chapter 64, II, 761.

'V. Rose (187s) 337-8 suggests that this is a fragment from a
fuller work of Aesculapius to Augustus cited by Thomas of Can- timpre, Albertus Magnus, and Vincent of Beauvais. See also Peter of Abano, De venenis, cap. 5, "in epistola Esculapii philosophi ad Octavianum." But perhaps these writers refer to the entire work of Sextus Papirius.
' Ed. Ruellius, with Scribonius Largus, Paris, 1529.
* In a later medieval vocabulary taxus is given as a synonym for the animal called camaleon: Al- phita, ed. Daremberg from BN 6954 and 6957 in De Renzi, Col- lectio Salernitana, III, 272-322.
XXVI PSEUDO-LITERATURE IN SCIENCE 6oi
century in the British Museum/ where it is also found in several other fairly early manuscripts ^ in the respectable company of Vitruvius, Vegetius, Sallust, and Suetonius,* as well as with the more congenial work of Solinus. This Cosmographia was not printed until 1852, when it was ed- ited at Paris by M. d'Avezac and again in 1854 at Leipzig by M. H. Wuttke. It is an entirely different work from what had hitherto been repeatedly printed as the Cosmog- raphy of Aethicus but is really to be identified with frag- ments of Julian Honorius and Orosius. The Latin trans- lator of our treatise had been identified in the middle ages with St. Jerome, the church father, and Wuttke still as- cribed it to him, but Bunbury protested against this,^ and Mommsen placed our treatise not earlier than the seventh century.^
Bunbury added, however, that the Cosmography "ap- Its pears to have been much read in the middle ages, and is influence therefore not without literary interest." The apparent greatness of the names on the title page seems to have given the middle ages an exaggerated notion of the work's im- portance. Aethicus himself is spoken of as from Istria and according to the Explicit of at least one manuscript ® was a Scythian, but this does not mean that his attitude towards learning was that of a Hun, for the same Explicit goes on to inform us that he was of noble lineage and, if I correctly
* Cotton Vespasian B, X, #6. M. Wuttke can attach any value
* Harleian 3859, called tenth to such a production is to me quite century in the Harleian catalogue incomprehensible ; still more that which is often incorrect in its he should ascribe the translation dating, but nth or 12th century to the great ecclesiastical writer," by d'Avezac, Mommsen in his Jerome. Bunbury believed that edition of Solinus, and Beazley, the work was not earlier than the Dawn of Geography, I, 523. seventh century. Beazley, Daivn Royal 15-B-II and 15-C-IV, both of Geography, I, 355-63, is of the of the I2th century. For other same opinion.
MSS at Paris, Leyden, and Rome ^ In his edition of Solinus, p.
see Beazley, op. cit. xxvii, he contends that certain
* But after all is Suetonius any passages which Wuttke pointed more respectable a historian than out as common to Aethicus and Aethicus and Solinus are geog- Solinus are borrowed by Aethicus raphers? from Isidore who died in 636.
■* Bunbury, History of Ancient ° Harleian 3859.
Geography, II, Appendix : "How
602
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Character of the work.
Its atti- tude to marvels.
interpret the faulty syntax of its Latin, that from him the ethical philosophy of other sages drew its origins. Some- what later Roger Bacon said in discussing faults in the study of theology in his day, "From the authorities of the philoso- phers whom the saints cite I shall abstain, except that I will strengthen the utterances of Ethicus the astronomer and Alchimus the philosopher by the authority of the blessed Jerome, since no one could credit that they had said so many marvelous things about Christ and the angels and demons and men who are to be glorified or damned unless Jerome or some other saint proved that they had said so." ^
As Bacon's words indicate, Christian influence is mani- fest in the Cosmography, although, as they also indicate, the original Aethicus is not supposed to have been a Chris- tian, but, as one manuscript informs us, an Academic phi- losopher.^ Oriental influence, too, is perhaps shown in flights of poetical language and unrestrained imagination, in a number of allusions to Alexander the Great, and in an ex- traordinary ignorance of early Roman history which leads the author to tell how Romulus invaded Pannonia and fought against the Lacedaemonians. "How great carnage," he exclaims, "in Lacedaemonia, Noricum and Pannonia, Istria and Albania, northern regions near my home, first at the hands of the Romans and the tyrant Numitor, then under the brothers Romulus and Remus, and later under the first Tarquin, the Proud." The author eulogizes Athens as well as Alexander, and mentions a people called Turchi, but whether or not he has Turks in mind would be hard to say.
