342
46. Honey that flies will not touch 343
47. Beehives, and the attention which should be paid to them 344
48. That bees are sensible of hunger 345
49. The method of preparing wax. The best kinds of wax. Punic
wax _ib._
50. Plants which grow spontaneously: the use made of them by
various nations, their nature, and remarkable facts
connected with them. The strawberry, the tamnus, and
the butcher’s broom. The batis, two varieties of it.
The meadow parsnip. The hop 347
51. The colocasia _ib._
52. The cichorium. The anthalium or anticellium, or anthyllum.
The œtum. The arachidna. The aracos. The candryala. The
hypochœris. The caucalis. The anthriscum. The scandix.
The tragopogon. The parthenium or leucanthes, amaracus,
perdicium, or muralis. The trychnum or strychnum,
halicacabum, callias, dorycnion, manicon, peritton,
neuras, morio, or moly. The corchorus. The aphace. The
acynopos. The epipetron. Plants which never flower.
Plants which are always in flower 348
53. Four varieties of the cnecos 350
54. Plants of a prickly nature: the erynge, the glycyrrhiza,
the tribulus, the anonis, the pheos or stœbe, and the
hippophaes _ib._
55. Four varieties of the nettle. The lamium and the scorpio 351
56. The carduus, the acorna, the phonos, the leucanthos, the
chalceos, the cnecos, the polyacanthos, the onopyxos,
the helxine, the scolymos, the chamæleon, the tetralix,
and acanthice mastiche 353
57. The cactos: the pternix, pappos, and ascalias 354
58. The tribulus: the anonis 355
59. Plants classified according to their stems: the coronopus,
the anchusa, the anthemis, the phyllanthes, the crepis,
and the lotus _ib._
60. Plants classified according to their leaves. Plants which
never lose their leaves: plants which blossom a little
at a time: the heliotropium and the adiantum, the
remedies derived from which will be mentioned in the
following Book 356
61. The various kinds of eared plants: the stanyops; the
alopecuros; the stelephurus, ortyx, or plantago; the
thryallis 357
62. The perdicium. The ornithogale _ib._
63. Plants which only make their appearance at the end of a
year. Plants which begin to blossom at the top. Plants
which begin to blossom at the lower part 358
64. The lappa, a plant which produces within itself. The
opuntia, which throws out a root from the leaf _ib._
65. The iasione. The chondrylla. The picris, which remains in
flower the whole year through _ib._
66. Plants in which the blossom makes its appearance before
the stem. Plants in which the stem appears before the
blossom. Plants which blossom three times in the year 359
67. The cypiros. The thesion _ib._
68. The asphodel, or royal spear. The anthericus or albucus _ib._
69. Six varieties of the rush: four remedies derived from the
cypiros 361
70. The cyperos: fourteen remedies. The cyperis. The cypira 363
71. The holoschœnus 364
72. Ten remedies derived from the sweet-scented rush, or
teuchites _ib._
73. Remedies derived from the flowers before mentioned:
thirty-two remedies derived from the rose _ib._
74. Twenty-one remedies derived from the lily 366
75. Sixteen remedies derived from the narcissus 367
76. Seventeen remedies derived from the violet 368
77. Seventeen remedies derived from the bacchar. One remedy
derived from the combretum _ib._
78. Eight remedies derived from asarum 369
79. Eight remedies derived from gallic nard _ib._
80. Four remedies derived from the plant called “phu” 370
81. Twenty remedies derived from saffron _ib._
82. Syrian crocomagna: two remedies _ib._
83. Forty-one remedies derived from the iris: two remedies
derived from the saliunca 371
84. Eighteen remedies derived from the polium 372
85. Three remedies derived from the holochrysos. Six remedies
derived from the chrysocome 373
86. Twenty-one remedies derived from the melissophyllum _ib._
87. Thirteen remedies derived from the melilote 374
88. Four remedies derived from the trefoil _ib._
89. Twenty-eight remedies derived from thyme 375
90. Four remedies derived from the hemerocalles 376
91. Five remedies derived from the helenium _ib._
92. Twenty-two remedies derived from the abrotonum 377
93. One remedy derived from the leucanthemum. Nine remedies
derived from the amaracus 378
94. Ten remedies derived from the anemone or phrenion 379
95. Six remedies derived from the œnanthe 380
96. Eleven remedies derived from the helichrysos _ib._
97. Eight remedies derived from the hyacinth 381
98. Seven remedies derived from the lychnis _ib._
99. Four remedies derived from the vincapervinca 382
100. Three remedies derived from butcher’s broom _ib._
101. Two remedies derived from the batis _ib._
102. Two remedies derived from the colocasia _ib._
103. Six remedies derived from the anthyllium or anthyllum 383
104. Eight remedies derived from the parthenium, leucanthes,
or amaracus _ib._
105. Eight remedies derived from the trychnum or strychnum,
halicacabum, callias, dorycnion, manicon, neuras,
morio, or moly 384
106. Six remedies derived from the corchorus 386
107. Three remedies derived from the cnecos _ib._
108. One remedy derived from the pesoluta _ib._
109. An explanation of Greek terms relative to weights and
measures _ib._
BOOK XXII.
THE PROPERTIES OF PLANTS AND FRUITS.
1. The properties of plants 389
2. Plants used by nations for the adornment of the person _ib._
3. Employment of plants for dyeing. Explanation of the terms
sagmen, verbena, and clarigatio 390
4. The grass crown: how rarely it has been awarded 392
5. The only persons that have been presented with this crown 393
6. The only centurion that has been thus honoured 394
7. Remedies derived from other chaplet plants 395
8. The erynge or eryngium 396
9. The eryngium, called centum capita: thirty remedies 397
10. The acanos: one remedy 398
11. The glycyrrhiza or adipsos: fifteen remedies 399
12. Two varieties of the tribulus: twelve remedies 400
13. The stœbe or pheos 401
14. Two varieties of the hippophaes: two remedies _ib._
15. The nettle: sixty-one remedies 402
16. The lamium: seven remedies 404
17. The scorpio, two kinds of it: one remedy 405
18. The leucacantha, phyllos, ischias, or polygonatos: four
remedies _ib._
19. The helxine: twelve remedies 406
20. The perdicium, parthenium, urceolaris, or astercum: eleven
remedies 407
21. The chamæleon, ixias, ulophonon, or cynozolon; two
varieties of it: twelve remedies _ib._
22. The coronopus 409
23. The anchusa: fourteen remedies _ib._
24. The pseudoanchusa, echis, or doris: three remedies 410
25. The onochilon, archebion, onochelis, rhexia, or enchrysa:
thirty remedies _ib._
26. The anthemis, leucanthemis, leucanthemum, chamæmelum, or
melanthium; three varieties of it: eleven remedies 411
27. The lotus plant: four remedies 412
28. The lotometra: two remedies _ib._
29. The heliotropium, helioscopium, or verrucaria: twelve
remedies. The heliotropium, tricoccum, or scorpiuron:
fourteen remedies 413
30. The adiantum, callitrichos, trichomanes, polytrichos, or
saxifragum; two varieties of it: twenty-eight remedies 415
31. The picris: one remedy. The thesion: one remedy 417
32. The asphodel: fifty-one remedies _ib._
33. The halimon: fourteen remedies 419
34. The acanthus, pæderos, or melamphyllos: five remedies 421
35. The bupleuron: five remedies _ib._
36. The buprestis: one remedy 422
37. The elaphoboscon: nine remedies _ib._
38. The scandix: nine remedies. The anthriscum: two remedies 423
39. The iasione: four remedies _ib._
40. The caucalis: twelve remedies 424
41. The sium: eleven remedies _ib._
42. The sillybum 425
43. The scolymos or limonia: five remedies _ib._
44. The sonchos: two varieties: fifteen remedies 426
45. The condrion or chondrylla: six remedies 427
46. Mushrooms; peculiarities of their growth 428
47. Fungi; signs by which the venomous kinds may be
recognized: nine remedies 429
48. Silphium: seven remedies 431
49. Laser: thirty-nine remedies 432
50. Propolis: five remedies 434
51. The various influences of different aliments upon the
disposition 435
52. Hydromel: eighteen remedies 436
53. Honied wine: six remedies 437
54. Melitites: three remedies 438
55. Wax: eight remedies _ib._
56. Remarks in disparagement of medicinal compositions 439
57. Remedies derived from grain. Siligo: one remedy. Wheat:
one remedy. Chaff: two remedies. Spelt: one remedy.
Bran: one remedy. Olyra or arinca: two remedies 440
58. The various kinds of meal: twenty-eight remedies 441
59. Polenta: eight remedies 442
60. Fine flour: five remedies. Puls: one remedy. Meal used
for pasting papyrus, one remedy _ib._
61. Alica: six remedies 443
62. Millet: six remedies 444
63. Panic: four remedies _ib._
64. Sesame: seven remedies. Sesamoides: three remedies.
Anticyricum: three remedies _ib._
65. Barley: nine remedies. Mouse-barley, by the Greeks called
phœnice: one remedy 445
66. Ptisan: four remedies 446
67. Amylum: eight remedies. Oats: one remedy _ib._
68. Bread: twenty-one remedies 447
69. Beans: sixteen remedies _ib._
70. Lentils: seventeen remedies 448
71. The elelisphacos, sphacos, or salvia: thirteen remedies 449
72. The chickpea and the chicheling vetch: twenty-three
remedies 450
73. The fitch: twenty remedies 451
74. Lupines: thirty-five remedies 452
75. Irio or erysimum, by the Gauls called vela: fifteen
remedies 453
76. Horminum: six remedies 454
77. Darnel: five remedies _ib._
78. The plant miliaria: one remedy 455
79. Bromos: one remedy _ib._
80. Orobanche or cynomorion: one remedy _ib._
81. Remedies for injuries inflicted by insects which breed
among leguminous plants _ib._
82. The use made of the yeast of zythum 456
BOOK XXIII.
THE REMEDIES DERIVED FROM THE CULTIVATED TREES.
