Solinus: DE MIRABILIBUS MUNDI Mommsen 1st edition (1864)
Solinus•DE MIRABILIBUS MUNDI Mommsen 1st edition (1864)
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XXIII. Rursus ad continentem res Hispanienses vocant. terrarum plaga conparanda optimis, nulli posthabenda frugis et soli copia, sive vinearum proventus respicere sive arborarios velis. omni materia affluit, quaecumque aut pretio ambitiosa est aut usu necessaria.
23. Again the Spanish affairs call us back to the continent. A tract of lands to be compared with the best, inferior to none in abundance of produce and of soil, whether you wish to regard the yield of vineyards or of orchard-trees. It overflows with every material, whatever is either ambitious for its price or necessary for use.
whether you require silver or gold, it has it: it has never failed in ironworks: it does not yield in vines, it surpasses in olives. it is divided into three provinces, made ours in the Second Punic War. nothing in it is idle, nothing sterile: whatever, of whatever sort, denies a harvest, thrives for fodder: even the things that are arid, by their very sterility supply to sailors materials for ropes.
In Lusitania promunturium est quod Artabrum alii, alii Olisiponense dicunt. hoc caelum terras maria distinguit: terris Hispaniae latus finit: caelum et maria hoc modo dividit, quod a circuitu eius incipiunt Oceanus Gallicus et frons septentrionalis, Oceano, Atlantico et occasu terminatis. ibi oppidum Olisipone Ulixi conditum: ibi Tagus flumen.
In Lusitania there is a promontory which some call Artabrum, others the Olisiponensian. this distinguishes sky, lands, seas: for the lands it bounds a side of Spain: it divides the sky and the seas in this way, that from its circuit the Gallic Ocean and the northern front begin, bounded by the Ocean, the Atlantic, and the west. there the town at Olisipo founded by Ulysses: there the river Tagus.
They have preferred the Tagus over the others on account of its auriferous sands. In the regions nearest to Olisipo the mares sport with wondrous fecundity: for, breathed upon by the Favonian wind, they conceive, and, thirsting for males, are mated by the spirit of the breezes. The river Hiberus gave its name to all Spain, the Baetis to the province: each is noble.
Cassiterides insulae spectant adversum Celtiberiae latus, plumbi fertiles: et tres Fortunatae, e quibus solum vocabulum signandum fuit. Ebusus quae a Dianio abest septingenta stadia, serpentem non habet: utpote cuius terra serpentes fuget. Colubraria quae Sucronem versus est feta est anguibus.
The Cassiterides islands face toward the side of Celtiberia opposite, rich in lead: and the three Fortunate [Islands], of which only the name needed to be noted. Ebusus, which is 700 stadia distant from Dianium, has no serpent; inasmuch as its soil puts serpents to flight. Colubraria, which is toward Sucron, is teeming with snakes.
The Balearics were the kingdom of Bocchoris, once copious until the eversion of the crops by the animal rabbits. in the headland of Baetica, where is the farthest boundary of the known world, an island is separated from the continent by 700 feet, which the Tyrians, having set out from the Red Sea, named Erythraea, and the Punic, in their own tongue, Gadir, that is, a fence/enclosure. in this one it is proven by very many monuments that Geryon spent his lifetime, although some think that Hercules drove off the cattle from another island, which looks toward Lusitania.
Sed Gaditanum fretum, a Gadibus dictum, Atlanticos aestus in nostrum mare discidio inmittit orbis. nam Oceanus, quem Graii sic nominant de celeritate, ab occasu solis inrumpens laevo latere Europam radit, Africam dextero, scissisque Calpe et Abinna montibus quos dicunt columnas Herculis, inter Mauros funditur et Hispaniam: ac freto isti, cuius quindecim milia passuum efficit longitudo, latitudo vix septem, quodam ostio aperit limen interni aequoris, mixtus mediterraneis sinibus quos ad usque orientem propellit. horum qui Hispanias perfundit Hibericus fertur et Balearicus: qui Narbonensem provinciam Gallicus: mox Ligusticus: ab eo ad Siciliam Tuscus, quem Graeci Ionium vel Tyrrhenum, Itali inferum vocitant: a Sicilia Cretam usque Siculus: inde Creticus, qui in Pamphyliam et Aegyptum pertendit: quae aquarum moles torto in septentrionem prius latere, anfractibus magnis iuxta Graecias et Hillyricum per Hellespontum in angustias stringitur Propontidis: quae Propontis Europam Asiamque discriminans ad Maeotidem pervenit.