As we have it, the Cosmography cites both the Ethicus and the Alchimus to whom Roger Bacon referred. Indeed, our treatise does not pretend to be the original work of Ae-
* Steele, Opera hactenus inedita, 1905, Fasc. I, pp. 1-2.
*CUL 213, 14th century, fols. IO3V-14, "Qui hunc librum legit intelligat Ethicum philosophum non omnia dixisse que hie scrip- ta sunt, set Solinus (so James, but Jeronimus in d'Avezac, p. 237) qui
eum transtulit sententias veritati consonas ex libro eiusdem ex- cerpsit et easdem testimonias scripture nostre confirmavit. Non enim erat iste philosophus Chris- tianus sed Ethnicus»et professions Achademicus."
XXVI PSEUDO-LITERATURE IN SCIENCE 603
thicus, which it repeatedly cites, but is apparently the work of some epitomizer or abbreviator who intersperses remarks and comments of his own, and, according to one manuscript, makes the statements of Aethicus conform to Christian Scripture. From the volumes of the original work he makes only a few excerpts, professing to omit what is unheard of or unknown or seems too formidable, and including only with hesitancy a few bits concerning unknown races on the testimony of hearsay. The enigmas of Aethicus and other philosophers often give our abbreviator pause, and he re- gards as incredible the story of Aethicus that the Amazons nurse young minotaurs and centaurs who fight for them in return. Aethicus also tells of the wonderful armor of the Amazons which they treat with bitumen and the blood of their own offspring. In Crete Aethicus found herbs un- known in other lands which ward off famine. Very beau- tiful gems are mentioned, including those extracted from the brains of immense dragons and basilisks, but little is said of their virtues, occult or otherwise. Indeed, the amount either of specific information or specific misinformation in the book is very scanty. It deals largely in uncouth rhet- oric, glittering generalities, and obscure allusion anent the wanderings of Aethicus over the face of the earth and the strange marvels which he encountered in distant lands. He is described as well versed in astrology and as reproving the astrologers of Scythia( ?) and Mantua ( ?), and one pas- sage vaguely speaks of the stars as signs of the present and future; but otherwise the abbreviator gives little evidence of knowledge of the subject, although Roger Bacon ^ cited Ethicus Astronomiciis in Cosmographia as one of his au- thorities when discussing the question of Jesus Christ's nativity and its relation to the stars, and although Pico della Mirandola ranked the Cosmography as one of the most ab- surd of astrological works. ^ As for magic, in one passage malefici and magi are censured along with idolaters, and the
* Bridges I, 267-8. * Cited by d'Avezac, pp. 257 and 267.
6o4
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
The Geo- Ponica.
Magic and
astrology
therein.
author presently speaks of vain characters and supersti- tious doctrines. But elsewhere a magician {Pirronius magus) is named as the inventor of ships and discoverer of purple. On the whole, in its loose and hazy way the Cos- mography not only is romantic and religious enough to ap- peal to medieval readers, it also is of a character to offer en- couragement, if not data, to a later and more detailed in- terest in alchemy, occult virtues, astrology, and magic.
Upon the subject of agriculture in the early middle ages we have the collection known as the Geoponica. It properly belongs to Byzantine literature and perhaps had little direct influence upon western Europe. Nevertheless at least a por- tion of it upon vineyards was translated into Latin by Bur- gundio of Pisa in the twelfth century.^ In any case as the "only formal treatise on Greek agriculture" extant it is a rather important historical source; it also is a good speci- men of early medieval compilations from classical works; and in its inclusion of superstitious and magical details it is probably roughly representative of the period, whether in east or west. In the form which we now possess it was published about 950 A. D. and dedicated to the Byzantine emperor, Constantine VII or Porphyrygennetos. But this issue was perhaps little more than an abbreviated revision of the work of Cassianus Bassus of the sixth century, whose introductory words to his son are still given at the begin- ning of the seventh book. Cassianus is believed in his turn to have been especially indebted to two fourth century writers, Vindanius Anatolius of Beirut, whose agricultural teaching was of a sober and rational sort, and Didymus of Alexandria, who was more given to superstition and magic.^
Nevertheless, magic and astrology find no place in the index to the most recent edition of the work.^ A survey, however, of the text itself reveals some indications of the
'Vienna 2272, i^ih. century, fol. siani Bassi scholastici de re rus-
92, De vindemiis a Burgundione tica eclogae, Lipsiae, Teubner,
translatus : Pars Geoponicorum. 1895. PW criticizes this edition as
^ Such is the view set forth in "Icidcr vollig verfehlten." Its
PW Geoponica. preface lists the earlier editions.
