BOOK XXII.
THE PROPERTIES OF PLANTS AND FRUITS.
CHAP. 1.—THE PROPERTIES OF PLANTS.
Nature and the earth might have well filled the measure of our admiration, if we had nothing else to do but to consider the properties enumerated in the preceding Book, and the numerous varieties of plants that we find created for the wants or the enjoyment of mankind. And yet, how much is there still left for us to describe, and how many discoveries of a still more astonishing nature! The greater part, in fact, of the plants there mentioned recommend themselves to us by their taste, their fragrance, or their beauty, and so invite us to make repeated trials of their virtues: but, on the other hand, the properties of those which remain to be described, furnish us with abundant proof that nothing has been created by Nature without some purpose to fulfil, unrevealed to us though it may be.
CHAP. 2. (1.)—PLANTS USED BY NATIONS FOR THE ADORNMENT OF THE PERSON.
I remark, in the first place, that there are some foreign nations which, in obedience to long-established usage, employ certain plants for the embellishment of the person. That, among some barbarous peoples, the females[2452] stain the face by means of various plants, there can be little doubt, and among the Daci and the Sarmatæ we find the men even marking[2453] their bodies. There is a plant in Gaul, similar to the plantago in appearance, and known there by the name of “glastum:”[2454] with it both matrons and girls[2455] among the people of Britain are in the habit of staining the body all over, when taking part in the performance of certain sacred rites; rivalling hereby the swarthy hue of the Æthiopians, they go in a state of nature.
CHAP. 3. (2.)—EMPLOYMENT OF PLANTS FOR DYEING. EXPLANATION OF THE TERMS SAGMEN, VERBENA, AND CLARIGATIO.
We know, too, that from plants are extracted admirable colours for dyeing; and, not to mention the berries[2456] of Galatia,[2457] Africa, and Lusitania, which furnish the coccus, a dye reserved for the military costume[2458] of our generals, the people of Gaul beyond the Alps produce the Tyrian colours, the conchyliated,[2459] and all the other hues, by the agency of plants[2460] alone. They have not there to seek the murex at the bottom of the sea, or to expose themselves to be the prey of the monsters of the deep, while tearing it from their jaws, nor have they to go searching in depths to which no anchor has penetrated—and all this for the purpose of finding the means whereby some mother of a family may appear more charming in the eyes of her paramour, or the seducer may make himself more captivating to the wife of another man. Standing on dry land, the people there gather in their dyes just as we do our crops of corn—though one great fault in them is, that they wash[2461] out; were it not for which, luxury would have the means of bedecking itself with far greater magnificence, or, at all events, at the price of far less danger.
It is not my purpose, however, here to enter further into these details, nor shall I make the attempt, by substituting resources attended with fewer risks, to circumscribe luxury within the limits of frugality; though, at the same time, I shall have to speak on another occasion how that vegetable productions are employed for staining stone and imparting their colours to walls.[2462] Still, however, I should not have omitted to enlarge upon the art of dyeing, had I found that it had ever been looked upon as forming one of our liberal[2463] arts. Meantime, I shall be actuated by higher considerations, and shall proceed to show in what esteem we are bound to hold the mute[2464] plants even, or in other words, the plants of little note. For, indeed, the authors and founders of the Roman sway have derived from these very plants even almost boundless results; as it was these same plants, and no others, that afforded them the “sagmen,”[2465] employed in seasons of public calamity, and the “verbena” of our sacred rites and embassies. These two names, no doubt, originally signified the same thing,—a green turf torn up from the citadel with the earth attached to it; and hence, when envoys were dispatched to the enemy for the purpose of clarigation, or, in other words, with the object of clearly[2466] demanding restitution of property that had been carried off, one of these officers was always known as the “verbenarius.”[2467]