CHAP. 17.—MADDER.
There are two other plants also, which are but little known to any but the herd of the sordid and avaricious, and this because of the large profits that are derived from them. The first of these is madder,[905] the employment of which is necessary in dyeing wool and leather. The madder of Italy is the most esteemed, and that more particularly which is grown in the suburbs of the City; nearly all our provinces, too, produce it in great abundance.[906] It grows spontaneously, but is capable of reproduction by sowing, much after the same manner as the fitch. The stem,[907] however, is prickly, and articulated, with five leaves arranged round each joint: the seed is red. Its medicinal properties we shall have occasion to mention in the appropriate place.[908]
CHAP. 18.—THE RADICULA.
The plant known to us by the name of “radicula,”[909] is the second of these productions. It furnishes a juice that is extensively employed in washing wool, and it is quite wonderful how greatly it contributes to the whiteness and softness of wool. It may be produced anywhere by cultivation, but that which grows spontaneously in Asia and Syria,[910] upon rugged, rocky sites, is more highly esteemed. That, however, which is found beyond the Euphrates has the highest repute of all. The stalk of it is ferulaceous[911] and thin, and is sought by the inhabitants of those countries as an article of food. It is employed also for making unguents, being boiled up with the other ingredients, whatever they may happen to be. In leaf it strongly resembles the olive. The Greeks have given it the name of “struthion.” It blossoms in summer, and is agreeable to the sight, but entirely destitute of smell. It is somewhat thorny, and has a stalk covered with down. It has an extremely diminutive seed, and a large root, which is cut up and employed for the purposes already mentioned.
CHAP. 19. (4.)—THE PLEASURES OF THE GARDEN.
Having made mention of these productions, it now remains for us to return to the cultivation of the garden,[912] a subject recommended by its own intrinsic merits to our notice: for we find that in remote antiquity, even, there was nothing looked upon with a greater degree of admiration than the gardens of the Hesperides,[913] those of the kings Adonis[914] and Alcinoüs,[915] and the Hanging Gardens, whether they were the work of Semiramis, or whether of Cyrus, king of Assyria, a subject of which we shall have to speak in another work.[916] The kings of Rome cultivated their gardens with their own hands; indeed, it was from his garden that Tarquinius Superbus[917] sent to his son that cruel and sanguinary message of his. In our laws of the Twelve Tables, we find the word “villa,” or “farm,” nowhere mentioned; it is the word “hortus” that is always used with that signification, while the term “heredium” we find employed for “garden.”
There are certain religious impressions, too, that have been attached to this species of property,[918] and we find that it is in the garden and the Forum only that statues of satyrs are consecrated, as a protection against the evil effects[919] of spells and sorcery; although in Plautus, we find the gardens spoken of as being under the tutelage of Venus. At the present day, under the general name of gardens,[920] we have pleasure-grounds situate in the very heart of the City, as well as extensive fields and villas.
Epicurus, that connoisseur[921] in the enjoyments of a life of ease, was the first to lay out a garden at Athens;[922] up to his time it had never been thought of, to dwell in the country in the middle of the town. At Rome, on the other hand, the garden[923] constituted of itself the poor man’s field, and it was from the garden that the lower classes procured their daily food—an aliment how guiltlessly obtained! But still, it is a great deal better, no doubt,[924] to dive into the abysses of the deep, and to seek each kind of oyster at the risk and peril of shipwreck, to go searching for birds beyond the river Phasis[925] even, which, protected as they are by the terrors invented by fable,[926] are only rendered all the more precious thereby—to go searching for others, again, in Numidia,[927] and the very sepulchres of Æthiopia,[928] or else to be battling with wild beasts, and to get eaten one’s self while trying to take a prey which another person is to eat! And yet, by Hercules! how little do the productions of the garden cost us in comparison with these! How more than sufficient for every wish and for every want!—were it not, indeed, that here, as in every thing else, turn which way we will, we find the same grounds for our wrath and indignation. We really might be content to allow of fruits being grown of the most exquisite quality, remarkable, some of them for their flavour, some for their size, some, again, for the monstrosities of their growth, morsels all of them forbidden to the poor![929] We might allow of wines being kept till they are mellowed with age, or enfeebled by being passed through[930] cloth strainers, of men, too, however prolonged their lives, never drinking any but a wine that is still older than themselves! We might allow of luxury devising how best to extract the very aroma, as it were, and marrow[931] only from grain; of people, too, living upon nothing but the choicest productions of the confectioner, and upon pastes fashioned in fantastic shapes: of one kind of bread being prepared for the rich, and another for the multitude; of the yearly produce of the field being classified in a descending scale, till it reaches the humble means of the very lowest classes—but do we not find that these refined distinctions have been extended to the very herbs even, and that riches have contrived to establish points of dissimilarity in articles of food which ordinarily sell for a single copper coin?[932]
In this department even, humble as it is, we are still destined to find certain productions that are denied to the community at large, and the very cabbages pampered to such an enormous extent that the poor man’s table is not large enough to hold them. Asparagus, by Nature, was intended to grow wild,[933] so that each might gather it where he pleased—but, lo and behold! we find it in the highest state of cultivation, and Ravenna produces heads that weigh as much as three pounds[934] even! Alas for the monstrous excess of gluttony! It would be surprising indeed, for the beasts of the field to be forbidden the thistle for food, and yet it is a thing forbidden[935] to the lower classes of the community! These refined distinctions, too, are extended to the very water even, and, thanks to the mighty influence of money, there are lines of demarcation drawn in the very elements themselves. Some persons are for drinking ice, others for quaffing snow, and thus is the curse of the mountain steep turned into an appetizing stimulus for the palate![936] Cold is carefully treasured up for the summer heats, and man’s invention is racked how best to keep snow freezing in months that are not its own. Some again there are who first boil the water,[937] and then bring it to the temperature of winter—indeed, there is nothing that pleases man in the fashion in which Nature originally made it.
And is it the fact, then, that any herb of the garden is reared only for the rich man’s table? It is so—but still let no one of the angered populace think of a fresh secession to Mount Sacer or Mount Aventine; for to a certainty, in the long run, all-powerful money will bring them back to just the same position as they were in when it wrought the severance. For, by Hercules![938] there was not an impost levied at Rome more grievous than the market-dues, an impost that aroused the indignation of the populace, who repeatedly appealed with loud clamours to all the chief men of the state to be relieved from it. At last they were relieved from this heavy tax upon their wares; and then it was found that there was no tax more lucrative, more readily collected, or less obnoxious to the caprices of chance, than the impost that was levied in exchange for it, in the shape of a property-tax, extended to the poorest classes: for now the very soil itself is their surety that paid the tax will be, their means are patent to the light of day, and the superficial extent of their possessions, whatever the weather may chance to be, always remains the same.