' H. Beckh, Geoponica sive Cas-
XXVI PSEUDO-LITERATURE IN SCIENCE 605
presence of both. The very first of its twenty books deals v^ith astrological prediction of the w^eather and cites some spurious w^ork or works by Zoroaster a great deal. In later books, too, Zoroaster is sometimes cited for semi-astrologi- cal advice, such as guarding wine jars against sun or moon- beams when opening them, or testing seed by exposing it to the rays of the dog-star.^ Zoroaster is also used as an au- thority on the sympathy and antipathy existing between natural objects. ^ Damigeron and Democritus are other names cited which are suggestive of the occult and magical.^ There are not, however, many cases of extreme superstition in the Geoponica. Something is said of the marvelous prop- erties of gems, of the effect of a hyena's shadow falling upon a dog by moonlight, and how dogs will not attack a person who holds a hyena's tongue in his hand.^ Incantations of a sort are occasionally recommended.^ To keep wine from turning sour one is directed to write the divine words, "Taste and see that the Lord is good" upon the wine-jar.^ Another passage advises a person who finds himself in a place full of fleas to cry, "Ouch ! Ouch !" and then they will not bite him.'^
Perhaps the chief ancient work on pharmacology was Dioscor- the De materia medica or Ilept vkq^ iaTpLKrjs of Pedanius ^ ^^* Dioscorides of Anazarba. Galen, as we have seen, found things to criticize in it but nevertheless made great use of it in his own work on medicinal simples. Dioscorides of course had his previous sources but seems to have surpassed them in fulness and orderliness of arrangement. Of the man himself his preface tells us all that we know, and his dedication shows that he probably wrote during the reign of Nero. He was born in Cilicia near Tarsus, he had trav- eled in many lands as a soldier, and his work was based
^Geoponica, VII, 5; II, 15. zig, 1893, pp. 463-576, drew from
'VII, 11; XV, I. the Geoponica 13 out of his total
'I, 12; VII, 13; etc. of 24s instances of incantations
* XV, I. from Greek and Latin literature.
" R. Heim, Incantamenta magica " VII, 14.
graeca latina, in Jahrb. f. class. ' XIII, 15.
Philologie, Suppl. Bd. 19, Leip-
6o6
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Textual history of the De materia medico.
Altera- tions made in the Greek text.
partly upon personal observation and experience as well as previous books.
Dioscorides' influence continued and even increased as time went on; but if future centuries were deeply influenced by his book, it was also seriously affected by them, for it seems to have been subjected to a long series of repeated abbreviations and omissions, additions and interpolations, changes in form and in order. Thus all sorts of versions of what was called Dioscorides came into being, but which in some cases can hardly be regarded as more than compila- tions from all the favorite pharmacies of the time, in which the genuine Dioscorides constituted but a remnant or a core. Thus most early printed editions of what purports to be the De materia medica must be handled with great caution, and it may perhaps be doubted if even the latest effort of Max Wellmann to recover the original Greek text has been en- tirely successful.^ Of the five books regarded as genuine and original the first dealt with spices, salves, and oils ; the second, with parts of animals and animal products like milk and honey, with grains, vegetables, and pot-herbs. Other plants and roots were considered in the third and fourth books, while the last dealt with wines and minerals.^
Whether we now possess Dioscorides' original text or not, at any rate the oldest Greek manuscripts do not contain it, but only that portion dealing with herbs. Moreover, this has been rearranged in alphabetical order and has been adapted to fit a set of pictures of plants which were perhaps taken over from the work of Crateuas, one of Dioscorides' chief sources. Such is the famous early sixth century il- luminated manuscript made for Juliana Anicia, daughter of the emperor Olybrius (472 A. D.) and wife of the consul
*The first two volumes, pub- lished at Berlin in 1907, 1906, cov- ered the first four of the five genu- ine books. A previous attempt was K. Sprengel's edition in vols. 25-26 of C. J. Kiihn's Medici Graeci, Leipzig, 1829. On the tex- tual history and jprohlems see
further Wellman's articles : "Dioskurides" in Pauly-Wissowa, and in Hermes, XXXIII, (1898) 36off.