1. Introduction 457
2. The vine _ib._
3. The leaves and shoots of the vine: seven remedies 458
4. Omphacium extracted from the vine: fourteen remedies 459
5. Œnanthe: twenty-one remedies 460
6. Grapes, fresh gathered 461
7. Various kinds of preserved grapes: eleven remedies _ib._
8. Cuttings of the vine: one remedy 462
9. Grape-stones: six remedies _ib._
10. Grape-husks: eight remedies 463
11. The grapes of the theriaca: four remedies _ib._
12. Raisins, or astaphis: fourteen remedies _ib._
13. The astaphis agria, otherwise called staphis or taminia:
twelve remedies 464
14. The labrusca, or wild vine: twelve remedies 465
15. The salicastrum: twelve remedies _ib._
16. The white vine, otherwise called ampeloleuce, staphyle,
melothron, psilotrum, archezostis, cedrostis, or madon:
thirty-one remedies 466
17. The black vine, otherwise called bryonia, chironia,
gynæcanthe, or apronia: thirty-five remedies 468
18. Must: fifteen remedies _ib._
19. Particulars relative to wine 469
20. The Surrentine wines: three remedies. The Alban wines:
two remedies. The Falernian wines: six remedies 470
21. The Setine wines; one observation upon them. The Statan
wines; one observation upon them. The Signian wines:
one remedy 471
22. Other wines: sixty-four remedies _ib._
23. Sixty-one observations relative to wine 473
24. In what maladies wine should be administered; how it
should be administered, and at what times 474
25. Ninety-one observations with reference to wine 477
26. Artificial wines _ib._
27. Vinegar: twenty-eight remedies 478
28. Squill vinegar: seventeen remedies 480
29. Oxymeli: seven remedies 481
30. Sapa: seven remedies _ib._
31. Lees of wine: twelve remedies 482
32. Lees of vinegar: seventeen remedies 483
33. Lees of sapa: four remedies 484
34. The leaves of the olive-tree: twenty-three remedies _ib._
35. The blossom of the olive: four remedies _ib._
36. White olives: four remedies. Black olives: three remedies 485
37. Amurca of olives: twenty-one remedies 486
38. The leaves of the wild olive: sixteen remedies 487
39. Omphacium: three remedies 488
40. Oil of œnanthe: twenty-eight remedies _ib._
41. Castor oil: sixteen remedies 489
42. Oil of almonds: sixteen remedies 490
43. Oil of laurel: nine remedies _ib._
44. Oil of myrtle: twenty remedies _ib._
45. Oil of chamæmyrsine, or oxymyrsine; oil of cypros; oil of
citrus; oil of walnuts; oil of cnidium; oil of mastich;
oil of balanus; various remedies 491
46. The cyprus, and the oil extracted from it; sixteen
remedies. Gleucinum: one remedy 492
47. Oil of balsamum: fifteen remedies _ib._
48. Malobathrum: five remedies 493
49. Oil of henbane: two remedies. Oil of lupines: one remedy.
Oil of narcissus: one remedy. Oil of radishes: five
remedies. Oil of sesame: three remedies. Oil of lilies:
three remedies. Oil of Selga: one remedy. Oil of
Iguvium: one remedy _ib._
50. Elæomeli: two remedies. Oil of pitch: two remedies 494
51. The palm: nine remedies _ib._
52. The palm which produces the myrobalanum: three remedies 495
53. The palm called elate: sixteen remedies _ib._
54. Remedies derived from the blossoms, leaves, fruit,
branches, bark, juices, roots, wood, and ashes of
various kinds of trees. Six observations upon apples.
Twenty-two observations upon quinces. One observation
upon struthea 496
55. The sweet apples called melimela: six observations upon
them. Sour apples: four observations upon them 497
56. Citrons: five observations upon them 498
57. Punic apples, or pomegranates: twenty-six remedies _ib._
58. The composition called stomatice: fourteen remedies 499
59. Cytinus: eight remedies 500
60. Balaustium: twelve remedies _ib._
61. The wild pomegranate 501
62. Pears: twelve observations upon them 502
63. Figs: one hundred and eleven observations upon them _ib._
64. The wild fig: forty-two observations upon it 505
65. The herb crineon: three remedies 507
66. Plums: four observations upon them _ib._
67. Peaches: two remedies 508
68. Wild plums; two remedies _ib._
69. The lichen on plum-trees; two remedies _ib._
70. Mulberries; thirty-nine remedies _ib._
71. The medicament called stomatice, arteriace, or
panchrestos; four remedies 509
72. Cherries: five observations upon them 511
73. Medlars: two remedies. Sorbs: two remedies 512
74. Pine-nuts: thirteen remedies _ib._
75. Almonds: twenty-nine remedies _ib._
76. Greek nuts: one remedy 513
77. Walnuts: twenty-four remedies. The Mithridatic antidote 514
78. Hazel-nuts: three observations upon them. Pistachio-nuts:
eight observations upon them. Chesnuts: five
observations upon them 515
79. Carobs: five observations upon them. The cornel: one
remedy. The fruit of the arbutus 516
80. The laurel: sixty-nine observations upon it _ib._
81. Myrtle: sixty observations upon it 519
82. Myrtidanum: thirteen remedies 521
83. The wild myrtle, otherwise called oxymyrsine, or
chamæmyrsine, and the ruscus: six remedies _ib._
NATURAL HISTORY OF PLINY.
BOOK XVIII.
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF GRAIN.
CHAP. 1. (1.)—TASTE OF THE ANCIENTS FOR AGRICULTURE.
We now pass on to the Natural History of the various grains, of the
garden plants and flowers, and indeed of all the other productions,
with the exception of the trees and shrubs, which the Earth, in her
bounteousness, affords us—a boundless field for contemplation, if
even we regard the herbs alone, when we take into consideration the
varieties of them, their numbers, the flowers they produce, their
odours, their colours, their juices, and the numerous properties they
possess—all of which have been engendered by her with a view to either
the preservation or the gratification of the human race.
On entering, however, upon this branch of my subject, it is my wish
in the first place to plead the cause of the Earth, and to act as
the advocate of her who is the common parent of all, although in the
earlier[1] part of this work I have already had occasion to speak in
her defence. For my subject matter, as I proceed in the fulfilment
of my task, will now lead me to consider her in the light of being
the producer of various noxious substances as well; in consequence of
which it is that we are in the habit of charging her with our crimes,
and imputing to her a guilt that is our own. She has produced poisons,
it is true; but who is it but man that has found them out? For the
birds of the air and the beasts of the field, it is sufficient to be
on their guard against them, and to keep at a distance from them. The
elephant, we find, and the urus, know how to sharpen[2] and renovate
their teeth against the trunks of trees, and the rhinoceros against
rocks; wild boars, again, point their tusks like so many poniards by
the aid of both rocks and trees; and all animals, in fact, are aware
how to prepare themselves for the infliction of injury upon others; but
still, which is there among them all, with the exception of man, that
dips his weapons in poison? As for ourselves, we envenom the point of
the arrow,[3] and we contrive to add to the destructive powers of iron
itself; by the aid of poisons we taint the waters of the stream, and we
infect the various elements of Nature; indeed, the very air even, which
is the main support of life, we turn into a medium for the destruction
of life.
And it is not that we are to suppose that animals are ignorant of these
means of defence, for we have already had occasion to point out[4] the
preparations which they make against the attacks of the serpent, and
the methods they devise for effecting a cure when wounded by it; and
yet, among them all, there is not one that fights by the aid of the
poison that belongs to another, with the sole exception of man. Let us
then candidly confess our guilt, we who are not contented even with the
poisons as Nature has produced them; for by far the greater portion of
them, in fact, are artificially prepared by the human hand!
And then besides, is it not the fact, that there are many men, the
very existence of whom is a baneful poison, as it were? Like that of
the serpent, they dart their livid tongue, and the venom of their
disposition corrodes every object upon which it concentrates itself.
Ever vilifying and maligning, like the ill-omened birds of the night,
they disturb the repose of that darkness which is so peculiarly their
own, and break in upon the quiet of the night even, by their moans and
wailings, the only sounds they are ever heard to emit. Like animals
of inauspicious presage, they only cross our path to prevent us from
employing our energies or becoming useful to our fellow-men; and the
only enjoyment that is sought by their abominable aspirations is
centred in their universal hatred of mankind.
Still, however, even in this respect Nature has asserted her majestic
sway; for how much more numerous[5] are the good and estimable
characters which she has produced! just in the same proportion that we
find her giving birth to productions which are at once both salutary
and nutritious to man. It is in our high esteem for men such as these,
and the commendations they bestow, that we shall be content to leave
the others, like so many brakes and brambles, to the devouring flames
of their own bad passions, and to persist in promoting the welfare of
the human race; and this, with all the more energy and perseverance,
from the circumstance that it has been our object throughout, rather
to produce a work of lasting utility than to ensure ourselves a
widely-spread renown. We have only to speak, it is true, of the
fields and of rustic operations; but still, it is upon these that
the enjoyment of life so materially depends, and that the ancients
conferred the very highest rank in their honours and commendations.
CHAP. 2. (2.)—WHEN THE FIRST WREATHS OF CORN WERE USED AT ROME.
Romulus was the first who established the Arval[6] priesthood at
Rome. This order consisted of the eleven sons of Acca Larentia, his
nurse,[7] together with Romulus himself, who assumed the appellation
of the twelfth of the brotherhood. Upon this priesthood he bestowed,
as being the most august distinction that he could confer upon it, a
wreath of ears of corn, tied together with a white fillet; and this, in
fact, was the first chaplet that was ever used at Rome. This dignity
is only ended with life itself, and whether in exile or in captivity,
it always attends its owner. In those early days, two jugera of land
were considered enough for a citizen of Rome, and to none was a larger
portion than this allotted. And yet, at the present day, men who but
lately were the slaves of the Emperor Nero have been hardly content
with pleasure-gardens that occupied the same space as this; while they
must have fishponds, forsooth, of still greater extent, and in some
instances I might add, perhaps, kitchens even as well.
Numa first established the custom of offering corn to the gods, and
of propitiating them with the salted[8] cake; he was the first, too,
as we learn from Hemina, to parch spelt, from the fact that, when
in this state, it is more wholesome as an aliment.[9] This method,
however, he could only establish one way: by making an enactment, to
the effect that spelt is not in a pure state for offering, except when
parched. He it was, too, who instituted the Fornacalia,[10] festivals
appropriated for the parching of corn, and others,[11] observed with
equal solemnity, for the erection and preservation of the “termini,”
or boundaries of the fields: for these termini, in those days, they
particularly regarded as gods; while to other divinities they gave the
names of Seia,[12] from “sero,” “to sow,” and of Segesta, from the
“segetes,” or “crops of standing corn,” the statues of which goddesses
we still see erected in the Circus. A third divinity it is forbidden by
the rules of our religion to name even[13] beneath a roof. In former
days, too, they would not so much as taste the corn when newly cut, nor
yet wine when just made, before the priests had made a libation of the
first-fruits.
