[175] “The Golden Prairies” of Masudi, Paris, 1873, vii. 100.
[176] “J. Mesuæ ... Opera,” Venice, 1581, p. 85. Fabricius thought this Greek physician might have been Gereon (qui forte est Gereon), Bibliotheca Græca, Hamburg, 1718-52, xiii. 172. I cannot follow MM. Reinaud and Favé and Herr von Romocki in identifying him with Dioskorides. The evidence (from the description of the cyclamen and the preparation of the syrup) seems to point the other way. The past tense, dixit, in the passage in the text, would seem to show that Ibn Serapion was dead when it was written. The present tense, dicit, indicates similarly that “Græcus” was then living, a contemporary of Masawyah’s. Yet Dutens speaks of his having lived “avant le médicin arabe.”
[177] L’Origine des Découvertes, 1796, p. 198.
[178] Bibliot. Græc., xiii. 320. His Bibliot. Latina contains no allusion to Marcus Græcus. Galen died in 200 A.D.
[179] Guttmann, “Manufac. of Explosives,” 1895, i. 8-9.
[180] Recipes 1, 2, 10, &c.
[181] “Artem illam mortiferam et Deo odibilem balistariorum et sagittariorum adversus Christianos et Catholicos exerceri de cetero sub anathemate prohibemus.”—Concil. Rom., ann. 1139, c. 30.
[182] Caussin de Perceval, Essai sur l’hist. des Arabes, ii. 17.
[183] Muir’s “Life of Mahomet,” p. 432; Caussin de Perceval, iii. 257.
[184] Devout Moslem commentators explain “baked” to mean “baked in hell.” See Sale’s trans. ad loc.