' Jl(pl ^oravcbv, rrepl fo"^'' iravTolosv, irtpl iravToicov eXalcou, Trepl v\i}s Sep- 8poov, irepl o'lvuv Kal 'KWcav, is another order suggested.
XXVI
PSEUDO-LITERATURE IN SCIENCE
607
Areobindus (about 512 A. D.).^ The alphabetical re- arrangement of the Greek text of Dioscorides was made at some time between Galen and Oribasius, who cites from it in the fourth century. Not only were the five books of the genuine De materia niedica interpolated, but additional spurious books were added "On Harmful Drugs" and "On Poisons." ^ The work on medicinal simples attributed to Dioscorides is extant in no manuscript earlier than the four- teenth century and some versions of it are much more inter- polated than others. As Galen does not cite it while Ori- basius and Aetius do use it, it is assumed that it was com-
*The MS is said by Singer (1921) 60, to have now been removed from Vienna to St. Mark's Library at Venice; it was procured from Constantinople in 155s for the future Emperor MaximiHan II (1564-1576). A photographic copy was published in 1906 in the Leiden Collection, Codices Graeci et Latini, by A. W. Sijthoff, with an introduction by A. von Premerstein, C. Wessely, and J. Mantuani (C. Wessely, Codex Anciae lulianae, etc., 1906). See also A. v. Premerstein in the Austrian Jahrbuch (1903) XXIV, I05ff.
I have examined the fac-simile of this MS and found the large but faded and partially obliterated illuminations which precede the text rather disappointing after having read the description of them in Dalton's Byzantine Art, (1911) 460-61, which, however, I presume is accurate and so re- produce here. These large illumi- nations include a portrait of Ju- liana Anicia, an ornamental pea- cock with tail spread, groups of doctors engaged in medical dis- cussions, and Dioscorides himself seated writing, and again seated on a folding stool receiving the herb marvdragora (which, of course, was a medieval favorite) from a female figure personify- ing Discovery (Euprjcris), "while in the foreground a dog dies in agony," presumably from the
fatal efifects of the herb. There are rough reproductions of this last picture in Woltmann and Woermann, History of Painting, I, 192-3, and Singer (1921) ,62. When the text proper begins the illuminations are confined to medicinal plants.
Other early Greek manuscripts are the Codex Neapolitanns, for- merly at Vienna, now at St. Mark's, Venice, an eighth cen- tury palimpsest from Bobbio, and a Paris codex, (BN Greek 2179) of the ninth century. An Arabic translation from the Greek seems to have been made about 850; a century later the Byzantine em- peror sent a Greek manuscript of Dioscorides to the caliph in Spain.
For the full text of the De ma- teria medica we are dependent on MSS of the nth, 12th, 13th and later centuries.
^Ilepi drjXrjTTipLwP apfiaKuv and irepl io^b\oiv, edited by Sprengel in Kiihn (1830), XXVI, as was the TLtpi e\nropl(TTO)v air\€iv re /cat avv- 6eT(x)V (jjapfxaKuv. The Ilepi 4>app.aKCi3V i/jLireipias. ("Experimental Phar- macy"), of which a Latin version, Alpliabctum empiricum, sive Dios- coridis et Stcphani AtLeniensis . . . de remediis expertis, was edited by C. Wolf, Zurich, 1581, is an alphabetical arrangement by diseases ascribed to Dioscorides and Stephen of Athens (and other writers).
6o8
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Dioscor- ides little known to Latins be- fore the middle ages.
Partial versions in Latin.
posed in the third or early fourth century with a forged ded- ication to a contemporary of Dioscorides, but that it made considerable use of the genuine Dioscorides, to which it bore much the same relation as the Medicina Plinii did to the Historia Naturalis. Later, however, some Byzantine com- piler of the eleventh, twelfth, or thirteenth century intro- duced a great deal of new material from Galen's genuine and spurious works in that field and from John of Damas- cus.^
What more especially concern us are the medieval Latin versions of Dioscorides. As a matter of fact, although the De materia medica was from the start highly regarded and widely used by Greek physicians, it seems to have been lit- tle known to Latin writers until the verge of the medieval period. Gargilius Martialis, a Roman writer on agricul- ture in the third century of our era, was the only old Latin author to cite Dioscorides, which he did, however, no less than eighteen times in his Medicinae ex olerihiis et pomis. This has led to the suggestion that he was perhaps responsi- ble for the first Latin translation or version of Dioscorides ; but it seems unlikely that the work had been put into Latin as early as his time, since it is not cited again by a Latin writer until the sixth century and is not used by such medi- cal authors as Serenus Sammonicus, Cassius Felix, Theo- dorus Priscianus, and Marcellus Empiricus.