CHAP. 3. (3.)—THE JUGERUM OF LAND.
That portion of land used to be known as a “jugerum,” which was
capable of being ploughed by a single “jugum,” or yoke of oxen, in
one day; an “actus”[14] being as much as the oxen could plough at a
single spell, fairly estimated, without stopping. This last was one
hundred and twenty feet in length; and two in length made a jugerum.
The most considerable recompense that could be bestowed upon generals
and valiant citizens, was the utmost extent of land around which a
person could trace a furrow with the plough in a single day. The whole
population, too, used to contribute a quarter[15] of a sextarius of
spelt, or else half a one, per head.
From agriculture the earliest surnames were derived. Thus, for
instance, the name of Pilumnus was given to him who invented the
“pilum,” or pestle of the bake-house, for pounding corn; that of
Piso was derived from “piso,” to grind corn; and those of Fabius,
Lentulus, and Cicero, from the several varieties[16] of leguminous
plants in the cultivation of which respectively these individuals
excelled. One individual of the family of the Junii received the name
of “Bubulcus,”[17] from the skill he displayed in breeding oxen. Among
the sacred ceremonials, too, there was nothing that was held more holy
than the marriage by confarreation,[18] and the woman just married used
to present a cake made of spelt.[19] Careless cultivation of the land
was in those times an offence that came under the cognizance of the
censors; and, as we learn from Cato,[20] when it was said that such
and such a man was a good agriculturist or a good husbandman, it was
looked upon as the very highest compliment that could be paid him. A
man came to be called “locuples,” or “rich,” from being “loci plenus,”
or “full of earth.” Money, too, received its name of “pecunia,”[21]
from “pecus,” “cattle.” At the present day, even, in the registers of
the censors, we find set down under the head of “pascua,” or “pasture
lands,” everything from which the public revenues are derived, from the
fact that for a long period of time pasture lands were the only sources
of the public revenue. Fines, too, were only imposed in the shape of
paying so many sheep or so many oxen; and the benevolent spirit of the
ancient laws deserves remark, which most considerately enjoined that
the magistrate, when he indicted a penalty, should never impose a fine
of an ox before having first condemned the same party to the payment of
a sheep.
Those who celebrated the public games in honour of the ox received the
name of Bubetii.[22] King Servius was the first who impressed upon our
copper coin[23] the figures of sheep and oxen. To depasture cattle
secretly by night upon the unripe crops on plough lands, or to cut them
in that state, was made by the Twelve Tables[24] a capital offence in
the case of an adult; and it was enacted that the person guilty of it
should be hanged, in order to make due reparation to the goddess Ceres,
a punishment more severe, even, than that inflicted for murder. If, on
the other hand, the offender was not an adult, he was beaten at the
discretion of the prætor; a penalty double the amount of the damage was
also exacted.
The various ranks, too, and distinctions in the state had no other
origin than the pursuits of agriculture. The rural tribes held the
foremost rank, and were composed of those who possessed lands; while
those of the city, a place to which it was looked upon as ignominious
to be transferred, had the discredit thrown upon them of being an
indolent race. Hence it was that these last were only four in number,
and received their names from the several parts of the City which they
respectively inhabited; being the Suburran, the Palatine, Colline, and
Exquiline tribes. Every ninth day[25] the rural tribes used to visit
the city for the purpose of marketing, and it was for this reason that
it was made illegal to hold the comitia upon the Nundinæ; the object
being that the country people might not be called away thereby from
the transaction of their business. In those days repose and sleep were
enjoyed upon straw. Even to glory itself, in compliment to corn, the
name was given of “adorea.”[26]
For my own part, I greatly admire[27] the modes of expression
employed in our ancient language: thus, for instance, we read in the
Commentaries of the Priesthood to the following effect:—“For deriving
an augury from the sacrifice of a bitch,[28] a day should be set apart
before the ear of corn appears from out of the sheath,[29] and then
again before it enters the sheath.”
CHAP. 4.—HOW OFTEN AND ON WHAT OCCASIONS CORN HAS SOLD AT A REMARKABLY
LOW PRICE.
The consequence was, that when the Roman manners were such as these,
the corn that Italy produced was sufficient for its wants, and it had
to be indebted to no province for its food; and not only this, but
the price of provisions was incredibly cheap. Manius Marcius, the
ædile[30] of the people, was the first who gave corn to the people at
the price of one as for the modius. L. Minutius Augurinus,[31] the
same who detected, when eleventh tribune of the people, the projects
of Spurius Mælius, reduced the price of corn on three market days,[32]
to one as per modius; for which reason a statue was erected in honour
of him, by public subscription, without the Trigeminian Gate.[33]
T. Seius distributed corn to the people, in his ædileship,[34] at
one as per modius, in remembrance of which statues were erected in
honour of him also in the Capitol and the Palatium: on the day of his
funeral he was borne to the pile on the shoulders of the Roman people.
In the year,[35] too, in which the Mother of the Gods was brought
to Rome, the harvest of that summer, it is said, was more abundant
than it had been for ten years before. M. Varro informs us, that in
the year[36] in which L. Metellus exhibited so many elephants in his
triumphal procession, a modius of spelt was sold for one as, which was
the standard price also of a congius of wine, thirty pounds’ weight
of dried figs, ten pounds of olive oil, and twelve pounds of flesh
meat. Nor did this cheapness originate in the wide-spread domains of
individuals encroaching continually upon their neighbours, for by a
law proposed by Licinius Stolo, the landed property of each individual
was limited to five hundred jugera; and he himself was convicted under
his own law of being the owner of more than that amount, having as a
disguise prevailed upon his son to lend him his name. Such were the
prices of commodities at a time when the fortunes of the republic were
rapidly on the increase. The words, too, that were uttered by Manius
Curius[37] after his triumphs and the addition of an immense extent of
territory to the Roman sway, are well known: “The man must be looked
upon,” said he, “as a dangerous citizen, for whom seven jugera of land
are not enough;” such being the amount of land that had been allotted
to the people after the expulsion of the kings.
What, then, was the cause of a fertility so remarkable as this? The
fact, we have every reason to believe, that in those days the lands
were tilled by the hands of generals even, the soil exulting beneath
a plough-share crowned with wreaths of laurel, and guided by a
husbandman graced with triumphs: whether it is that they tended the
seed with the same care that they had displayed in the conduct of
wars, and manifested the same diligent attention in the management of
their fields that they had done in the arrangement of the camp, or
whether it is that under the hands of honest men everything prospers
all the better, from being attended to with a scrupulous exactness.
The honours awarded to Serranus[38] found him engaged in sowing his
fields, a circumstance to which he owes his surname.[39] Cincinnatus
was ploughing his four jugera of land upon the Vaticanian Hill—the
same that are still known as the “Quintian Meadows,”[40] when the
messenger brought him the dictatorship—finding him, the tradition says,
stripped to the work, and his very face begrimed with dust. “Put on
your clothes,” said he, “that I may deliver to you the mandates of the
senate and people of Rome.” In those days these messengers bore the
name of “viator,” or “wayfarer,” from the circumstance that their usual
employment was to fetch the senators and generals from their fields.
But at the present day these same lands are tilled by slaves whose
legs are in chains, by the hands of malefactors and men with a branded
face! And yet the Earth is not deaf to our adjurations, when we address
her by the name of “parent,” and say that she receives our homage[41]
in being tilled by hands such as these; as though, forsooth, we ought
not to believe that she is reluctant and indignant at being tended in
such a manner as this! Indeed, ought we to feel any surprise were the
recompense she gives us when worked by chastised slaves,[42] not the
same that she used to bestow upon the labours of warriors?
CHAP. 5.—ILLUSTRIOUS MEN WHO HAVE WRITTEN UPON AGRICULTURE.
Hence it was that to give precepts upon agriculture became one of
the principal occupations among men of the highest rank, and that
in foreign nations even. For among those who have written on this
subject we find the names of kings even, Hiero, for instance, Attalus
Philometor, and Archelaüs, as well as of generals, Xenophon, for
example, and Mago the Carthaginian. Indeed, to this last writer did
the Roman senate award such high honours, that, after the capture of
Carthage, when it bestowed the libraries of that city upon the petty
kings of Africa, it gave orders, in his case only, that his thirty-two
Books should be translated into the Latin language, and this, although
M. Cato had already compiled his Book of Precepts; it took every care
also to entrust the execution of this task to men who were well versed
in the Carthaginian tongue, among whom was pre-eminent D. Silanus, a
member of one of the most illustrious families of Rome. I have already
indicated,[43] at the commencement of this work, the numerous learned
authors and writers in verse, together with other illustrious men,
whose authority it is my intention to follow; but among the number I
may here more particularly distinguish M. Varro, who, at the advanced
age of eighty-eight years, thought it his duty to publish a treatise
upon this subject.
(4.) Among the Romans the cultivation of the vine was introduced at a
comparatively recent period, and at first, as indeed they were obliged
to do, they paid their sole attention to the culture of the fields. The
various methods of cultivating the land will now be our subject; and
they shall be treated of by us in no ordinary or superficial manner,
but in the same spirit in which we have hitherto written; enquiry shall
be made with every care first into the usages of ancient days, and then
into the discoveries of more recent times, our attention being devoted
alike to the primary causes of these operations, and the reasons upon
which they are respectively based. We shall make mention,[44] too,
of the various constellations, and of the several indications which,
beyond all doubt, they afford to the earth; and the more so, from the
fact that those writers who have hitherto treated of them with any
degree of exactness, seem to have written their works for the use of
any class of men but the agriculturist.
CHAP. 6.—POINTS TO BE OBSERVED IN BUYING LAND.
First of all, then, I shall proceed in a great measure according to
the dicta of the oracles of agriculture; for there is no branch of
practical life in which we find them more numerous or more unerring.
And why should we not view in the light of oracles those precepts which
have been tested by the infallibility of time and the truthfulness of
experience?