But the Gaditan strait, named from Gades, sends the Atlantic tides into our sea by a sundering of the world. For the Ocean, which the Greeks so name from swiftness, breaking in from the setting of the sun, grazes Europe on its left flank, Africa on its right; and with the mountains Calpe and Abinna cloven, which they call the Pillars of Hercules, it is poured between the Moors and Spain: and by that strait—whose length amounts to fifteen thousand paces, its breadth scarcely seven—it opens, by a certain mouth, the threshold of the inner water, mingled with the Mediterranean gulfs which it drives as far as the East. Of these, the one that bathes the Spains is called the Hiberian and the Balearic; the one that bathes the Narbonensian province, the Gallic; next, the Ligustic; from it to Sicily, the Tuscan, which the Greeks call Ionian or Tyrrhenian, the Italians call the Lower; from Sicily as far as Crete, the Sicilian; thence the Cretic, which stretches toward Pamphylia and Egypt. This mass of waters, its flank first twisted toward the north, with great windings along the Greek lands and Illyricum, through the Hellespont is drawn into the narrows of the Propontis; which Propontis, separating Europe and Asia, reaches to the Maeotis.
A not uniform rationale has given the causes of the names. The Asiatic and the Phoenician are named from the provinces: from islands, the Carpathian, Aegean, Icarian, Balearic, Cyprian: from peoples, the Ausonian, Dalmatian, Ligustic, Tuscan — from towns, the Hadriatic, Argolic, Corinthian, Tyrian: from incidents of men, the Myrtean or the Hellespont: from the memory of a king, the Ionian: from the crossing of an ox, or from narrows, even from passages passable by cattle, the Bosporus: from the customs of the inhabitants, the Euxine, previously called Axine: from an orderly flow, the Propontis. The Egyptian sea is assigned to Asia, the Gallic to Europe, the African to Libya: to these, as each is nearest, the rest have come into the portions of those parts.
These are in the bosoms of the lands. But the Ocean embraces the outermost shores, which from its own coasts is called Arabic, Persian, Indian, Eastern, Seric, Hyrcanian, Caspian, Scythian, Germanic, Gallic, Atlantic, Libyan, Egyptian. Its approaches and increments rush most vehemently around the shores of India, and there make the greatest recessions, either because it is lifted more on high by the force of heat, or because in that part of the world the abundance of springs and rivers is more outpoured.
It is still in doubt by what causes it swells, and to what extent; and, when it has become superfluous, it settles back into itself again. Nor is it obscure that more has been expressed according to the ingenuity of those discoursing rather than to the faith of truth. But, setting aside the doubtful ambiguity of the concurrent questions, we have found these opinions most approved.
the natural philosophers say that the world is a living being, and that, conglobated from the various bodies of the elements, it is moved by spirit and ruled by mind: and that both of these, diffused through all the members of the eternal mass, exert their vigor. Thus, just as in our bodies there are spiritual commerces, so in the depths of the Ocean certain nostrils of the world are set, through which, breaths sent forth or drawn back, at one time blow the seas out, at another recall them. But those who follow the discipline of the stars contend that those passages are stirred by the courses of the moon: to such a degree that they regard the vicissitudes between the meagerness of the waters and their fullness as corresponding to its waxings or wanings.
XXIV. De Hispania excursus in Libyam: nam Baelone progressos, quod Baeticae oppidum est, ultra interiacens fretum trium et triginta milium passuum Tingi excipit, Mauretaniae nunc colonia, sed cuius Antaeus primus auctor est. porro quod in illo ambitu Aegyptium finitur pelagus et Libycum incipit, placuit ut Africam Libyam diceremus. quidam tamen Libyam a Libya Epaphi filia, Africam autem ab Afro Libyis Hereulis filio potius dictam receperunt.
24. An excursus from Spain into Libya: for those who have set out from Baelo, which is a town of Baetica, beyond the intervening strait of thirty-three thousand paces Tingi receives them, now a colony of Mauretania, but whose first founder is Antaeus. Moreover, because in that circuit the Egyptian sea is ended and the Libyan begins, it has pleased us to call Africa “Libya.” Some, however, have accepted that Libya is named from Libya, daughter of Epaphus, but that Africa is rather so called from Afer, son of Hercules by a Libyan woman.