But at least a portion of Dioscorides seems to have been translated into Latin by the time of Cassiodorus, who, writ- ing in the first half of the sixth century, states that those who cannot read Greek may consult the Herbarium Diosco- ridis.^ This naturally suggests a version limited to medic- inal plants like the early Greek text in the manuscript of Juliana Anicia. This impression is confirmed by the preface to some early Latin version of Dioscorides, which Rose dis- covered in one of the manuscripts of the Herbarium of
* Max Wellmann, Die Schrift des Dioskurides Uepl airXchp apiJ.6.Kui>, 1914, and col. 1140 of
his article "Dioskurides" in Pauly-
Wissowa.
'^De inst. div. lit. cap. 31.
XXVI
PSEUDO-LITERATURE IN SCIENCE
609
Apiileius in the British Museum.^ This preface implies that the translation which it introduced was limited to the bo- tanical books of Dioscorides and states that it was accom- panied by illustrations of herbs.
Based upon this partial translation rather than identical De herbis with it is believed to have been the De herbis femininis,^ jemimms. which was ascribed to Dioscorides in the middle ages and which often accompanies the Herbarium of the Pseudo-Apu- leius in the manuscripts. In this case the herbs of the Pseudo-Apuleius are sometimes called masculine, but as a matter of fact only a minority of those in the Pseudo- Dioscorides seem to be distinctly feminine. Of seventy-one plants Kaestner classed fifteen or sixteen as feminine, while in only thirty cases are they prescribed for female com- plaints. Rose dated this work before Isidore of Seville by whom he believed it was used.^ It seems to combine a free Latin translation of excerpts from the genuine Dioscorides with numerous additions from other sources.
Besides such abbreviated and interpolated Latin versions The fuller or perversions of Dioscorides, there was also in existence in versions. the early middle ages a literal translation of all five books
* V. Rose in Hermes VIII, 38A. Harleian 4986, fol. 44V, ". . . marcelline libellum botanicon ex dioscoridis libris in latinum ser- monem conversum in quo depicte sunt herbarum figure ad te misi . . ."
^ Heinrich Kaetsner, Kritisches und Exegctisches zti Pseudo- Dioskorides de herbis femininis, Regensburg, 1896; text in Hermes XXXI (1896) 578-636. Singer (1921) 68, gives as the earhest MS, Rome Barberini IX, 29, of 9th century. Some other MSS are: BN 12995, 9th century; Addi- tional 8928, nth century, fol. 62V-; Ashmole 1431, end of nth century, fols. 31V-43, "Incipit liber Dios- coridis ex herbis f eminis" ; Sloane 1975, I2th or early 13th century, fols. 49V-73; Harleian 1585, 12th century, fol. 79- ; Harleian 5294, I2th century; Turin K-IV-3, 12th
century, #5, "Incipit liber dios- coridis medicine ex herbis femi- ninis numero LXXI . . / . . Liber medicine dioscoridis de herbis femininis et masculinis explicit feliciter."
In Vienna 5371, 15th century, fols._i2iv-i24v, is a briefer Latin treatise ascribed to Dioscordes, which begins with the herb aris- tologia and mentions silk (seri- cum) at its close. I have not seen the MS but from the title, Quid pro quo, and the fact that the writer dedicates it to his uncle, one might fancy that it was a work written by Adelard of Bath's nephew in return for the Natural Questions of his uncle. (See below, chapter 36).
^Hermes VIII, 38, comparing Etymologies XVII, 93, with cap. 30 of the De herbis femininis.
