Translated by H.Rackham (1952), with some minor alterations. Click on the L symbols to go to the Latin text of each chapter.
← Book 12
{1.} L [1] This is the degree to which the forests are valuable in the matter of scents; and their various products were not sufficiently remarkable by themselves, and luxury took pleasure in mixing them all up together and making a single scent out of the combination: thus perfumes were invented. [2] It is not recorded who first discovered them. In the days of the Trojan War they did not exist, and incense was not used when prayers were made to the gods: even in the rites of religion people only knew the scent of cedar and citrus wood, trees of their own country, or more truly the reek, as it rose in wreaths of smoke, though attar of roses had already been discovered, for it also is specified as an ingredient in commending olive oil. [3] Perfume ought by right to be accredited to the Persian race: they soak themselves in it, and quench the odour produced from dirt by its adventitious attraction. The first case that I am able to discover was when a chest of perfumes was captured by Alexander among the rest of the property of King Darius when his camp was taken. Afterwards the pleasure of perfume was also admitted by our fellow-countrymen as well among the most elegant and also most honourable enjoyments of life, and even began to be an appropriate tribute to the dead; and consequently we will enlarge on the subject. Those among perfumes which are not the product of shrubs will for the present only be indicated by their names; however, an account will be given of their nature in their proper places.
{2.} L [4] Perfumes have received their names in some cases from their countries of origin, in others from the juices of which they are made, in others from trees, and in others front other causes; and the first thing proper to know about them is that their importance changes, quite often their fame having passed away. The perfume most highly praised in the old days was made on the island of Delos, but later that from the Egyptian town of Mendes ranked the highest. Nor was this only the result of the blending and combination of several scents, but the same juices gained supremacy or degenerated in various ways in different places. [5] The sword-lily perfume of Corinth was extremely popular for a long time, but afterwards that of Cyzicus, and similarly the attar of roses made at Phaselis, but this distinction was later taken from it by Neapolis, Capua and Praeneste. Oil of saffron from Soli in Cilicia was for a long time praised most highly, but subsequently that of Rhodes; vine-flower scent made in Cyprus was preferred, but afterwards that from Adramytteum, and scent of marjoram made in Cos, but afterwards quince-blossom unguent from the same place, and cyprus-scent made in Cyprus, but subsequently that made in Egypt; at this point scent from Mendes and almond-oil suddenly became more popular, [6] but later on Phoenicia appropriated these two scents and left the credit for cyprus-scent to Egypt. Athens has persistently maintained the credit of her 'all-Athenian' perfume. There was also once an unguent called panther-scent at Tarsus, even the recipe for compounding which has disappeared; narcissus-scent has also ceased to be made from the narcissus flower.
[7] The recipe for making unguents contains two ingredients, the juice and the solid part, the former which usually consists of various sorts of oil and the latter of scented substances, the oils being called 'astringents' and the scents 'sweetenings.' Together with these there is a third factor that many people neglect - that of colour, for the sake of which cinnabar and alkanet should be added. A sprinkle of salt serves to preserve the properties of the oil, but to scents containing an admixture of alkanet salt is not added. Resin or gum are added to retain the scent in the solid part, as it evaporates and disappears very quickly if these are not added.
[8] The unguent most quickly made and probably the first invented was made of bryon and behen-oil, of which we have spoken above { 12.108 }. Later the Mendes scent came in, made of behen-oil, resin and myrrh, and at the present day metopium is even more popular; this is an oil made in Egypt, pressed out of bitter almonds, with the addition of omphacium { see 12.130 }, cardamom, rush, reed, honey, wine, myrrh, seed of balsam, galbanum and terebinth-resin. [9] One of the commonest unguents indeed - and at the present day it is consequently believed also to be one of the oldest - is one made of myrtle-oil, reed, cypress, cypros, mastic-oil and pomegranate rind. But I am inclined to believe that the scents most widely used are those made from the rose, which grows in great abundance everywhere; and so the simplest compound was for a long time that of oil of roses, though additional ingredients used are omphacium, rose and saffron blossoms, cinnabar, reed, honey, rush, flower of salt or else alkanet, and wine. [10] A similar method also is used in the case of oil of saffron with the addition of cinnabar, alkanet and wine, and also a similar method in the case of oil of marjoram, by mixing in omphacium and reed; this is best in Cyprus and at Mitylene, where marjoram is very plentiful. Also cheaper kinds of oil are compounded out of myrtle and laurel with the addition of marjoram, lilies, fenugreek, myrrh, casia, nard, rush and cinnamon. [11] There is also an oil made from the common quince and the sparrow-quince, as we shall say later; it is called melinum, and is used as an ingredient in unguents with a mixture of omphacium, oil of cyprus, oil of sesame, balsam, rush, casia and southernwood. The most fluid of them all is susinum, made of lilies, oil of behen-nut, reed, honey, cinnamon, saffron and myrrh; [12] and next is oil of cyprus, made of cyprus, omphacium, cardamom, reed, rosewood and southernwood; some people also add oil of cypros and myrrh and all-heal; the best is that made at Sidon and the next best in Egypt. But if oil of sesame is added, the mixture will last as long as four years; and its scent is brought out by the addition of cinnamon.