Lix also, a colony, has been established in the same tract, where is the royal residence of Antaeus, who, better skilled at entangling and disentangling holds upon the ground—just as if begotten of mother Earth—there in that very place was vanquished by Hercules. For about the gardens of the Hesperides and the ever‑wakeful dragon, lest trust be wounded by the license of report, the rationale is this: an estuary is borne in from the sea with a flexuous course, so tortuous with sinuous banks that, to those viewing from afar, it counterfeits serpentine slidings in broken eddies; and so it encloses that which they called the gardens; whence, by “interpreting” guardians of the apples, they constructed a pathway toward the lie of story‑telling.
but this island, insinuated into the bays of a re-entrant channel and set in certain coils of the sea’s level, besides trees like the wild-olive and a sacred altar to Hercules, carries forth nothing else that might propagate the memory of antiquity. Yet, beyond golden shrubs and ores, more marvelous in its frondescence is this: that the soil, although depressed as in the lower pan of a balance, is never over-slid by the access of the strait; but, by the obstacle of a natural barrier, the wave clings upon the very margins, and on the inmost eyebrows of the shores the surges rushing in are of their own accord resisted: a plain certainly to be looked upon by the native contrivance of the place remains dry, although sloping waters of the sea supervene. The town Sala overhangs the river Sala.
From this point the journey is through the nation of the Autololes into the Atlantic solitudes. The mountain Atlas rises out of the midst of the vastness of sands, and, drawn up into the neighborhood of the lunar circle, hides its head beyond the clouds. Where it extends toward the Ocean, to which it gave its own name, it flows with springs, bristles with groves, grows rough with crags, and is squalid with barrenness, the soil bare and not grassy; where it is turned over against Africa, it is fortunate with crops springing up of their own accord, most shaded by tall trees, whose odor is heavy; their foliage, like that of the cypress, is clothed with a down no whit cheaper than silken fleeces. On that side too the plant euphorbea is abundant, whose juice profits ocular clarity and quite notably strikes the force of poisons.
the peak is ever snowy. its wooded mountain-passes have been occupied for the most part by quadrupeds and serpents, and along with these, by elephants. it is wholly silent by day, and its seclusion is not without horror; it shines with nocturnal fires, is everywhere made to resound with the choruses of the Aegipans: one hears both the songs of pipes and the ringing of cymbals along the maritime shore.
from Lixus it is distant by 205 miles; Lixus from the Gaditanian strait by 112 miles. formerly inhabited, as the appearance of the place indicates, once exercised by cultivation, in which even to this day there remains a trace of the vine and of palms. the summit accessible to Perseus and to Hercules, inaccessible to the rest: thus the inscription of the altars makes the claim plain.
where it looks toward the west, between it and the river Anatis for 496 miles forests infamous for beasts occupy. the rivers around it are not to be kept silent, which, although they are separated by rather wider intervals, have nevertheless passed into a certain ministry of the Atlantic name: the Asana by a sea draught: the Bambotus stuffed with crocodiles and hippopotami: further beyond there is still a river which comes forth with a black color through the inmost and scorched solitudes, which, by a perpetual torrent and by a sun excessive, more than ignited, are never rescued from heat. these things about Atlas, whom the Mauri call Addir, both the Punic books of Hanno and our annals have transmitted, Juba also, the son of Ptolemy, who gained possession of the kingdom of both Mauretanias.
XXV. E provinciis Mauretaniis Tingitana, quae solstitiali plagae obvia est quaeque porrigitur ad internum mare, exurgit montibus septem, qui a similitudine fratres appellati freto imminent. hi montes elephantis frequentissimi [sunt] monent a principio hoc animantium genus dicere. igitur elephanti iuxta sensum humanum intellectus habent, memoria pollent, siderum servant disciplinam.
25. From the Mauretanian provinces, Tingitana, which faces the solstitial quarter and which stretches to the Inner Sea, rises with seven mountains, which from their likeness are called brothers and overhang the strait. These mountains are most frequented by elephants; they warn us to speak from the outset about this genus of living creatures. Therefore elephants have an intellect close to human understanding, they excel in memory, they observe the discipline of the stars.
as the moon grows bright they seek the rivers in herds; soon, once sprinkled with the liquid, they salute the sun’s rising with whatever motions they can, then return into the woodland glades. Two kinds of them exist: magnitude indicates the more noble; the smaller they call bastards. Youth is understood by the whiteness of the teeth: of which one is always in service, the other is spared, lest, dulled by assiduous striking, it be less vigorous if there should be fighting.
when they are pressed by the hunt, they shatter both tusks alike, so that, the ivory being condemned, they are not sought: for they perceive that this is the cause of danger that inheres to them. they wander in columns. the eldest by birth leads the column, the next in age marshals the [followers]. when about to cross a river, they send the smallest ahead, lest by the entry of the larger ones they wear down the channel and, the shallows having been pressed down, make a deep whirlpool.