6io
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Peter of
Abano's
account
of the
medieval
versions.
of the De materia me die a. It is full of Latinisms and bar- barisms but otherwise reproduces the complete and genuine Dioscorides, or is supposed to do so. Rose and Wellmann ^ say that it was current from the sixth century on, and the few extant manuscripts of it date from the early medieval period.^ One reason for this seems to be that this literal translation was replaced by another Latin version which in a Bamberg manuscript ^ is ascribed to Constantinus Afri- canus, the medical translator and writer of the eleventh cen- tury. In this version the items are arranged alphabetically, and additions are embodied from other sources. This ver- sion apparently became much better known than the earlier literal translation and has been called "the most widely dis- seminated handbook of pharmacy of the whole later middle ages." * It is stated by Rose to be identical with the "Dyas- corides," upon which Peter of Abano lectured and com- mented about 1300 and which was printed at CoUe in 1478 and again at Lyons in 1512.^
Peter of Abano tells us in his preface ^ that in his time there were current two different versions, although both had the same preface. One of these was in five books with a great many short chapters, so short in fact that often the treatment of a single thing was scattered over several chapters. This version was rare in Latin. The other ver- sion contained fewer but longer chapters with material added from Galen, Pliny, and other writers. This version was
^ Anecdota graeca et graeco- latina, Berlin, 1864, II, 115 and 119; Hermes VIII, 38; Wellmann (1906), p. xxi.
*BN 9332, 8th century; CLM 337. 9-ioth century from Monte Cassino ; ed. T. M. Auracher et H. Stadler, in Rom. Forsch. I, 49-105; X, 181-247 and 368-446; XI, 1-121 ; XII, 161-243.
«Cod. Bam. L-III-9.
* PW "Dioskurides." A fairly early MS is CU Jesus 44, I2-I3th century, fols. I7-I45r, "diascorides per modum alphabeti de virtutibus herbarum et compositione ole- rum." I have not seen it but, if
correctly dated, it and Bologna University Library 378, 12th cen- tury, which is said to differ from the printed editions, are too early to be Peter of Abano's version.
^Explicit dyascorides quern petrus paduanensis legendo co- rexit et exponendo quae utiliora sunt in luccm deduxit, Colle, 1478. Dioscorides digestus al- phabctico ordine odditis annota- tiunculis brevihus et tractatu aquarum, Lugduni, 15 12. And see Chap. 70, Appendix II.
®I have read it in BN 6820, fol. ir, as well as in the 1478 edi- tion.
XXVI
PSEUDO-LITERATURE IN SCIENCE
6ii
arranged alphabetically. It was this version which Aggre- gator ^ had followed and imitated, but sometimes there were chapters in either "Dyascorides" which were missing in Aggregator. Peter had also seen an alphabetical version of Dioscorides in Greek.
There seems also to have been current, at least in the later middle ages, a Pseudo-Dioscorides on stones, drawn in part, like the Feminine Herbs, from the genuine De ma- teria medica, whose discussion of the virtues of stones is incredible enough.^ This Dioscorides on Stones is cited by Arnold of Saxony and Bartholomew of England in the thirteenth century, and portions at least of the work are ex- tant in manuscripts at Erfurt and Montpellier.^ A work on physical ligatures is ascribed to Dioscorides in a late manuscript,^ but is really a collection of items from various authors since Dioscorides on the marvelous virtues of ani- mals, herbs, and stones, especially when bound on the body, held in the hand, or worn around the neck.
The history of the medieval versions of Dioscorides, even in the brief and incomplete outline given here, is in- structive, showing us in general the vicissitudes to which the transmission of the text of any ancient author may have been subjected, but more especially proving that the mid- dle ages, whether Latin or Byzantine, were ready to take great liberties with ancient authorities and to adapt them to their own taste and requirements. And indeed, why should they not rearrange and make additions to their
* A work by Serapion which Simon Cordo of Genoa translated from Arabic into Latin with the help of Abraham, a Jew of Tor- tosa. Serapion states at the be- ginning that his work is a com- bination of Dioscorides and of the work of Galen on medicinal simples. Aggregator was printed in 1479, Liber Scrapionis ag- gregatus in medicinis simplici- bus. Translatio Sytnonis lanucn- sis interprete Abraani iudco tor- tiiosiensi de, arabico in latinum.
^ Ruska (1912), p. 5, says that
Pseudo- Dioscor- ides on stones.
Conclu- sions from the textual history of Dioscor- ides.
Dioscorides, V, 84-133, among other things describes "eine ganze Reihe von hochst zweifelhaften Steinen mit unglaublichen Wir- kungen die in den Arabischen Arzneimittelverzeichnissen und Steinbiichern niederkehren."
^Amplon. Folio 41, fols. 36-7; Montpellier 277, caps. 46-67 of the treatise entitled, Liber aristotelis de lapidibus preciosis secundum verba sapicntium antiquorum.