[13] Unguent of fenugreek is made of fresh olive-oil, cypros, reed, melilot, fenngreek, honey, cat-thyme and scent of marjoram. This was much the most celebrated unguent in the time of Menander, the author of comedies; but afterwards its place was taken by megalium, so called because of its celebrity as this was made of behen-nut oil, balsam, reed, rush, wood-balsam, casia and resin. A peculiarity of this unguent is that it must be constantly stirred while boiling until it ceases to have any odour, and when it becomes cold it recovers its scent.
[14] There are also some juices which separately produce famous perfumes - in the first place cinnamon-leaf, then the Illyrian iris and the sweet marjoram of Cyzicus, both of the herb class. Some few other ingredients are united with these, different ones by different makers, those who use the most mixing with one or the other honey, flower of salt, omphacium, leaves of the agnus castus, all-heal, and all sorts of foreign substances. [15] Also unguent of cinnamon fetches enormous prices; to cinnamon is added behen-nut oil, wood-balsam, reed, seeds of rush and balsam, myrrh and scented honey. This is the thickest in consistency of all the unguents; its prices range from 35 to 300 denarii. Spikenard or leaf-unguent is made of omphacium or else behen-nut oil, rush, costus, nard, amomum, myrrh and balsam.
[16] Under this heading it will be suitable to recall that we mentioned nine species of plants that resemble the Indian nard: such a large supply of material is available for purposes of adulteration. They can all be rendered more pungent by the addition of costus and amomum, which have an extremely powerful scent, and thicker in consistency and sweeter by means of myrrh, while their utility for medicine is increased by adding saffron; but they will be rendered extremely penetrating in themselves by means of amomum - this actually causes headache. Some people hold it enough to add a sprinkle of the most expensive ingredients to the others after boiling them down, as an economy, but the mixture has not the same strength unless they are all boiled down together. [17] Myrrh even when used by itself without oil makes an unguent, provided that the staete kind is used - otherwise it produces too bitter a flavour. Unguent of cypros produces a green colour, lily unguent gives a greasy consistency, oil of Mendes makes the mixture black, attar of roses white, and myrrh gives a pale hue.
These are the kinds of perfumes invented in early times, and the subsequent pilferings of the factories. We will now speak of what is the very climax of luxury and the most important example of this commodity.
[18] What then is called the 'royal' unguent, because it is a blend prepared for the kings of Parthia, is made of behen-nut juice, costus, amomum, Syrian cinnamon, cardamom, spikenard, cat-thyme, myrrh, cinnamon-bark, styrax-tree gum, ladanum, balm, Syrian reed and Syrian rush, wild grape, cinnamon-leaf, serichatum, cypros, rosewood, all-heal, saffron, gladiolus, marjoram, lotus, honey and wine. And none of the components of this scent is grown in Italy, the conqueror of the world, and indeed none in the whole of Europe excepting the iris in Illyria and nard in Gaul - for as to wine and roses and myrtle leaves and olive oil, they may be taken as belonging to pretty well all countries in common.
{3.} L [19] What are called sprinkling powders are made of dried scents, the dregs of unguents being termed 'magma.' Among all the scents employed the one added last is the most powerful. Unguents keep best in alabaster boxes, scents when mixed with oil, and the fatter it is, as for instance oil of almonds, the better it helps to preserve them for a long time; and the unguents themselves improve with age. Sunshine is detrimental to them, and therefore they are stored in the shade, in vessels made of lead. When being tested they are put on the back of the hand, to avoid their being damaged by the warmth of the fleshy part.