(5.) To make a beginning, then, with Cato[45]—“The agricultural
population,” says he, “produces the bravest men, the most valiant
soldiers,[46] and a class of citizens the least given of all to evil
designs.—Do not be too eager in buying a farm.—In rural operations
never be sparing of your trouble, and, above all, when you are
purchasing land.—A bad bargain is always a ground for repentance.—Those
who are about to purchase land, should always have an eye more
particularly to the water there, the roads, and the neighbourhood.”
Each of these points is susceptible of a very extended explanation, and
replete with undoubted truths. Cato[47] recommends, too, that an eye
should be given to the people in the neighbourhood, to see how they
look: “For where the land is good,” says he, “the people will look
well-conditioned and healthy.”
Atilius Regulus, the same who was twice consul in the Punic War, used
to say[48] that a person should neither buy an unhealthy piece of
land in the most fertile locality, nor yet the very healthiest spot
if in a barren country. The salubrity of land, however, is not always
to be judged of from the looks of the inhabitants, for those who are
well-seasoned are able to withstand the effects of living in pestilent
localities even. And then, besides, there are some localities that are
healthy during certain periods of the year only; though, in reality,
there is no soil that can be looked upon as really valuable that is not
healthy all the year through. “That[49] is sure to be bad land against
which its owner has a continual struggle.” Cato recommends us before
everything, to see that the land which we are about to purchase not
only excels in the advantages of locality, as already stated, but is
really good of itself. We should see, too, he says, that there is an
abundance of manual labour in the neighbourhood, as well as a thriving
town; that there are either rivers or roads, to facilitate the carriage
of the produce; that the buildings upon the land are substantially
erected, and that the land itself bears every mark of having been
carefully tilled—a point upon which I find that many persons are
greatly mistaken, as they are apt to imagine that the negligence of
the previous owner is greatly to the purchaser’s advantage; while the
fact is, that there is nothing more expensive than the cultivation of a
neglected soil.
For this reason it is that Cato[50] says that it is best to buy land
of a careful proprietor, and that the methods adopted by others ought
not to be hastily rejected—that it is the same with land as with
mankind—however great the proceeds, if at the same time it is lavish
and extravagant, there will be no great profits left. Cato looks upon
a vineyard as the most[51] profitable investment; and he is far from
wrong in that opinion, seeing that he takes such particular care to
retrench all superfluous expenses. In the second rank he places gardens
that have a good supply of water, and with good reason, too, supposing
always that they are near a town. The ancients gave to meadow lands the
name of “parata,” or lands “always ready.”[52]
Cato being asked, on one occasion, what was the most certain source
of profit, “Good pasture land,” was his answer; upon which, enquiry
was made what was the next best. “Pretty good[53] pasture lands,”
said he—the amount of all which is, that he looked upon that as the
most certain source of income which stands in need of the smallest
outlay. This, however, will naturally vary in degree, according to the
nature of the respective localities; and the same is the case with the
maxim[54] to which he gives utterance, that a good agriculturist must
be fond of selling. The same, too, with his remark, that in his youth
a landowner should begin to plant without delay, but that he ought
not to build until the land is fully brought into cultivation, and
then only a little at a time: and that the best plan is, as the common
proverb has it, “To profit by the folly of others;”[55] taking due
care, however, that the keeping up of a farm-house does not entail too
much expense. Still, however, those persons are guilty of no falsehood
who are in the habit of saying that a proprietor who is well housed
comes all the oftener to his fields, and that “the master’s forehead is
of more use than his back.”[56]
CHAP. 7. (6.)—THE PROPER ARRANGEMENTS FOR A FARM-HOUSE.
The proper plan to be pursued is this:[57] the farm-house must not
be unsuitable for the farm, nor the farm for the house; and we must
be on our guard against following the examples of L. Lucullus and Q.
Scævola, who, though living in the same age, fell into the two opposite
extremes; for whereas the farm-house of Scævola was not large enough
for the produce of his farm, the farm of Lucullus was not sufficiently
large for the house he built upon it; an error which gave occasion to
the reproof of the censors, that on his farm there was less of ground
for ploughing than of floor for sweeping. The proper arrangements for
a farm-house are not to be made without a certain degree of skill. C.
Marius, who was seven times consul, was the last person who had one
built at Misenum;[58] but he erected it with such a degree of that
artistic skill which he had displayed in castrametation, that Sylla
Felix[59] even made the remark, that in comparison with Marius, all the
others had been no better than blind.[60]
It is generally agreed, that a farm-house ought neither to be built
near a marsh, nor with a river in front of it; for, as Homer[61] has
remarked, with the greatest correctness, unwholesome vapours are always
exhaled from rivers before the rising of the sun. In hot localities,
a farm-house should have a northern aspect, but where it is cold, it
should look towards the south; where, on the other hand, the site is
temperate, the house should look due east. Although, when speaking[62]
of the best kinds of soil, I may seem to have sufficiently discussed
the characteristics by which it may be known, I shall take the present
opportunity of adding a few more indications, employing the words of
Cato[63] more particularly for the purpose. “The dwarf-elder,” says
he, “the wild plum,[64] the bramble the small bulb,[65] trefoil,
meadow grass,[66] the quercus, and the wild pear and wild apple, are
all of them indicative of a corn land. The same is the case, too,
where the land is black, or of an ashy colour. All chalky soils are
scorching, unless they are very thin; the same, too, with sand, unless
it is remarkably fine. These remarks, however, are more applicable to
champaign localities than declivities.”
The ancients were of opinion, that before everything, moderation should
be observed in the extent of a farm; for it was a favourite maxim of
theirs, that we ought to sow the less, and plough the more: such too, I
find, was the opinion entertained by Virgil,[67] and indeed, if we must
confess the truth, it is the wide-spread domains that have been the
ruin[68] of Italy, and soon will be that of the provinces as well. Six
proprietors were in possession of one half of Africa,[69] at the period
when the Emperor Nero had them put to death. With that greatness of
mind which was so peculiarly his own, and of which he ought not to
lose the credit, Cneius Pompeius would never purchase the lands that
belonged to a neighbour. Mago has stated it as his opinion, that a
person, on buying a farm, ought at once to sell his town house;[70] an
opinion, however, which savours of too great rigidity, and is by no
means conformable to the public good. It is with these words, indeed,
that he begins his precepts; a good proof, at all events, that he looks
upon the personal inspection of the owner as of primary importance.
The next point which requires our care is to employ a farm-steward[71]
of experience, and upon this, too, Cato[72] has given many useful
precepts. Still, however, it must suffice for me to say that the
steward ought to be a man nearly as clever as his master, though
without appearing to know it. It is the very worst plan of all, to have
land tilled by slaves let loose from the houses of correction, as,
indeed, is the case with all work entrusted to men who live without
hope. I may possibly appear guilty of some degree of rashness in making
mention of a maxim of the ancients, which will very probably be looked
upon as quite incredible—“That nothing is so disadvantageous as to
cultivate land in the highest style of perfection.” L. Tarius Rufus, a
man who, born in the very lowest ranks of life, by his military talents
finally attained the consulship,[73] and who in other respects adhered
to the old-fashioned notions of thriftiness, made away with about one
hundred millions of sesterces, which, by the liberality of the late
Emperor Augustus, he had contrived to amass, in buying up lands in
Picenum, and cultivating them in the highest style, his object being
to gain a name thereby; the consequence of which was, that his heir
renounced[74] the inheritance. Are we of opinion, then, that ruin and
starvation must be the necessary consequence of such a course as this?
Yes, by Hercules! and the very best plan of all is to let moderation
guide our judgment in all things. To cultivate land well is absolutely
necessary, but to cultivate it in the very highest style is mere
extravagance, unless, indeed, the work is done by the hands of a man’s
own family, his tenants, or those whom he is obliged to keep at any
rate. But besides this, even when the owner tills the land itself,
there are some crops which it is really not worth the while to gather,
if we only take into account the manual labour expended upon them. The
olive, too, should never be too highly[75] cultivated, nor must certain
soils, it is said, be too carefully tilled, those of Sicily,[76] for
instance; hence it is, that new comers there so often find themselves
deceived.[77]
CHAP. 8.—MAXIMS OF THE ANCIENTS ON AGRICULTURE.
In what way, then, can land be most profitably cultivated? Why, in
the words of our agricultural oracles, “by making good out of bad.”
But here it is only right that we should say a word in justification
of our forefathers, who in their precepts on this subject had nothing
else in view but the benefit of mankind: for when they use the term
“bad” here, they only mean to say that which costs the smallest amount
of money. The principal object with them was in all cases to cut down
expenses to the lowest possible sum; and it was in this spirit that
they made the enactments which pronounced it criminal for a person who
had enjoyed a triumph, to be in possession, among his other furniture,
of ten pounds’ weight of silver plate: which permitted a man, upon the
death of his farm-steward, to abandon all his victories, and return to
the cultivation of his lands—such being the men the culture of whose
farms the state used to take upon itself; and thus, while they led our
armies, did the senate act as their steward.
It was in the same spirit, too, that those oracles of ours have given
utterance to these other precepts, to the effect that he is a bad
agriculturist who has to buy what his farm might have supplied him
with; that the man is a bad manager who does in the day-time what he
might have done in the night, except, indeed, when the state of the
weather does not allow it; that he is a worse manager still, who does
on a work-day what he might have done on a feast-day;[78] but that
he is the very worst of all, who works under cover in fine weather,
instead of labouring in the fields.
I cannot refrain from taking the present opportunity of quoting one
illustration afforded us by ancient times, from which it will be found
that it was the usage in those days to bring before the people even
questions connected with the various methods employed in agriculture,
and will be seen in what way men were accustomed to speak out in their
own defence. C. Furius Chresimus, a freedman, having found himself
able, from a very small piece of land, to raise far more abundant
harvests than his neighbours could from the largest farms, became the
object of very considerable jealousy among them, and was accordingly
accused of enticing away the crops of others by the practice of
sorcery. Upon this, a day was named by Spurius Calvinus, the curule
ædile, for his appearance. Apprehensive of being condemned, when the
question came to be put to the vote among the tribes, he had all his
implements of husbandry brought into the Forum, together with his
farm servants, robust, well-conditioned, and well-clad people, Piso
says. The iron tools were of first-rate quality, the mattocks were
stout and strong, the plough-shares ponderous and substantial, and
the oxen sleek and in prime condition. When all this had been done,
“Here, Roman citizens,” said he, “are my implements of magic; but it is
impossible for me to exhibit to your view, or to bring into this Forum,
those midnight toils of mine, those early watchings, those sweats,
and those fatigues.” Upon this, by the unanimous voice of the people,
he was immediately acquitted. Agriculture, in fact, depends upon the
expenditure of labour and exertion; and hence it is that the ancients
were in the habit of saying, that it is the eye of the master that does
more towards fertilizing a field than anything else.