* Sloane 3848, 17th century, fols. 36-40.
6l2
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Macer on herbs; its great currency.
Problem of date and author
Dioscorides? After all it was a compilation to begin with. But the case of Dioscorides has also taught us that we do not have to wait until the medieval period for the appear- ance of new versions of an ancient author.
With the possible exception of the Herbarium of the Pseudo-Apuleius, probably the best known single and dis- tinct treatment of the virtues of herbs produced during the middle ages was the poem De virihiis herbarum.' which cir- culated under the name of Macer Floridus.^ It was often cited by the medieval encyclopedists and other writers on nature and medicine in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. ^ It is found in an Anglo-Saxon version ^ and was even trans- lated into Danish in the early thirteenth century.^ Manu- scripts of it are very numerous ^ and there are many early printed editions.^ Even as recently as the first half of the nineteenth century a historian of medicine and natural sci- ence, in the preface of his edition of Macer, stated as one argument for the modern study of medieval medicine that much might be learned from writings of that period con- cerning the virtues of herbs.'^
The poem was certainly not written by the classical poet, Aemilius Macer, who was a friend of Vergil and Ovid, and whose descriptions of plants, birds, and reptiles are cited by Pliny in his Natural History and also preserved in some extracts by the grammarians. Proof of this is that our
* Macer Floridus de viribus her- barum una cum Walafridi Stra- bonis, Othonis Creinonensis et loannis Folcs carminibus similis argumcnti, ed. Ludovicus Chou- lant, 1832.
^ V. Rose himself corrected {Hermes, VIII, 330-1) the strange statement which he had made {Hermes, VIII, 63) that the name "Macer" is not found in connection with this work until MSS of the 14th and 15th centu- ries. Both the treatise and the name are frequent in the earlier MSS.
'Cotton, Vitellius C, III.
* The Dane, Harpestreng, who died in 1244, translated and com-
mented upon the poem ; published by Christian Molbech, Copenha- gen, 1826.
" There are a large number in the MSS collections of the Brit- ish Museum alone. Some said to be of the 12th century are Har- leian 4346, and at Erfurt Amplon. Octavo 62a and 62b.
° See the British Museum cata- logue of printed books. I have used besides Choulant's text of 1832 an illustrated octavo edition probably of 1489. The poem also appears in medical collections such as Medici antiqui omncs. Aldus, Venice, 1547, fols. 223-46.
' Choulant (1832) Preface.
XXVI PSEUDO-LITERATURE IN SCIENCE 613
poem cites Pliny; in fact, it cites him more frequently than any other author. It also cites Galen six times, Dioscorides four, and as late an author as Oribasius twice.^ But Ori- basius is not the latest author cited since Walafrid Strabo is also used.^ Strabo was born about 806, became abbot of Reichenau in 842, and died in 849. In his Hortulus, a poem dedicated to Grimoald, the abbot of St. Gall, he described twenty-three herbs in 444 hexameters.^ Indeed Stadler holds that the Pseudo-Macer uses the De gradibus of Constantinus Africanus who did not die until 1087.* The true author of our poem ascribed to Macer is said on the authority of cer- tain manuscripts to have been an Odo of Meung on the Loire, apparently the same town as the birthplace of Jean Clopinel or de Meun, the learned author of the latter por- tion of The Romance of the Rose. Choulant, however, did not regard this as sufficiently proved, and Stadler has re- cently noted that some manuscripts ascribe the poem to a physician, Odo of Verona; and others to the Cistercian, Odo of Morimont, who died in 1161.^ In any case, unless the mentions of Strabo are later interpolations, the author must be regarded as post-Carolingian, while he cannot be later than the eleventh century in view of a remark of Sigebertus Gemblacensis in 1112,^ the Anglo-Saxon ver- sion, the many twelfth century manuscripts, and the fre- quent use of his poem in the Regimen Salernitaniim\ Al- though Macer seems a pseudonym to begin with, the original poem, consisting of 2269 lines in which yy herbs are dis- cussed, is sometimes accompanied by additional lines re- garded as spurious.^
^Choulant (1832) Prolegomena librum. de viribus herbarum," —
ad Macrum, p. 14. Stadler (1909), 65.
^ See the description of Ligus- ' It was, however, a good deal
ticuni. lines 900-6. subject to later interpolation.