{4.} L [20] Perfumes serve the purpose of the most superfluous of all forms of luxury; for pearls and jewels do nevertheless pass to the wearer's heir, and clothes last for some time, but unguents lose their scent at once, and die in the very hour when they are used. Their highest recommendation is that when a woman passes by her scent may attract the attention even of persons occupied in something else - and their cost is more than 400 denarii per pound! All that money is paid for a pleasure enjoyed by somebody else, for a person carrying scent about him does not smell it himself. [21] Still, if even these matters deserve to be graded after a fashion, we find in the works left by Marcus Cicero that unguents that have an earthy scent are more agreeable than those smelling of saffron, inasmuch as even in a class of things where corruption is most rife, nevertheless some degree of strictness in vice itself gives more enjoyment. But there are people who get most pleasure from unguent of a dense consistency, which they call thick essence, and who enjoy smearing themselves with perfume and not merely pouring it over them. [22] We have even seen people put scent on the soles of their feet, a practice said to have been taught to the emperor Nero by Marcus Otho; pray, how could it be noticed or give any pleasure from that part of the body? Moreover, we have heard that somebody of private station gave orders for the walls of his bathroom to be sprinkled with scent, and that the Emperor Caligula had the bathtubs scented, and so also later did one of the slaves of Nero - so that this must not be considered a privilege of princes! [23] Yet what is most surprising is that this indulgence has found its way even into the camp: at all events the eagles and the standards, dusty as they are and bristling with sharp points, are anointed on holidays - and I only wish we were able to say who first introduced this custom! No doubt the fact is that our eagles were bribed by this reward to conquer the world! We look to their patronage forsooth to sanction our vices, so as to have this legitimation for using hair-oil under a helmet!
{5.} L [24] I could not readily say when the use of unguents first made its way to Rome. It is certain that after the defeat of king Antiochus and of Asia, in A.U.C. 565 { 189 B.C. - but the names of the censors belong to 89 B.C. }, the censors Publius Licinius Crassus and Lucius Julius Caesar issued a proclamation forbidding any sale of 'foreign essences' - that being the regular name for them. [25] But, good heavens! nowadays some people actually put scent in their drinks, and it is worth the bitter flavour for their body to enjoy the lavish scent both inside and outside. It is a well-known fact that Lucius Plotius, the brother of Lucius Plancus who was twice consul and censor, when proscribed by the triumvirs was given away in his hiding-place at Salernum by the scent of the unguent he had been using - a disgrace that acquitted the entire proscription of guilt, for who would not consider that people of that sort deserved to die?
{6.} L [26] In other respects Egypt is of all the countries in the world the best adapted for the production of unguents, but Campania with its abundance of roses runs it close. But Judaea is even more famous for its palm-trees, the nature of which will now be described. It is true that there are also palms in Europe, and they are common in Italy, but these are barren. In the coastal regions of Spain they do bear fruit, but it does not ripen, and in Africa the fruit is sweet but will not keep for any time. [27] On the other hand in the east the palm supplies the native races with wine, and some of them with bread, while a very large number rely on it also for cattle fodder. For this reason, therefore, we shall be justified in describing the palms of foreign countries; there are none in Italy not grown under cultivation, nor are there in any other part of the earth except where there is a warm climate, while only in really hot countries does the palm bear fruit.
{7.} L [28] It grows in a light sandy soil and for the most part in one containing nitrates. It likes running water, and to drink all the year round, though it loves dry places. Some people think that dung actually does it harm, while a section of the Assyrians think that this happens if they do not mix the dung with water from a stream. There are several kinds of palm, beginning with kinds not larger than a shrub - a shrub that in some cases is barren, though in other districts it too bears fruit - and having a short branch. In number of places this shrub-palm with its dome of leaves serves instead of plaster for the walls of a house, to prevent their sweating. [29] Also the taller palms make a regular forest, their pointed foliage shooting out from the actual tree all round them like a comb - these it must be understood are wild palms, though they also have a wayward fancy for mingling among the cultivated varieties. The other kinds are rounded and tall, and have compact rows of knobs or circles in their bark which render them easy for the eastern races to climb; they put a plaited noose round themselves and round the tree, and the noose goes up with the man at an astonishingly rapid speed. [30] All the foliage is at the top of the tree, and so is the fruit, which is not among the leaves as in all other trees, but hanging in bunches from shoots of its own between the branches, and which has the nature of both a cluster and a single fruit. The leaves have a knife-like edge at the sides and are divided into two flanges that fold together; they first suggested folding tablets for writing, but at the present day they are split up to make ropes and plaited wickerwork and parasols.
