[1780] This, Fée considers to be the Cinara carduncellus of Linnæus, artichoke thistle, or Cardonette of Provence.
[1781] The Cinara scolymus of Linnæus probably, our artichoke, which the ancients do not appear to have eaten. Both the thistle and the artichoke are now no longer employed in medicine.
[1782] Galen gives these lines, sixteen in number, in his work De Antidot. B. ii. c. 14; the proportions, however, differ from those given by Pliny.
[1783] Half a denarius; the weight being so called from the coin which was stamped with the image of the Goddess of Victory. See B. xxxiii. c. 13.
[1784] Antiochus II., the father of Antiochus Epiphanes.
[1785] Or “antidote.” In this term has originated our word “treacle,” in the Elizabethan age spelt “triacle.” The medicinal virtues of this composition were believed in, Fée remarks, so recently as the latter half of the last century. The most celebrated, however, of all the “theriacæ” of the ancients, was the “Theriaca Andromachi,” invented by Andromachus, the physician of the Emperor Nero, and very similar to that composed by Mithridates, king of Pontus, and by means of which he was rendered proof, it is said, against all poisons. See a very learned and interesting account of the Theriacæ of the ancients, by Dr. Greenhill, in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. His articles “Pharmaceutica,” and “Therapeutica,” will also be found well worth attention by the reader of Pliny.
[1786] See end of B. iii.
[1787] See end of B. ii.
[1788] See end of B. xiv.
[1789] He is also mentioned in B. xxv. c. 2, as having commenced a treatise on Medicinal Plants, which he did not live to complete. It is not improbable that he is the same Valgius that is mentioned in high terms by Horace, B. i. Sat. 10.