^ Often printed: ed. F. A. Reuss, 'Choulant (1832) adds as Mac-
W-iirzburg, 1834; in Migne PL ri spuria 487 lines concerning
114, 1 1 19-30. twenty herbs.
*H. Stadler, Die Quellcn dcs In Vienna 3207, 15th century,
Macrr F/on(/M.y, in Sudhoff (1909). fols. 1-50, Macer Floridus, De
* Stadler, op. cit.; Gioulant viribus herbarum ; fols. SO-52, (1832), p. 4. _ _ Pseudo-Macer, De animalibus et
* "Macer scripsit metrico stilo lignis.
6i4
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Virtues ascribed to herbs.
Our poet does not appear to have much of his own to offer on the subject of the virtues of herbs. When he does not cite his authority by name, he usually qualifies the state- ment made by a vaguer "they say" or "it is said." He does not connect certain herbs with certain stars or otherwise introduce anything that can be called astrological. He re- peats Pliny's statement of the powers ascribed to vervain by the magi, such as to gain one's desires, win the friendship of the powerful, and dispel disease and fever. Pliny had spoken of the magi as "raving about this herb" ; our poet says :
"Although potent Nature can grant such virtues, Yet they really seem to us idle old-wives' tales." ■*■
Nevertheless he himself about fifteen lines before had said of the vervain:
"If, holding this herb in the hand, you ask the patient, 'Say, brother, how are you?' and the patient answers, 'Well,' He will live; but if he says '111,' there is no hope of safety." ^
Our poet not only thus associates with herbs the virtue of divination, but is guilty of sympathetic magic when he be- lieves that the ancients learned by experience that Dragontea or snake-weed dispels poisons, wards off snakes, and is good for snake-bite from observing the similarity between the spotted rind of the herb and the skin of a snake. ^ Odo or Macer repeats Galen's story of curing an epileptic boy by suspending a root of peony about his neck,'* and later as- serts the same virtue for the herb pyrethrum.^ Even more magical is the ceremony for curing toothache which he takes from Pliny and which consists in digging up the herb 5*?- necion without use of iron, touching the aching tooth with it three times, and then replacing the plant in the place where it came from so that it will grow again. ^ Pliny is also cited
* Lines 1901-2, Quae, quamvis sponderit eger, Vivet, si vera
natura potens concedere posset male, spes est nulla salutis. Vana tamen nobis et anilia iure ^ Herb 54. lines 1728-. videntur. * Herb 49, lines 1617-27.
' Lines 1881-3, Hanc herham " Herb 67, lines 2095-.
gestando manu si queris ab egro 'Herb 51, lines 1685-9.
Die frater quid agis? bene si re-
XXVI PSEUDO-LITERATURE IN SCIENCE 615
concerning the swallow's restoring the sight of its young by swallow-wort.^ Our poet also repeats such beliefs as that the herb Buglossa preserves the memory,- or that the smoke of Aristochia dispels demons and exhilarates infants.^ If the hives are anointed with the juice of the herb Barrocus, the bees will not desert them ; while carrying that plant with one is a protection against the stings of bees, wasps, and spiders.^ Among the virtues most frequently attributed to herbs are expelling or killing worms, curing pestiferous bites or poisons, and provoking urine or vomiting. On the whole, "Macer" contains only a moderate amount of super- stition, although rather more proportionally than Walafrid Strabo.
Although Odo or Macer seems to make no original con- Experi- tribution to botany, cites authorities frequently, and speaks ^Macer. often of the ancients or rnen of old, he also at least once cites "experts" ^ and we have also seen his belief that the ancients had tested the virtues of plants by experience. This rather slight experimental character of the work is further emphasized in some manuscripts of it, where the title is "Experiments of Macer" and the matter seems to have been re-arranged under diseases instead of by herbs. ^
' Herb 52. 106-17, "Experimenta Macri. Ad
^ Herb 34, lines 1 135-8. dolorem capitis. Accipe balsamum
^ Herb 41, lines 1421-2. et instilla .../... adde sucum
■* Herb 50, lines 1641-63. celidonie et superpone vulneri-
* Herb 69, Cyminum, lines 2118- bus."
9, "Hoc orthopnoicis miram praes- Arundel 295, 14th century, fols.
tare medelam Experti dicunt cum 222-33, "Experimenta Macri col-
pusce saepius haustum." lecta sub certis capitulis a Gote-
' Vienna 2532, 12th century, fols. f rido."