[31] The most devoted students of nature report that trees, indeed all the products of the earth and even grasses, are of both sexes, a fact which it may at this place be sufficient to state in general terms although in no trees is it more manifest than in the palm. A male palm forms a blossom on the shoot, whereas a female merely forms a bud like an ear of corn, without going on to blossom. In both male and female, however, the flesh of the fruit forms first and the woody core afterwards; this is the seed of the tree - which is proved by the fact that small fruits without any core are found on the same shoot. [32] The seed is oblong in shape and not rounded like an olive-stone, and also it is split at the back by a bulging cleft, and in most cases shaped like a navel at the middle of the bulge: it is from here that the root first spreads out. In planting the seed is laid front-side downward, and a pair of seeds are placed close together with two more above them, since a single seed produces a weak plant, but the four shoots unite in one strong growth. [33] This woody core is divided from the fleshy parts by a number of white coats, others clinging closely to its body; and it is loose and separate, only attached by a thread at its top end. The flesh takes a year to ripen, though in some places, for instance, Cyprus, it has a pleasant sweet flavour even though it does not reach maturity. In Cyprus the leaf is broader and the fruit rounder than it is elsewhere, though people there do not eat the body of the fruit, but spit it out after merely squeezing out the juice. [34] Also in Arabia the palm is said to have a sickly sweet taste, although Juba states that he prefers the palm that grows in the territory of the Scenitae {"Tent-dweller"} Arabs, which they call the dablas, to all other kinds for flavour. For the rest, it is stated that in a palm-grove of natural growth the female trees do not produce if there are no males, and that each male tree is surrounded by several females with more attractive foliage that bend and bow towards him; [35] while the male bristling with leaves erected impregnates the rest of them by his exhalation and by the mere sight of him, and also by his pollen; and that when the male tree is felled the females afterwards in their widowhood become barren. And so fully is their sexual union understood that mankind has actually devised a method of impregnating them by means of the flower and down collected from the males, and indeed sometimes by merely sprinkling their pollen on the females.
{8.} L [36] Palms are also propagated by layering, the trunk for a length of three feet from the actual brain of the tree being divided by incisions and dug into the ground. Also a slip torn off from the root makes a hardy growth when planted, and so does one from the youngest of the branches. In Assyria the tree itself, too, is laid in a moist soil and throws out roots along its whole length, but these grow into shrubs and not into a tree; [37] consequently the growers plant cuttings, and transplant the young trees when a year old and again when two years old, for they like a change of position - this is done in the spring in other countries, but in Assyria about the rising of the Dog-star. Also there they do not touch the young trees with a knife, but tie back the leafy shoots to make them grow upward to a considerable height. When the trees are strong they prune them down so as to make them grow thicker, leaving the stumps of the branches half a foot long; to lop them at any other point kills the mother tree. We have said above that palms like a salt soil; [38] consequently in places where the ground is not of that nature they sprinkle salt on it, not at the roots of the trees but a little farther off. Some palms in Syria and Egypt divide into two trunks, and in Crete even into three, and some even into five. These begin to bear in three years, but the palms in Cyprus, Syria and Egypt bear when four years old, and others when five, the tree being then the height of a man; as long as the trees are young the fruit has no woody part inside, and consequently they are called 'eunuchs.'