The females are unacquainted with Venus before ten years, the males before five. They couple every other year, for five days and no more in the year, and they will not return to the gregarious number before they have been washed in living waters. On account of the females they never fight: for they know no adulteries.
there is in them the good of clemency: for if they should by chance see a vagabond man through the deserts, they furnish guidance all the way to known roads: or if they should meet with densely packed herds, they make routes for themselves with a blandishing and placid hand, lest they slay any animal that is met by a fortuitous conflict. if ever there is fighting, they have no mediocre concern for the wounded: for they take the weary and the wounded into the middle. when by captivity they have come into the hands of men, they become tame by quaffing barley-juice.
Those about to cross the seas do not go aboard ships before an oath concerning their return is exacted from them. The Mauretanians fear Indian elephants and, as if conscious of their own smallness, they spurn being seen by them. They are not, as the vulgar report, ten years pregnant, but, as Aristotle defines, are gravid in the womb for two years; nor do they bring forth more than once, nor more than single offspring.
no hirsuteness of setae. between these and dragons there is continual discord. finally, ambushes are prepared with this stratagem: serpents hide beside the paths by which the elephants roam on their accustomed tracks; and thus, with the first ones let pass, they attack the hindmost, lest those who have gone ahead be able to help.
and first they inligate the feet with knots, so that with noosed legs they impede the faculty of walking: for elephants, unless prevented by this delay of coils, press themselves either to trees or to rocks, so that, by leaning with their weight, they may kill the snakes, worn away by rubbing. the principal cause of the combat is that, as they say, a colder blood is in elephants, and on that account they are most greedily seized by the dragons when the heat is torrential. wherefore they never attack unless they are weighed down by drinking, so that, the veins more readily irrigated, they may take a greater satiation from the oppressed.
and they aim at nothing more than the eyes, which alone they know to be assailable, or the inner parts of the ears, because that spot alone cannot be defended by the proboscis. and so, when they have drunk up the blood, while the beasts rush headlong, the dragons are overwhelmed. thus on both sides the shed gore soaks the earth, and whatever of the soil it has dyed becomes a pigment, which they call cinnabar.
Caesariensi colonia Caesarea inest a divo Claudio deducta, Bocchi prius regia, postmodum Iubae indulgentia populi Romani dono data. inest et oppidum Siga quod habitatum Syphaci fuit. nec ab Icosio taciti recedamus: Hercule enim illa transeunte viginti qui a comitatu eius desciverant locum deligunt, iaciunt moenia: ac ne quis inposito a se nomine privatim gloriaretur, de condentium numero urbi nomen datum.
Within the Caesarian colony there is Caesarea, established by the deified Claudius, formerly the royal residence of Bocchus, afterwards given as a gift to Juba by the indulgence of the Roman people. There is also the town Siga, which had been inhabited by Syphax. Nor let us withdraw from Icosium in silence: for, as Hercules was passing through that place, twenty men who had defected from his retinue choose a site and throw up walls; and, lest anyone should boast privately of a name imposed by himself, the city’s name was given from the number of its founders.
XXVI. Quod est a flumine Amsiga Numidiae datur. huius incolae quamdiu errarunt pabulationibus vagabundis, Nomades dicti sunt. urbes in ea plurimae nobilesque, sed Cirta eminet: dein Chullu purpurario fuco Tyriis velleribus comparata.
26. What lies from the river Amsiga is assigned to Numidia. The inhabitants of this, so long as they wandered with vagabond foragings, were called Nomads. In it there are very many and noble cities, but Cirta stands out; then Chullu, matched to Tyrian fleeces for its purpurary dye.
whence it comes about that precipitate fecundity creates misshapen offspring: they bring forth tiny little pieces of flesh, which have a white color, no eyes, and, from hasty immaturity, merely a raw gore, except for the lineaments of the claws. By licking these they gradually give them form, and sometimes, pressed to the breast, they cherish them, so that, warmed by constant incubation, they draw the breath of life. Meanwhile, no food.