We shall give the rest of these precepts in their appropriate places,
according as we find them adapted to each variety of cultivation; but
in the meantime we must not omit some of a general nature, which here
recur to our recollection, and more particularly that maxim of Cato,
as profitable as it is humane: “Always act in such a way as to secure
the love of your neighbours.” He then proceeds to state his reasons
for giving this advice, but it appears to me that no one surely can
entertain the slightest doubt upon the subject. One of the very first
recommendations that he gives is to take every care that the farm
servants are kept in good condition.[79] It is a maxim universally
agreed upon in agriculture, that nothing must be done too late; and
again, that everything must be done at its proper season; while there
is a third precept, which reminds us that opportunities lost can never
be regained. The malediction uttered by Cato against rotten ground
has been treated of at some length already;[80] but there is another
precept which he is never tired of repeating, “Whatever can be done by
the help of the ass, will cost the least money.”
Fern will be sure to die at the end of a couple of years, if you
prevent it from putting forth leaves; the most efficient method of
ensuring this is to beat the branches with a stick while they are in
bud; for then the juices that drop from it will kill the roots.[81] It
is said, too, that fern will not spring up again if it is pulled up by
the roots about the turn of the summer solstice, or if the stalks are
cut with the edge of a reed, or if it is turned up with a plough-share
with a reed placed[82] upon it. In the same way, too, we are told
that reeds may be effectually ploughed up, if care is taken to place
a stalk of fern upon the share. A field infested with rushes should
be turned up with the spade, or, if the locality is stony, with a
two-pronged mattock: overgrown shrubs are best removed by fire. Where
ground is too moist, it is an advantageous plan to cut trenches in it
and so drain it; where the soil is cretaceous, these trenches should he
left open; and where it is loose, they should be strengthened with a
hedge to prevent them from falling in. When these drains are made on a
declivity, they should have a layer of gutter tiles at the bottom, or
else house tiles with the face upwards: in some cases, too, they should
be covered[83] with earth, and made to run into others of a larger
size and wider; the bottom, also, should, if possible, have a coating
of stones or of gravel. The openings, too, should be strengthened
with two stones placed on either side, and another laid upon the top.
Democritus has described a method of rooting up a forest, by first
macerating the flower of the lupine[84] for one day in the juice of
hemlock, and then watering the roots of the trees with it.
CHAP. 9. (7.)—THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF GRAIN.
As the field is now prepared, we shall proceed to speak of the nature
of the various kinds of grain; we must premise, however, that there
are two principal classes of grain, the cereals,[85] comprising wheat
and barley, and the legumina, such as the bean and the chick-pea, for
instance. The difference between these two classes is too well known to
require any further description.
CHAP. 10.—THE HISTORY OF THE VARIOUS KINDS OF GRAIN.
The cereals are divided again into the same number of varieties,
according to the time of the year at which they are sown. The winter
grains are those which are put in the ground about the setting of
the Vergiliæ,[86] and there receive their nutriment throughout the
winter, for instance, wheat,[87] spelt,[88] and barley.[89] The summer
grains are those which are sown in summer, before the rising of the
Vergiliæ,[90] such as millet,[91] panic,[92] sesame,[93] horminum,[94]
and irio,[95] in accordance, however, with the usage of Italy only;
for in Greece and Asia all the grains are sown just after the setting
of the Vergiliæ. There are some, again, that are sown at either season
in Italy, and others at a third period, or, in other words, in the
spring. Some authors give the name of spring-grain to millet, panic,
lentils,[96] chick-peas,[97] and alica,[98] while they call wheat,
barley, beans, turnips, and rape, sementive or early sowing seeds.
Certain species of wheat are only sown to make fodder for cattle, and
are known by the name of “farrago,”[99] or mixed grain; the same, too,
with the leguminous plants, the vetch, for instance. The lupine,[100]
however, is grown in common as food for both cattle and men.
All the leguminous[101] plants, with the exception of the bean,
have a single root, hard and tough, like wood, and destitute of
numerous ramifications; the chick-pea has the deepest root of all.
Corn has numerous fibrous roots, but no ramifications. Barley makes
its appearance[102] above ground the seventh day after sowing; the
leguminous plants on the fourth, or at the very latest, the seventh;
the bean from the fifteenth day to the twentieth: though in Egypt the
leguminous plants appear as early as the third day after they are sown.
In barley, one extremity of the grain throws out the root, and the
other the blade; this last flowers, too, before the other grain. In
the cereals in general it is the thicker end of the seed that throws
out the root, the thinner end the blossom; while in the other seeds
both root and blossom issue from the same part.
During the winter, corn is in the blade; but in the spring winter
corn throws out a tall stem. As for millet and panic, they grow with
a jointed and grooved[103] stalk, while sesame has a stem resembling
that of fennel-giant. The fruit of all these seeds is either contained
in an ear, as in wheat and barley, for instance, and protected from
the attacks of birds and small animals by a prickly beard bristling
like so many palisades; or else it is enclosed in pods, as in the
leguminous plants, or in capsules, as in sesame and the poppy. Millet
and panic can only be said to belong to the grower and the small
birds in common, as they have nothing but a thin membrane to cover
them, without the slightest protection. Panic receives that name from
the panicule[104] or down that is to be seen upon it; the head of it
droops languidly, and the stalk tapers gradually in thickness, being
of almost the toughness and consistency of wood: the head is loaded
with grain closely packed, there being a tuft upon the top, nearly
a foot in length. In millet the husks which embrace the grain bend
downward with a wavy tuft upon the edge. There are several varieties
of panic, the mammose, for instance, the ears of which are in clusters
with small edgings of down, the head of the plant being double; it is
distinguished also according to the colour, the white, for instance,
the black, the red, and the purple even. Several kinds of bread are
made from millet, but very little from panic: there is no grain known
that weighs heavier than millet, and which swells more in baking. A
modius of millet will yield sixty pounds’ weight of bread; and three
sextarii steeped in water will make one modius of fermenty.[105] A kind
of millet[106] has been introduced from India into Italy within the
last ten years, of a swarthy colour, large grain, and a stalk like
that of the reed. This stalk springs up to the height of seven feet,
and has tufts of a remarkable size, known by the name of “phobæ.”[107]
This is the most prolific of all the cereals, for from a single grain
no less than three sextarii[108] are produced: it requires, however, to
be sown in a humid soil.
Some kinds of corn begin to form the ear at the third joint, and others
at the fourth, though at its first formation the ear remains still
concealed. Wheat, however, has four[109] articulations, spelt[110] six,
and barley eight. In the case of these last, the ear does not begin
to form before the number of joints, as above mentioned, is complete.
Within four or five days, at the very latest, after the ear has given
signs of forming, the plant begins to flower, and in the course of as
many days or a little more, sheds its blossom: barley blossoms at the
end of seven days at the very latest. Varro says that the grains are
perfectly formed at the end of four times[111] nine days from their
flowering, and are ready for cutting at the ninth month.
The bean, again, first appears in leaf, and then throws out a stalk,
which has no articulations[112] upon it. The other leguminous plants
have a tough, ligneous stalk, and some of them throw out branches,
the chick-pea, the fitch, and the lentil, for instance. In some of
the leguminous plants, the pea, for example, the stem creeps along
the ground, if care is not taken to support it by sticks: if this
precaution is omitted, the quality is deteriorated. The bean and the
lupine are the only ones among the leguminous plants that have a
single stem: in all the others the stem throws out branches, being of
a ligneous nature, very thin, and in all cases hollow. Some of these
plants throw out the leaves from the root, others at the top.[113]
Wheat, barley, and the vetch, all the plants, in fact, which produce
straw, have a single leaf only at the summit: in barley, however, this
leaf is rough, while in the others it is smooth. * * * In the bean,
again, the chick-pea, and the pea, the leaves are numerous and divided.
In corn the leaf is similar to that of the reed, while in the bean it
is round, as also in a great proportion of the leguminous plants. In
the ervilia[114] and the pea the leaf is long,[115] in the kidney-bean
veined, and in sesame[116] and irio the colour of blood. The lupine and
the poppy are the only ones among these plants that lose[117] their
leaves.
The leguminous plants remain a longer time in flower, the fitch and the
chick-pea more particularly; but the bean is in blossom the longest of
them all, for the flower remains on it forty days; not, indeed, that
each stalk retains its blossom for all that length of time, but, as the
flower goes off in one, it comes on in another. In the bean, too, the
crop is not ripe all at once, as is the case with corn; for the pods
make their appearance at different times, at the lowest parts first,
the blossom mounting upwards by degrees.
When the blossom is off in corn, the stalk gradually thickens, and it
ripens within forty days at the most. The same is the case, too, with
the bean, but the chick-pea takes a much shorter time to ripen; indeed,
it is fit for gathering within forty days from the time that it is
sown. Millet, panic, sesame, and all the summer grains are ripe within
forty days after blossoming, with considerable variations, of course,
in reference to soil and weather. Thus, in Egypt, we find barley cut
at the end of six months, and wheat at the end of seven, from the time
of sowing. In Hellas, again, barley is cut in the seventh month, and
in Peloponnesus in the eighth; the wheat being got in at a still later
period.
Those grains which grow on a stalk of straw are enclosed in an
envelope protected by a prickly beard; while in the bean and the
leguminous plants in general they are enclosed in pods upon branches
which shoot alternately from either side. The cereals are the best
able to withstand the winter, but the leguminous plants afford the
most substantial food. In wheat, the grain has several coats, but in
barley,[118] more particularly, it is naked and exposed; the same,
too, with arinca,[119] but most of all, the oat. The stem is taller in
wheat than it is in barley, but the ear is more bearded[120] in the
last. Wheat, barley, and winter-wheat[121] are threshed out; they are
cleaned, too, for sowing just as they are prepared for the mill, there
being no necessity for parching[122] them. Spelt, on the other hand,
millet, and panic, cannot be cleaned without parching them; hence it is
that they are always sown raw and with the chaff on. Spelt is preserved
in the husk, too, for sowing, and, of course, is not in such case
parched by the action of fire.