{9.} L [39] Palm-trees are of many varieties. The barren kinds are used in Assyria and throughout the whole of Persia for building timber and for the more luxurious articles of manufacture. Also there are forests of palms grown for timber which when felled send out shoots again from the root; the pith of these at the top, which is called their 'brain,' has a sweet taste, and after it has been removed the trees continue to live, which is not the case with other sorts of palm. The name of this tree is the chamaerops, and it has an exceptionally broad soft leaf which is extremely useful for wickerwork; it grows in large numbers in Crete, but even more in Sicily. Palm-wood makes charcoal that lasts a long time and burns slowly. [40] In the palms that bear fruit the core of the fruit is shorter in some cases than in others and also softer; in some cases it is of a bony substance, and when polished with the edge of a file is used by superstition as a charm against witchcraft. The core is wrapped in several coats which in some cases vary in number and in others in thickness. Consequently there are forty-nine kinds of palm, if one cared to go through the names of them all, including those that have foreign names, and the varieties of wine that are extracted from them. [41] The most famous of all is honoured by the name of the royal palm, because it used to be reserved for the kings of Persia alone; it grew only at Babylon in the Garden of Bagoüs - the Persian word for a eunuch, some of these having actually been kings in Persia. This garden was always kept within the precincts of the ruler's court.
[42] In the southern part of the world the kind called in Greek the wild-boar date is held in the highest repute, and next to it ranks the Maldive nut date. The latter is a short, rounded fruit of a white colour, more like a grape than a Phoenician date, for which reason it has also received the name of pearl-date. It is said that only one palm-tree of this kind exists, at Chora, and the same is the case with the wild-boar date; and a remarkable story has come to us about this tree, to the effect that it dies off and then comes to life again of itself - a peculiarity which it shares with the phoenix, which is thought to have taken its name from the suggestion of this palm-tree: the tree was bearing fruit at the time when this book was published. [43] The actual fruit is large, hard and prickly, and differs from all the other kinds by having a gamey sort of smell that is most noticed in wild boars, which is the reason for its name. The sandalis date, so called from its resemblance to a sandal, ranks fourth; of this kind again there are said to be at the most five trees in existence, on the border of Ethiopia, and they are as remarkable for the sweetness of their fruit as they are for their rarity. [44] Next to these the most famous are the caryotae, which supply a great deal of food but also of juice, and from which the principal wines of the East are made; these strongly affect the head, to which the date owes its name. But not only are these trees abundant and bear largely in Judaea, but also the most famous are found there, and not in the whole of that country but specially in Jericho, although those growing in the valleys of Archelais and Phaselis and Livias in the same country are also highly spoken of. Their outstanding property is the unctuous juice which they exude and an extremely sweet sort of wine-flavour like that of honey. [45] The Nicolaus date belonging to this class is not so juicy but exceptionally large in size, four put end to end making a length of one cubit. The date that comes next in sweetness is less attractive to look at, but in flavour is the sister of the caryotae and consequently is called in Greek the sister-date. The third class among these, the pateta, has too copious a supply of juice, and the excess of liquor of the fruit itself bursts open even while on the parent tree, looking like dates that have been trodden on.
[46] Of the many drier dates the finger-date forms a class of its own: it is a very long slender date, sometimes of a curved shape. The variety of this class which we offer to the honour of the gods is called chydaeus {"common"} by the Jews, a race remarkable for their contempt for the divine powers. [47] All over the Thebaid and Arabia the dates are dry and small, with a shrivelled body, and as they are scorched by the continual heat their covering is more truly a rind than a skin. Indeed in Ethiopia itself the climate is so dry that the skin of these dates is rubbed into powder and kneaded to make loaves of bread like flour. This date grows on a shrub, with branches one cubit long, a rather broad leaf, and fruit of a round shape, but larger than the size of an apple. The Greek name for this date is koix; it comes to maturity in three years, and the shrub always has fruit on it. another date sprouting in place of one picked. [48] The date of the Thebaid is packed into casks at once, before it has lost the aroma of its natural heat; if this is not done, it quickly loses its freshness and dries up unless it is warmed up again in an oven.
