BOOK III.—EPITOME.

1. Callimachus the grammarian said that a great book was equivalent to a great evil.

With respect to Ciboria, or Egyptian beans, Nicander says in his Georgics—

You may sow the Egyptian bean, in order in summer
To make its flowers into garlands; and when the ciboria
Have fallen, then give the ripe fruit to the youths
Who are feasting with you, into their hands, as they have been a long time
Wishing for them; but roots I boil, and then place on the table at feasts.

[[122]] But when Nicander speaks of "roots," he means the things which are called by the Alexandrians colocasia; as he says elsewhere—

Have peel'd the beans, and cut up the colocasia.

Now there is at Sicyon a temple to the Colocasian Minerva. There is also a kind of cup called κιβώριον.[122:1]

2. Theophrastus, in his book on Plants, writes thus: "The bean in Egypt grows in marshes and swamps; and its stalk is in length, when it is at the largest, about four cubits; but in thickness, it is as thick as one's finger: and it is like a long reed, only without joints. But it has divisions within, running through the whole of it, like honeycombs. And on this stalk is the head and the flower, being about twice the size of a poppy; and its colour is like that of a rose, very full coloured; and it puts forth large leaves. But the root is thicker than the thickest reed, and it has divisions like the stalk. And people eat it boiled, and roasted, and raw. And the men who live near the marshes eat it very much. It grows, too, in Syria and in Cilicia, but those countries do not ripen it thoroughly. It grows, too, around Torone in Chalcidice, in a marsh of moderate size, and that place ripens it, and it brings its fruit to perfection there. But Diphilus the Siphnian says, "The root of the Egyptian bean, which is called colocasium, is very good for the stomach, and very nutritious, but it is not very digestible, being very astringent; and that is the best which is the least woolly. But the beans which are produced by the plant called ciborium, when they are green are indigestible, not very nutritious, easily pass through one, and are apt to cause flatulence; but when they are dry they are not so flatulent. And from the genuine ciborium there is a flower which grows which is made into garlands. And the Egyptians call the flower the lotus; but the Naucratitans tell me, says Athenæus, that its name is the melilotus: and it is of that flower that the melilotus garlands are made, which are very fragrant, and which have a cooling effect in the summer season.

3. But Phylarchus says, "that though Egyptian beans had never been sown before in any place, and had never produced

[[123]]fruit if any one had by chance sown a few, except in Egypt, still, in the time of Alexander the king, the son of Pyrrhus, it happened that some sprung up near the river Thyamis in Thesprotia in Epirus, in a certain marsh in that district; and for two years continuously they bore fruit and grew; and that on this Alexander put a guard over them, and not only forbade any one to pick them, but would not allow any one to approach the place: and on this the marsh dried up; and for the future it not only never produced the above-mentioned fruit, but it does not appear even to have furnished any water. And something very like this happened at Ædepsus. For at a distance from all other waters there was a spring sending forth cold water at no great distance from the sea; and invalids who drank this water were greatly benefited: on which account many repaired thither from great distances, to avail themselves of the water. Accordingly the generals of king Antigonus, wishing to be economical with respect to it, imposed a tax to be paid by those who drank it: and on this the spring dried up. And in the Troas in former times all who wished it were at liberty to draw water from the Tragasæan lake; but when Lysimachus became ruler there, and put a tax on it, that lake, too, disappeared: and as he marvelled at this, as soon as he remitted the tribute and left the place free, the water came again.