CHAP. 11.—SPELT.
Of all these grains barley is the lightest,[123] its weight rarely
exceeding fifteen pounds to the modius, while that of the bean is
twenty-two. Spelt is much heavier than barley, and wheat heavier than
spelt. In Egypt they make a meal[124] of olyra,[125] a third variety
of corn that grows there. The Gauls have also a kind of spelt peculiar
to that country: they give it the name of “brace,”[126] while to us it
is known as “sandala:” it has a grain of remarkable whiteness. Another
difference, again, is the fact that it yields nearly four pounds more
of bread to the modius than any other kind of spelt. Verrius states
that for three hundred years the Romans made use of no other meal than
that of corn.
CHAP. 12.—WHEAT.
There are numerous kinds of wheat which have received their names from
the countries where they were first produced. For my part, however,
I can compare no kind of wheat to that of Italy either for whiteness
or weight, qualities for which it is more particularly distinguished:
indeed it is only with the produce of the more mountainous parts of
Italy that the foreign wheats can be put in comparison. Among these
the wheat of Bœotia[127] occupies the first rank, that of Sicily the
second, and that of Africa the third. The wheats of Thrace, Syria,
and, more recently, of Egypt, used to hold the third rank for weight,
these facts having been ascertained through the medium of the athletes;
whose powers of consumption, equal to those of beasts of burden, have
established the gradations in weight, as already stated. Greece, too,
held the Pontic[128] wheat in high esteem; but this has not reached
Italy as yet. Of all the varieties of grain, however, the Greeks
gave the preference to the kinds called dracontion, strangia, and
Selinusium, the chief characteristic of which is a stem of remarkable
thickness: it was this, in the opinion of the Greeks, that marked
them as the peculiar growth of a rich soil. On the other hand, they
recommended for sowing in humid soils an extremely light and diminutive
species of grain, with a remarkably thin stalk, known to them as
speudias, and standing in need of an abundance of nutriment. Such, at
all events, were the opinions generally entertained in the reign of
Alexander the Great, at a time when Greece was at the height of her
glory, and the most powerful country in the world. Still, however,
nearly one hundred and forty-four years before the death of that prince
we find the poet Sophocles, in his Tragedy of “Triptolemus,” praising
the corn of Italy before all others. The passage, translated word for
word, is to the following effect:—
“And favour’d Italy grows white with hoary wheat.”
And it is this whiteness that is still one of the peculiar merits of
the Italian wheat; a circumstance which makes me the more surprised to
find that none of the Greek writers of a later period have made any
reference to it.
Of the various kinds of wheat which are imported at the present day
into Rome, the lightest in weight are those which come from Gaul and
Chersonnesus; for, upon weighing them, it will be found that they do
not yield more than twenty pounds to the modius. The grain of Sardinia
weighs half a pound more, and that of Alexandria one-third of a pound
more than that of Sardinia; the Sicilian wheat is the same in weight as
the Alexandrian. The Bœotian wheat, again, weighs a whole pound more
than these last, and that of Africa a pound and three quarters. In
Italy beyond the Padus, the spelt, to my knowledge, weighs twenty-five
pounds to the modius, and, in the vicinity of Clusium, six-and-twenty.
We find it a rule, universally established by Nature, that in every
kind of commissariat bread[129] that is made, the bread exceeds the
weight of the grain by one-third; and in the same way it is generally
considered that that is the best kind of wheat, which, in kneading,
will absorb one congius of water.[130] There are some kinds of wheat
which give, when used by themselves, an additional weight equal to
this: the Balearic wheat, for instance, which to a modius of grain
yields thirty-five pounds weight of bread. Others, again, will only
give this additional weight by being mixed with other kinds, the
Cyprian wheat and the Alexandrian, for example; which, if used by
themselves, will yield no more than twenty pounds to the modius. The
wheat of Cyprus is swarthy, and produces a dark bread; for which reason
it is generally mixed with the white wheat of Alexandria; the mixture
yielding twenty-five pounds of bread to the modius of grain. The wheat
of Thebais, in Egypt, when made into bread, yields twenty-six pounds
to the modius. To knead the meal with sea-water, as is mostly done
in the maritime districts, for the purpose of saving the salt, is
extremely pernicious; there is nothing, in fact, that will more readily
predispose the human body to disease. In Gaul and Spain, where they
make a drink[131] by steeping corn in the way that has been already
described—they employ the foam[132] which thickens upon the surface as
a leaven: hence it is that the bread in those countries is lighter than
that made elsewhere.
There are some differences, also, in the stem of wheat; for the better
the kind the thicker it is. In Thrace, the stem of the wheat is covered
with several coats,[133] which are rendered absolutely necessary by the
excessive cold of those regions. It is the cold, also, that led to the
discovery there of the three-month[134] wheat, the ground being covered
with snow most of the year. At the end mostly of three months after
it has been sown, this wheat is ready for cutting, both in Thrace and
in other parts of the world as well. This variety is well known, too,
throughout all the Alpine range, and in the northern provinces there
is no kind of wheat that is more prolific; it has a single stem only,
is by no means of large size in any part of it, and is never sown but
in a thin, light soil. There is a two-month[135] wheat also found in
the vicinity of Ænos, in Thrace, which ripens the fortieth day after
sowing; and yet it is a surprising fact, that there is no kind of wheat
that weighs heavier than this, while at the same time it produces no
bran. Both Sicily and Achaia grow it, in the mountainous districts
of those countries; as also Eubœa, in the vicinity of Carystus. So
greatly, then, is Columella in error,[136] in supposing that there is
no distinct variety of three-month wheat even; the fact being that
these varieties have been known from the very earliest times. The
Greeks give to these wheats the name of “setanion.” It is said that in
Bactria the grains of wheat are of such an enormous size, that a single
one is as large as our ears of corn.[137]
CHAP. 13.—BARLEY: RICE.
Of all the cereals the first that is sown is barley. We shall state
the appropriate time for sowing each kind when we come to treat of the
nature of each individually. In India, there is both a cultivated
and a wild[138] barley, from which they make excellent bread, as well
as alica.[139] But the most favourite food of all there is rice,[140]
from which they prepare a ptisan[141] similar to that made from barley
in other parts of the world. The leaves of rice are fleshy,[142] very
like those of the leek, but broader; the stem is a cubit in height, the
blossom purple, and the root globular, like a pearl in shape.[143]
CHAP. 14.—POLENTA.
Barley is one of the most ancient aliments of man, a fact that is
proved by a custom of the Athenians, mentioned by Menander,[144]
as also by the name of “hordearii,”[145] that used to be given to
gladiators. The Greeks, too, prefer barley to anything else for making
polenta.[146] This food is made in various ways: in Greece, the barley
is first steeped in water, and then left a night to dry. The next day
they parch it, and then grind it in the mill. Some persons parch it
more highly, and then sprinkle it again with a little water; after
which they dry it for grinding. Others shake the grain from out of the
ear while green, and, after cleaning and soaking it in water, pound it
in a mortar. They then wash the paste in baskets, and leave it to dry
in the sun; after which they pound it again, clean it, and grind it in
the mill. But whatever the mode of preparation adopted, the proportions
are always twenty pounds of barley to three pounds of linseed,[147]
half a pound of coriander, and fifteen drachmæ[148] of salt: the
ingredients are first parched, and then ground in the mill.
Those who want it for keeping, store it in new earthen vessels, with
fine flour and bran. In Italy, the barley is parched without being
steeped in water, and then ground to a fine meal, with the addition
of the ingredients already mentioned, and some millet as well. Barley
bread, which was extensively used by the ancients, has now fallen into
universal disrepute, and is mostly used as a food for cattle only.
CHAP. 15.—PTISAN.
With barley, too, the food called ptisan[149] is made, a most
substantial and salutary aliment, and one that is held in very high
esteem. Hippocrates, one of the most famous writers on medical science,
has devoted a whole volume to the praises of this aliment. The ptisan
of the highest quality is that which is made at Utica; that of Egypt
is prepared from a kind of barley, the grain of which grows with two
points.[150] In Bætica and Africa, the kind of barley from which this
food is made is that which Turranius calls the “smooth”[151] barley:
the same author expresses an opinion, too, that olyra[152] and rice are
the same. The method of preparing ptisan is universally known.
CHAP. 16.—TRAGUM.
In a similar manner, too, tragum is prepared from seed[153] wheat, but
only in Campania and Egypt.
CHAP. 17.—AMYLUM.
Amylum is prepared from every kind of wheat, and from winter-wheat[154]
as well; but the best of all is that made from three-month wheat.
The invention of it we owe to the island of Chios, and still, at the
present day, the most esteemed kind comes from there; it derives its
name from its being made without the help of the mill.[155] Next to the
amylum made with three-month wheat, is that which is prepared from the
lighter kinds of wheat. In making it, the grain is soaked in fresh
water, placed in wooden vessels; care being taken to keep it covered
with the liquid, which is changed no less than five times in the course
of the day. If it can be changed at night as well, it is all the better
for it, the object being to let it imbibe the water gradually and
equally. When it is quite soft, but before it turns sour, it is passed
through linen cloth, or else wicker-work, after which it is poured out
upon a tile covered with leaven, and left to harden in the sun. Next to
the amylum of Chios, that of Crete is the most esteemed, and next to
that the Ægyptian. The tests of its goodness are its being light and
smooth: it should be used, too, while it is fresh. Cato,[156] among our
writers, has made mention of it.
CHAP. 18.—THE NATURE OF BARLEY.
Barley-meal, too, is employed for medicinal purposes; and it is a
curious fact, that for beasts of burden they make a paste of it, which
is first hardened by the action of fire, and then ground. It is then
made up into balls, which are introduced with the hand into the paunch,
the result of which is, that the vigour and muscular strength of the
animal is considerably increased. In some kinds of barley, the ears
have two rows of grains,[157] and in others more; in some cases, as
many as six.[158] The grain itself, too, presents certain differences,
being long and thin, or else short or round, white, black,[159] or,
in some instances, of a purple colour. This last kind is employed for
making polenta: the white is ill adapted for standing the severity
of the weather. Barley is the softest of all the grains: it can only
be sown in a dry, loose soil,[160] but fertile withal. The chaff of
barley ranks among the very best; indeed, for litter there is none that
can be compared with it. Of all grain, barley is the least exposed to
accidents, as it is gathered before the time that mildew begins to
attack wheat; for which reason it is that the provident agriculturist
sows only as much wheat as may be required for food. The saying is,
that “barley is sown in a money-bag,” because it so soon returns a
profit. The most prolific kind of all is that which is got in at
Carthage,[161] in Spain, in the month of April. It is in the same month
that it is sown in Celtiberia, and yet it yields two harvests in the
same year. All kinds of barley are cut sooner than other grain, and
immediately after they are ripe; for the straw is extremely brittle,
and the grain is enclosed in a husk of remarkable thinness. It is said,
too, that a better polenta[162] is made from it, if it is gathered
before it is perfectly ripe.
