[2571] By leading them to confound truth with fiction.
[2572] See B. viii. c. 35.
[2573] This is perhaps the meaning of “præcanere.” Sillig suggests “recanere.”
[2574] Which was said to act as an antidote to the poison, applied to the wound.
[2575] “Antidotes to serpents’ poison.”
[2576] “Pastilli.”
[2577] The god of Medicine.
[2578] A favourite reverie with the learned of the East. Dupont de Nemours, Ajasson informs us, has left several Essays on this subject.
[2579] In Peloponnesus, the principal seat of his worship. A very full account of his introduction, under the form of a huge serpent, into the city of Rome, is given by Ovid, Met. B. xv. l. 544, et seq. This took place B.C. 293.
[2580] Among the snakes that are tamed, Ajasson enumerates the Coluber flagelliformis of Dandin, or American coach-whip snake; the Coluber constructor of Linnæus, or Black snake; and the Coluber viridiflavus of Lacepede. The Æsculapian serpent is still found in Italy.