Several works besides the six commonly regarded as genuine[2438] were attributed to Apuleius in the middle ages, grammatical[2439] and rhetorical[2440] treatises, the Hermetic Asclepius,[2441] a treatise on physiognomy,[2442] and the very widespread Sphere of Life and Death, of which we shall treat in another chapter.[2443] We shall now consider the Herbarium of Apuleius,[2444] the one of his spurious works, which has most to do with the world of nature, and, with the exception of the brief Sphere, the one which occurs most often in the manuscripts. The Herbarium was first printed about 1480 by the physician of Pope Sixtus IV from a manuscript at Monte Cassino, and then, after various other editions, was included in 1547 in the collection of ancient Latin medical writers issued by the Aldine Press. We are told, however, that with the close of the fifteenth century the Apuleius began to be superseded by German herbals. The medieval manuscripts of the Herbarium are often noteworthy for their illuminations of the herbs in vivid colors. Those of the mandragora root are especially interesting, showing it as a man standing on the back of a dog or a human form with leaves growing on the head and led by a dog chained to his waist.[2445] The oldest manuscripts are of the sixth century, and there are some in Anglo-Saxon, but as one would expect, the work underwent many additions and alterations, and different manuscripts of it vary considerably. The author is usually spoken of as Apuleius the Platonist and is sometimes said to have received his work from the centaur Chiron, the master of Achilles, and from Esculapius.[2446]

Specimens of its occult science.

In the Herbarium the plants are listed and described and their virtues, especially medicinal, stated. Usually the names for each herb in several languages or regions are given—Latin, Greek, Punic, Biblical (by the Prophets), Egyptian, Syrian, Gallic, Dacian, Spanish, Phrygian, Tuscan. By no means all of these are listed in every case, however. The virtues of the herbs often operate in an occult manner, or procedure suggestive of magic is involved in collecting or applying them. Often diseases are cured merely by holding an herb in the hand, wearing it with a string about the neck, or placing it behind one ear, or wearing it in a ring. Lunatics, for example, are treated by binding an herb about the neck with red cloth when the moon is waxing in the sign of the bull or the first part of the scorpion. Not only does observance of astrology assist the medicinal application of herbs; plants are in turn of assistance in the pursuit of astrology. To learn under the rule of what star you are, be in a state of purity, pluck the herb Montaster, keep it in a bit of clean linen until you find a whole grain of wheat in a loaf of bread, then place this with the herb under your pillow and pray to the seven planets to reveal your guardian star to you in your sleep. Indeed prayers and incantations are frequently employed and in one case must be repeated nine times. Sometimes the herb itself is addressed, as in the conjuration, “Herb Erystion, I implore you to aid me and cheerfully afford me all your virtues and cure and make whole all those ills which Aesculapius and Chiron the centaur, masters of medicine, healed by means of you.” Sometimes the earth is conjured as in the prayer beginning, “Holy goddess Earth.” Such prayers are scarcely consonant with Christianity and in some manuscripts have been omitted and replaced by the Lord’s Prayer or other Christian forms, or left in with their wording slightly altered to avoid paganism.[2447] Personal purity and clean clothing are often enjoined upon those gathering the herbs and such instructions are added as to mark the circle about the plant with gold, silver, ivory, the tooth of a wild boar, and the horn of a bull, or to fill the hole with honeyed fruits. Some herbs protect their bearers from all serpents or even from all evils. Others, like asparagus if you use a dry root of it to sprinkle the patient with spring water, break the spell of witchcraft. Asparagus is also beneficial for toothache and wonderfully relieves a tumor or bladder trouble, if it is boiled in water and drunk by the patient fasting for seven days and also used in bathing for a number of days. But one must be careful not to go out in the cold during this time nor to take cold drinks.[2448]

A “Precantation of All Herbs.”

In some manuscripts a “Precantation of all herbs” is placed at the beginning of the treatise.[2449] It prescribes such procedure as holding a mirror over the herb before plucking it before sunrise under a waning moon. The person plucking the herb and uttering the incantation must be barefoot, ungirded, chaste, and wear no ring. The plant is adjured not only “by the living God” and “the holy name of God, Sabaoth,” but also by Seia, the Roman goddess of sowing, and by “GS,” which presumably stands for Gaia Seia, an expression which is once written out in full. Some meaningless words are also repeated.

Other treatises accompanying the Herbarium.

The Herbarium is often accompanied in the manuscripts by other treatises on herbs ascribed to Dioscorides and Macer, of which we shall speak presently; by a work on the medicinal properties of animals, or more particularly of quadrupeds, by Sextus Papirius Placidus[2450] Actor[2451]—an otherwise quite unknown personage;[2452] by a “letter concerning a little beast” from the king of Egypt or Aesculapius to the emperor Octavian Augustus;[2453] and by introductory letters, such as we find prefaced to the De medicamentis of Marcellus Empiricus, of “Hippocrates to his Moecenas”[2454] and “Antonius Musus to Moecenas Agrippa.” The epistle of the Egyptian king or Aesculapius to Augustus, however, really forms the introduction or opening chapter to the treatise of Sextus Papirius Placidus on the medicinal properties of animals, and after the little beast or quadruped called mela or taxo[2455] follow fast the stag, serpent, fox, hare, scorpion, and so forth. As for the taxo, Augustus is told that by means of it he can protect himself from sorcerers, avoid defections in his army, and preserve his troops from the pestilence which the barbarians bring, and the city of Rome from both pestilences and fires. To this end a lustration should be performed with its flesh, and it should then be buried at the city gates. One way to appropriate its virtue is to extract its large teeth, repeating a jargon of strange words the while.

Cosmography of Aethicus.

Another characteristic product of declining antique learning and of early medieval effort is found in the field of geography in the Cosmography of Aethicus Istricus, translated into Latin by the priest Jerome (Hieronymus Presbyter). The oldest manuscript is one of the eighth century in the British Museum,[2456] where it is also found in several other fairly early manuscripts[2457] in the respectable company of Vitruvius, Vegetius, Sallust, and Suetonius,[2458] as well as with the more congenial work of Solinus. This Cosmographia was not printed until 1852, when it was edited 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 Cosmography of Aethicus but is really to be identified with fragments of Julian Honorius and Orosius. The Latin translator of our treatise had been identified in the middle ages with St. Jerome, the church father, and Wuttke still ascribed it to him, but Bunbury protested against this,[2459] and Mommsen placed our treatise not earlier than the seventh century.[2460]

Its medieval influence