CHAP. 19. (8.)—ARINCA, AND OTHER KINDS OF GRAIN THAT ARE GROWN IN THE
EAST.
The several kinds of corn are not everywhere the same; and even where
they are the same, they do not always bear a similar name. The kinds
most universally grown are spelt, by the ancients known as “adorea,”
winter wheat,[163] and wheat;[164] all these being common to many
countries. Arinca was originally peculiar to Gaul, though now it
is widely diffused over Italy as well. Egypt, too, Syria, Cilicia,
Asia, and Greece, have their own peculiar kinds, known by the names
of zea,[165] olyra, and tiphe.[166] In Egypt, they make a fine flour
from wheat of their own growth, but it is by no means equal to that of
Italy. Those countries which employ zea, have no spelt. Zea, however,
is to be found in Italy, and in Campania more particularly, where
it is known by the name of “seed.”[167] The grain that bears this
name enjoys a very considerable celebrity, as we shall have occasion
to state[168] on another occasion; and it is in honour of this that
Homer[169] uses the expression, ζείδωρος ἄρουρα, and not, as
some suppose, from the fact of the earth giving life.[170] Amylum is
made, too, from this grain, but of a coarser[171] quality than the
kind already mentioned;[172] this, however, is the only difference that
is perceptible.
The most hardy kind, however, of all the grains is spelt, and the best
to stand the severity of the weather; it will grow in the very coldest
places, as also in localities that are but half tilled, or soils that
are extremely hot, and destitute of water. This was the earliest food
of the ancient inhabitants of Latium; a strong proof of which is the
distributions of adorea that were made in those times, as already
stated.[173] It is evident, too, that the Romans subsisted for a long
time upon pottage,[174] and not bread; for we find that from its name
of “puls,” certain kinds of food are known, even at the present day,
as “pulmentaria.”[175] Ennius, too, the most ancient of our poets,
in describing the famine in a siege, relates how that the parents
snatched away the messes of pottage[176] from their weeping children.
At the present day, even, the sacrifices in conformity with the ancient
rites, as well as those offered upon birthdays, are made with parched
pottage.[177] This food appears to have been as much unknown in those
days in Greece as polenta was in Italy.
CHAP. 20.—WINTER WHEAT. SIMILAGO, OR FINE FLOUR.
There is no grain that displays a greater avidity than wheat, and
none that absorbs a greater quantity of nutriment. With all propriety
I may justly call winter wheat[178] the very choicest of all the
varieties of wheat. It is white, destitute of all flavour,[179] and not
oppressive[180] to the stomach. It suits moist localities particularly
well, such as we find in Italy and Gallia Comata; but beyond the
Alps it is found to maintain its character only in the territory of
the Allobroges and that of the Memini; for in the other parts of
those countries it degenerates at the end of two years into common
wheat.[181] The only method of preventing this is to take care and sow
the heaviest grains only.
(9.) Winter wheat furnishes bread of the very finest quality and the
most esteemed delicacies of the bakers. The best bread that is known
in Italy is made from a mixture of Campanian winter wheat with that
of Pisæ. The Campanian kind is of a redder colour, while the latter
is white; when mixed with chalk,[182] it is increased in weight. The
proper proportion for the yield of Campanian wheat to the modius of
grain is four sextarii of what is known as bolted flour;[183] but when
it is used in the rough and has not been bolted, then the yield should
be five sextarii of flour. In addition to this, in either case there
should be half a modius of white meal, with four sextarii of coarse
meal, known as “seconds,” and the same quantity of bran.[184] The Pisan
wheat produces five sextarii of fine flour to the modius; in other
respects it yields the same as that of Campania. The wheat of Clusium
and Arretium gives another sextarius of fine flour, but the yield is
similar to that of the kinds already mentioned in all other respects.
If, however, as much of it as possible is converted into fine wheat
meal, the modius will yield sixteen pounds weight of white bread,
and three of seconds, with half a modius of bran. These differences,
however, depend very materially upon the grinding; for when the grain
is ground quite dry it produces more meal, but when sprinkled with salt
water[185] a whiter flour, though at the same time a greater quantity
of bran. It is very evident that “farina,” the name we give to meal, is
derived from “far.” A modius of meal made from Gallic winter wheat,
yields twenty-two pounds of bread; while that of Italy, if made into
bread baked in tins,[186] will yield two or three pounds more. When the
bread is baked in the oven,[187] two pounds must be added in weight in
either case.
(10.) Wheat yields a fine flour[188] of the very highest quality. In
African wheat the modius ought to yield half a modius of fine flour and
five sextarii of pollen, that being the name given to fine wheat meal,
in the same way that that of winter wheat is generally known as “flos,”
or the “flower.” This fine meal is extensively used in copper works
and paper manufactories. In addition to the above, the modius should
yield four sextarii of coarse meal, and the same quantity of bran.
The finest wheaten flour will yield one hundred[189] and twenty-two
pounds of bread, and the fine meal of winter wheat one hundred[189]
and seventeen, to the modius of grain. When the prices of grain are
moderate, meal sells at forty asses the modius, bolted wheaten flour at
eight asses more, and bolted flour of winter wheat, at sixteen asses
more. There is another distinction again in fine wheaten flour, which
originated formerly in the days of L. Paulus. There were three classes
of wheat; the first of which would appear to have yielded seventeen
pounds of bread, the second eighteen, and the third nineteen pounds and
a third: to these were added two pounds and a half of seconds,[190] and
the same quantity of brown[190] bread, with six sextarii of bran.[191]
Winter wheat never ripens all at once, and yet there is none of the
cereals that can so ill brook any delay; it being of so delicate a
nature, that the ears directly they are ripe will begin to shed their
grain. So long, however, as it is in stalk, it is exposed to fewer
risks than other kinds of wheat, from the fact of its always having
the ear upright, and not retaining the dew, which is a prolific cause
of mildew.
From arinca[192] a bread of remarkable sweetness is made. The grains
in this variety lie closer than they do in spelt; the ear, too, is
larger and more weighty. It is rarely the case that a modius of this
grain does not weigh full sixteen pounds. In Greece they find great
difficulty in threshing it; and hence it is that we find Homer[193]
saying that it is given to beasts of burden, this being the same as
the grain that he calls “olyra.” In Egypt it is threshed without
any difficulty, and is remarkably prolific. Spelt has no beard, and
the same is the case with winter wheat, except[194] that known as
the Laconian variety. To the kinds already mentioned we have to add
bromos,[195] the winter wheat just excepted, and tragos,[196] all
of them exotics introduced from the East, and very similar to rice.
Tiphe[197] also belongs to the same class, from which in our part
of the world a cleaned grain resembling rice is prepared. Among the
Greeks, too, there is the grain known as zea; and it is said that
this, as well as tiphe, when cleaned from the husk and sown, will
degenerate[198] and assume the form of wheat; not immediately, but in
the course of three years.
CHAP. 21.—THE FRUITFULNESS OF AFRICA IN WHEAT.
There is no grain more prolific than wheat, Nature having bestowed
upon it this quality, as being the substance which she destined for
the principal nutriment of man. A modius of wheat, if the soil is
favourable, as at Byzacium,[199] a champaign district of Africa,
will yield as much as one hundred and fifty[200] modii of grain. The
procurator of the late Emperor Augustus sent him from that place—a fact
almost beyond belief—little short of four hundred shoots all springing
from a single grain; and we have still in existence his letters on the
subject. In a similar manner, too, the procurator of Nero sent him
three hundred and sixty stalks all issuing from a single grain.[201]
The plains of Leontium in Sicily, and other places in that island,
as well as the whole of Bætica, and Egypt more particularly, yield
produce a hundred-fold. The most prolific kinds of wheat are the ramose
wheat,[202] and that known as the “hundred-grain”[203] wheat. Before
now, as many as one hundred beans, too, have been found on a single
stalk.
CHAP. 22.—SESAME. ERYSIMUM, OR IRIO. HORMINUM.
We have spoken[204] of sesame, millet, and panic as belonging to the
summer grains. Sesame[205] comes from India, where they extract an
oil from it; the colour of its grain is white. Similar in appearance
to this is the erysimum of Asia and Greece, and indeed it would be
identical with it were it not that the grain is better filled.[206]
It is the same grain that is known among us as “irio;” and strictly
speaking, ought rather to be classed among the medicaments than the
cereals. Of the same nature, too, is the plant called “horminum”[207]
by the Greeks, though resembling cummin[208] in appearance; it is sown
at the same time as sesame: no animal will eat either this or irio
while green.
CHAP. 23.—THE MODE OF GRINDING CORN.
All the grains are not easily broken. In Etruria they first parch the
spelt in the ear, and then pound it with a pestle shod with iron at
the end. In this instrument the iron is notched[209] at the bottom,
sharp ridges running out like the edge of a knife, and concentrating
in the form of a star; so that if care is not taken to hold the pestle
perpendicularly while pounding, the grains will only be splintered and
the iron teeth broken. Throughout the greater part of Italy, however,
they employ a pestle that is only rough[210] at the end, and wheels
turned by water, by means of which the corn is gradually ground. I
shall here set forth the opinions given by Mago as to the best method
of pounding corn. He says that the wheat should be steeped first of
all in water, and then cleaned from the husk; after which it should be
dried in the sun, and then pounded with the pestle; the same plan, he
says, should be adopted in the preparation of barley. In the latter
case, however, twenty sextarii of grain require only two sextarii of
water. When lentils are used, they should be first parched, and then
lightly pounded with the bran; or else, adopting another method, a
piece of unbaked brick and half a modius of sand[211] should be added
to every twenty sextarii of lentils.