Of the rest of the date kind the Syrian variety, called sweetmeats, seem to be a low-class fruit; for those in the other part of Phoenicia and Cilicia have the local name of acorn-dates, also used by us. [49] These too are of several kinds, differing in shape, some rounder and others longer, and also in colour, some being blacker and others reddish; indeed, they are reported to have as many varieties of colour as the fig, though the white ones are the most in favour. They also differ in size, many having reached a cubit in length while some are no larger than a bean. The best kinds for keeping are those that grow in salt and sandy soils, for instance in Judaea and the Cyrenaic district of Africa; the dates in Egypt, Cyprus, Syria and Seleucia in Assyria do not keep, and consequently are used for fattening swine and other stock. [50] It is a sign that the fruit is spoilt or old if the white excrescence by which the dates are attached to the cluster has fallen off. Soldiers of Alexander were choked by eating green dates; this effect was produced in the Gedrosi country by the quality of the fruit, and occurs elsewhere from eating it to excess, for fresh dates are so sweet that people will not stop eating them except because of the danger.
{10.} L [51] Syria has several trees that are peculiar to it beside this date; in the class of nuts the pistachio is well-known: it is reported that taken either in food or in drink it is a remedy for snakebite. In the fig class Syria has the caricae and smaller figs of the same class called cottana, also the plum that grows on Mount Damascus and the myxa, both now acclimated in Italy. In Egypt the myxa is also used for making wine.
{11.} L [52] Phoenicia has a small variety of cedar that resembles a juniper. It is of two kinds, the Lycian and the Phoenician, which have different leaves; the one with a hard, prickly, pointed leaf is called the oxycedros, while the other is a branchy tree and the wood is full of knots and has a better scent. They bear fruit the size of a myrtle-berry, with a sweet taste. [53] The larger cedar also has two kinds, of which the flowering one bears no fruit, while the one that bears fruit does not flower, and in its case the previous fruit is replaced by a new one. Its seed is like that of the cypress. Some people call this tree the cedar-pine. From it is obtained the resin held in the highest favour, while its actual timber lasts for ever, and consequently it has been the regular practice to use it even for making statues of the gods - the Apollo Sosianus in a shrine at Rome, which was brought from Seleucia, is made of cedar-wood. There is a tree resembling the cedar in Arcadia, and a shrub in Phrygia is called the cedrys.
{12.} L [54] Syria also has the turpentine-tree. Of this the male variety has no fruit, but the female has two kinds of fruit, one of them ruddy and the size of a lentil, while the other is pale, and ripens at the same time as the grape; it is no larger in size than a bean, has a rather agreeable scent, and is sticky to the touch. Round Mount Ida in the Troad and in Macedonia this is a low-growing shrub-like tree, but at Damascus in Syria it is big. Its wood is fairly flexible and remains sound to a great age; it is of a shiny black colour. The flower grows in clusters like the olive, but is crimson in colour, and the foliage is thick. It also bears follicles out of which come insects resembling gnats, and which produce a sticky resinous fluid which also bursts out from its bark.
{13.} L [55] Also the male sumach-tree of Syria is productive, the female being barren; the leaf is that of an elm only a little longer, covered with down, and the footstalks of the leaves always lying alternately in opposite directions; the branches are slender and short. The sumach is used for bleaching leather. The seed, which resembles a lentil, turns red at the same time as the grapes; it is called rhus and is required for certain drugs.
{14.} L [56] Egypt also has many kinds of trees not found anywhere else, before all a fig, which is consequently called the Egyptian fig. The tree resembles a mulberry in foliage, size and appearance; it bears its fruit not on the branches but on the trunk itself, and this is an exceedingly sweet fig without seeds inside it. There is an extremely prolific yield, but only if incisions are made in the fruit with iron hooks, otherwise it does not ripen; [57] but when this is done, it can be plucked three days later, another fig forming in its place, the tree thus scoring seven crops of extremely juicy figs in a summer. Even if the incisions are not made new fruit forms under the old and drives out its predecessor before it is ripe four times in a summer. The wood of this fig is of a peculiar kind, and is one of the most useful there is. As soon as it is cut it is plunged into a marsh, and at first sinks to the bottom, but afterwards begins to float, and it is clear that moisture not belonging to it, which soaks into all other timber, drains the sap out of this. When it begins to float on the surface, this is its sign that the timber is ready for use.
{15.} L [58] A tree to some extent resembling the Egyptian fig is one in Crete called the Cyprian fig, as it also bears fruit on its actual trunk and on its branches when they have grown to thickness. But the Cyprian fig puts out a bud without any leaves, resembling a root. The trunk of the tree is like a poplar, and the leaf like an elm. It bears fruit four times a year, and also buds the same number of times, but its unripe figs will not ripen unless an incision is made in them to let out the juice. They have the sweet taste and the inside of the common fig, and are the size of a service-tree berry.