Ervilia should be treated in the same way as lentils. Sesame should
be first steeped in warm water, and then laid out to dry, after which
it should be rubbed out briskly, and then thrown into cold water, so
that the chaff may be disengaged by floating to the surface. After
this is done, the grain should again be spread out in the sun, upon
linen cloths, to dry. Care, however, should be taken to lose no time
in doing this, as it is apt to turn musty, and assume a dull, livid
colour. The grains, too, which are just cleaned from the husk, require
various methods of pounding. When the beard is ground by itself,
without the grain, the result is known as “acus,”[212] but it is only
used by goldsmiths.[213] If, on the other hand, it is beaten out on
the threshing-floor, together with the straw, the chaff has the name of
“palea,” * * * * and in most parts of the world is employed as fodder
for beasts of burden. The residue of millet, panic, and sesame, is
known to us as “apluda;” but in other countries it is called by various
other names.
CHAP. 24.—MILLET.
Campania is particularly prolific in millet, and a fine white porridge
is made from it: it makes a bread, too, of remarkable sweetness. The
nations of Sarmatia[214] live principally on this porridge, and even
the raw meal, with the sole addition of mares’ milk, or else blood[215]
extracted from the thigh of the horse. The Æthiopians know of no other
grain but millet and barley.
CHAP. 25.—PANIC.
The people of Gaul, and of Aquitania[216] more particularly, make use
of panic; the same is the case, too, in Italy beyond the Padus, with
the addition, however, of the bean, without which they prepare none
of their food. There is no aliment held in higher esteem than panic
by the nations of Pontus. The other summer grains thrive better in
well-watered soils than in rainy localities; but water is by no means
beneficial to millet or panic when they are coming into blade. It
is recommended not to sow them among vines or fruit-trees, as it is
generally thought that these crops impoverish the soil.
CHAP. 26. (11)—THE VARIOUS KINDS OF LEAVEN.
Millet is more particularly employed for making leaven; and if kneaded
with must,[217] it will keep a whole year. The same is done, too, with
the fine wheat-bran of the best quality; it is kneaded with white must
three days old, and then dried in the sun, after which it is made
into small cakes. When required for making bread, these cakes are
first soaked in water, and then boiled with the finest spelt flour,
after which the whole is mixed up with the meal; and it is generally
thought that this is the best method of making bread. The Greeks have
established a rule that for a modius of meal eight ounces of leaven is
enough.
These kinds of leaven, however, can only be made at the time of
vintage, but there is another leaven which may be prepared with barley
and water, at any time it may happen to be required. It is first made
up into cakes of two pounds in weight, and these are then baked upon
a hot hearth, or else in an earthen dish upon hot ashes and charcoal,
being left till they turn of a reddish brown. When this is done, the
cakes are shut close in vessels, until they turn quite sour: when
wanted for leaven, they are steeped in water first. When barley bread
used to be made, it was leavened with the meal of the fitch,[218] or
else the chicheling vetch,[219] the proportion being, two pounds of
leaven to two modii and a half of barley meal. At the present day,
however, the leaven is prepared from the meal that is used for making
the bread. For this purpose, some of the meal is kneaded before adding
the salt, and is then boiled to the consistency of porridge, and left
till it begins to turn sour. In most cases, however, they do not warm
it at all, but only make use of a little of the dough that has been
kept from the day before. It is very evident that the principle which
causes the dough to rise is of an acid nature, and it is equally
evident that those persons who are dieted upon fermented bread are
stronger[220] in body. Among the ancients, too, it was generally
thought that the heavier wheat is, the more wholesome it is.
CHAP. 27.—THE METHOD OF MAKING BREAD: ORIGIN OF THE ART.
It seems to me quite unnecessary to enter into an account of
the various kinds of bread that are made. Some kinds, we find,
receive their names from the dishes with which they are eaten, the
oyster-bread,[221] for instance: others, again, from their peculiar
delicacy, the artolaganus,[222] or cake-bread, for example; and
others from the expedition with which they are prepared, such as the
“speusticus,”[223] or “hurry-bread.” Other varieties receive their
names from the peculiar method of baking them, such as oven-bread,[224]
tin-bread,[225] and mould-bread.[226] It is not so very long since that
we had a bread introduced from Parthia, known as water-bread,[227] from
a method in kneading it, of drawing out the dough by the aid of water,
a process which renders it remarkably light, and full of holes, like
a sponge: some call this Parthian bread. The excellence of the finest
kinds of bread depends principally on the goodness of the wheat, and
the fineness of the bolter. Some persons knead the dough with eggs or
milk, and butter even has been employed for the purpose by nations
that have had leisure to cultivate the arts of peace, and to give
their attention to the art of making pastry. Picenum still maintains
its ancient reputation for making the bread which it was the first to
invent, alica[228] being the grain employed. The flour is kept in soak
for nine days, and is kneaded on the tenth with raisin juice, in the
shape of long rolls; after which it is baked in an oven in earthen
pots, till they break. This bread, however, is never eaten till it has
been well[229] soaked, which is mostly done in milk mixed with honey.
CHAP. 28.—WHEN BAKERS WERE FIRST INTRODUCED AT ROME.
There were no bakers at Rome until[230] the war with King Perseus, more
than five hundred and eighty years after the building of the City. The
ancient Romans used to make their own bread, it being an occupation
which belonged to the women, as we see the case in many nations even
at the present day. Plautus speaks of the artopta, or bread-tin, in
his Comedy of the Aulularia,[231] though there has been considerable
discussion for that very reason among the learned, whether or not that
line really belongs to him. We have the fact, too, well ascertained, in
the opinion of Ateius Capito, that the cooks in those days were in the
habit of making the bread for persons of affluence, while the name of
“pistor”[232] was only given to the person who pounded, or “pisebat,”
the spelt. In those times, they had no cooks in the number of their
slaves, but used to hire them for the occasion from the market. The
Gauls were the first to employ the bolter that is made of horse-hair;
while the people of Spain make their sieves and meal-dressers of
flax,[233] and the Egyptians of papyrus and rushes.
CHAP. 29.—ALICA.
But among the very first things of all, we ought to speak of the
method employed in preparing alica,[234] a most delightful and most
wholesome food, and which incontestably confers upon Italy the highest
rank among the countries that produce the cereals. This delicacy is
prepared, no doubt, in Egypt as well, but of a very inferior quality,
and not worth our notice. In Italy, however, it is prepared in numerous
places, the territories of Verona and Pisæ, for example; but that of
Campania is the most highly esteemed. There, at the foot of mountains
capped with clouds, runs a plain, not less in all than forty miles
in extent. The land here—to give a description first of the nature
of the soil—is dusty on the surface, but spongy below, and as porous
as pumice. The inconveniences that generally arise from the close
vicinity of mountains are here converted into so many advantages: for
the soil, acting on it as a sort of filter, absorbs the water of the
abundant rains that fall; the consequence of which is, that the water
not being left to soak or form mud on the surface, the cultivation is
greatly facilitated thereby. This land does not return, by the aid of
any springs, the moisture it has thus absorbed, but thoroughly digests
it, by warming it in its bosom, in a heated oven as it were. The ground
is kept cropped the whole year through, once with panic, and twice
with spelt; and yet in the spring, when the soil is allowed to have a
moment’s repose, it will produce roses more odoriferous by far than
the cultivated rose: for the earth here is never tired of producing,
a circumstance in which originated the common saying, that Campania
produces more unguents[235] than other countries do oil.
In the same degree, however, that the Campanian soil excels that of
all other countries, so does that part of it which is known to us as
Laboriæ,[236] and to the Greeks as Phlegræum, surpass all the rest.
This district is bounded on two sides by the consular high road, which
leads from Puteoli to Capua on the one side, and from Cumæ on the other.
Alica is prepared from the grain called zea, which we have already
mentioned[237] as being known to us as “seed” wheat. The grain is
cleansed in a wooden mortar, for fear lest stone, from its hardness,
should have the effect of grating it. The motive power for raising the
pestle, as is generally known, is supplied by slaves working in chains,
the end of it being enclosed in a case of iron. After the husks have
been removed by this process, the pure grain is broken to pieces, the
same implements being employed. In this way, there are three different
kinds of alica made, the finest, the seconds, and the coarse, which
last is known as “aphærema.”[238] Still, however, these various
kinds have none of them that whiteness as yet for which they are so
distinguished, though even now they are preferable to the Alexandrian
alica. With this view—a most singular fact—chalk[239] is mixed with
the meal, which, upon becoming well incorporated with it, adds very
materially to both the whiteness and the shortness[240] of the mixture.
This chalk is found between Puteoli and Neapolis, upon a hill called
Leucogæum;[241] and there is still in existence a decree of the late
Emperor Augustus, (who established a colony at Capua), which orders a
sum of twenty thousand sesterces to be paid annually from his exchequer
to the people of Neapolis, for the lease of this hill. His motive for
paying this rent, he stated, was the fact that the people of Campania
had alleged that it was impossible to make their alica without the
help of this mineral. In the same hill, sulphur is found as well, and
the springs of Araxus issue from its declivities, the waters of which
are particularly efficacious for strengthening the sight, healing
wounds, and preventing the teeth from becoming loose.
A spurious kind of alica is made, more particularly of a degenerate
kind of zea grown in Africa; the ears of it are larger and blacker
than those of the genuine kind, and the straw is short. This grain is
pounded with sand, and even then it is with the greatest difficulty
that the outer coats are removed; when stripped, the grain fills one
half only of the original measure. Gypsum, in the proportion of one
fourth, is then sprinkled[242] over it, and after the mixture has been
well incorporated, it is bolted through a meal-sieve. The portion that
remains behind, after this is done, is known as “excepticia,”[243] and
consists of the coarser parts; while that which has passed through is
submitted to a second process, with a finer sieve; and that which then
refuses to pass has the name of “secundaria.”[244] That, again, which,
in a similar manner, is submitted to a third sifting, with a sieve of
the greatest fineness, which will only admit of sand passing through
it, is known as “cribraria,”[245] when it remains on the top of the
sieve.
There is another method, again, that is employed every where for
adulterating it. They pick out the whitest and largest grains of wheat,
and parboil them in earthen pots; these are then dried in the sun till
they have regained their original size, after which they are lightly
sprinkled with water, and then ground in a mill. A better granæum[246]
is made from zea than from wheat, although it is nothing else, in fact,
but a spurious alica: it is whitened by the addition of boiled milk, in
place of chalk.
CHAP. 30. (12.)—THE LEGUMINOUS PLANTS: THE BEAN.