{16.} L [59] Another similar tree is the one called by the Ionians the ceronia, which also buds from the trunk, the fruit being a pod, which has consequently been called by some the Egyptian fig. But this is clearly a mistake, as it does not grow in Egypt but in Syria and Ionia, and also in the neighbourhood of Cnidus and on the island of Rhodes. It is always in full foliage, and it has a white flower with a powerful scent. It sends out shoots at the lower parts, and consequently is of a yellow colour above ground, as the suckers drain away the sap. If the fruit of the preceding year is picked about the rising of the Dog-star, it at once grows a second crop, after which it blossoms through the period of Arcturus, and the winter nourishes its fruit.
{17.} L [60] Egypt also possesses a tree of a peculiar kind called the persea which resembles a pear but is an evergreen. It bears fruit without intermission, as when it is plucked a fresh crop sprouts the next day, but its season for ripening is when the midsummer winds are blowing. The fruit is longer than a pear, and is enclosed in a shell like an almond and a rind the colour of grass, but where the almond has a kernel this has a plum, which differs from an almond kernel in being short and soft, and although temptingly sweet and luscious, is quite wholesome. [61] The wood is just like that of the lotus for goodness and soundness and, also in its black colour, and it too has habitually been used for making statues. The timber of the tree we have mentioned called the acorn-date, although reliable, is not so highly valued, as a large proportion of it has a twisted grain, so it is only used for shipbuilding.
{18.} L [62] But on the contrary the cuci is in great esteem; this tree resembles a palm in that its leaves are also used for textiles, but it differs because it spreads out into branches like arms. The fruit is of a size that fills the hand; its colour is yellow and its juice has an attractive sweet taste, with a touch of astringency. It has a large and very hard shell inside, which is used by turners for making curtain-rings, and inside the shell is a kernel which has a sweet taste while fresh, but which when dried goes on getting continually harder and harder, so that it can only be eaten after being soaked in water for several days. The wood has a rather uneven grain that is most attractive, and it is consequently very much admired by the Persians.
{19.} L [63] Also thorn-wood is equally esteemed in the same country, that is, the wood of a black thorn, as it lasts without decaying even in water, and is consequently extremely serviceable for the ribs of ships; timbers made of a white thorn rot easily. It has sharp thorns even on the leaves, and seed in pods that is used instead of oak-galls in dressing leather. The blossom has a pleasing effect in garlands and also makes a valuable medicine; also the tree distils gum. But its most valuable property is that when cut down it shoots up again two years later. This thorn grows in the neighbourhood of Thebes, where oak, persea and olive are also found, in a forest region nearly 40 miles from the Nile, watered by springs that rise in it. [64] This region also contains the Egyptian plum-tree, which is not unlike the thorn last mentioned; its fruit resembles a medlar, and ripens in the winter, and the tree is an evergreen. The fruit contains a large stone, but the fleshy part, owing to its nature and to the abundance in which it grows, provides the natives with quite a harvest, as after cleaning it they crush it and make it into cakes for storage. [65] There was also once a forest region round Memphis with such huge trees that three men could not join hands round the trunks; and one of them was particularly remarkable, not because of its fruit or its utility for some purpose, but on account of the circumstance that it has the appearance of a thorn, but leaves resembling wings, which when somebody touches the branches at once fall off and afterwards sprout again.
{20.} L [66] It is agreed that the Egyptian thorn supplies the best kind of gum; it is of a streaked appearance, grey in colour, clean and free from bark, and it sticks to the teeth; its price is 3 denarii per pound. The gum produced from the bitter almond and the cherry is inferior, and that from plum-trees is the worst kind of all. [67] A gum also forms in the vine which is extremely valuable for children's sores, and the gum sometimes found in the olive-tree is good for toothache; but the gum is also found in the elm on Mount Corycus in Cilicia and in the juniper are of no use for anything, indeed elm-tree gum there even breeds gnats. Also a gum exudes from the sarcocolla - that is the name of the tree and also of the gum - which is extremely useful both to painters and to medical men; it resembles incense dust, and for the purposes mentioned the white kind is better than the red; its price is the one mentioned above.
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