indeed, in the first fourteen days the mothers sink into sleep in such a way that they cannot be roused even by wounds. having brought forth, they lie hidden for four months: soon, having gone out into the free daylight, they suffer such an insolence of the light that you would think them clogged with blindness. the head is feeble in bears, the greatest force in the arms and in the loins: whence they sometimes stand upon the hind feet.
they lie in wait for the hives of bees, they especially go after the honeycombs, nor do they seize anything more avidly than honey. when they have tasted the apples of mandrake, they die; but they go to meet the harm, lest it grow into perdition, and they devour ants to recuperate health. if ever they attack bulls, they know on which parts especially to fasten, and seek nothing other than the horns or the nostrils: the horns, so that by the weight they may be wearied out; the nostrils, so that the pain may be sharper in the more tender place.
XXVII. Omnis Africa a Zeugitano pede incipit, promunturio Apollinis Sardiniae contraversa, promunturio Mercurii procedens in frontem Sicanam: proinde extenta in duas prominentias, quarum altera promunturium Candidum dicitur, alteram quae est in Cyrenaica regione Phycuntem vocant: ea per sinum Creticum opposita Cretae insulae contra Taenarum Laconicae excurrit. harenis Catabathmi Aegypto insinuata, cui proximi Cyrenenses, extenditur inter duas Syrtes, quas inaccessas vadosum ac reciprocum mare efficit. cuius sali defectus vel incrementa haud promptum est deprehendere, ita incertis motibus nunc in brevia residit dorsuosa, nunc inundatur aestibus inquietis, ut auctor est Varro, perflabilem ibi terram ventis penetrantibus subitam vim spiritus citissime aut revomere maria aut resorbere.
27. All Africa begins at the Zeugitanian foot, the Promontory of Apollo set over-against Sardinia, the Promontory of Mercury advancing toward the Sicilian front: accordingly stretched out into two prominences, of which one is called the White Promontory, the other, which is in the Cyrenaic region, they call Phycus: this runs out along the Cretan Gulf, opposite the island of Crete, over against Taenarum of Laconia. With the sands of the Catabathmus insinuated into Egypt, next to which are the Cyrenians, it is extended between the two Syrtes, which a shallow and reciprocating sea renders inaccessible. Of its brine the deficits or the increments are not easy to detect, so with uncertain motions now it subsides upon ridgy shallows, now it is inundated by unquiet tides, as Varro is author, the land there being wind-permeable, with the winds penetrating, so that a sudden force of breath most quickly either vomits back the seas or reabsorbs them.
the whole of this tract is cut off from Ethiopia and the boundaries of Asia by the Black river which begets the Nile, and from Spain by the strait: on the side that inclines toward the south it is lacking in springs and infamous for thirst: on the other side, where it faces the north, it is liberal in water: in the Byzacene country, which extends for two hundred miles or more, the clods are so very fat that the seeds cast there are reborn with an increase of hundredfold produce.
Externos in ea plurimos conventasse argumentum de urbibus et locis dabimus. Borion promunturium quod aquilone caeditur Graeci advenae sic vocaverunt. Hipponem Regium postea dictum, item Hipponem alterum de interfluenti freto Diarrhyton nuncupatum, nobilissima oppida, equites Graeci condiderunt.
We will furnish proof from the cities and places that very many foreigners assembled in it. The promontory Borion, which is beaten by the north wind, the Greek newcomers thus named. Hippo Regius, so called afterward, and likewise the other Hippo, named Diarrhyton from the strait flowing between—most noble towns—were founded by Greek horsemen.
The Sicels build the city Clypea and first name it Aspis; Veneria also, into which they transferred the religions of Venus Erycina. The Achaeans designate Tripolis in their own tongue from the number of three cities, that is Ocae, Sabratae, Leptis magnae. To the Philaeni brothers, from a desire of praise, a Greek appellation was given.
Hadrumeto atque Carthagini auctor est a Tyro populus: sed quae super Carthagine veraces libri prodiderunt hoc loco reddam. urbem istam, ut Cato in oratione senatoria autumat, cum rex Iapon rerum in Libya potiretur, Elissa mulier extruxit domo Phoenix et Carthadam dixit, quod Phoenicum ore exprimit civitatem novam. mox sermone verso in morem Punicum, et haec Elisa et illa Carthago dicta est: quae post annos DCLXXVII exciditur quam fuerat constituta.
To Hadrumetum and to Carthage the founder is a people from Tyre; but what truthful books have handed down concerning Carthage I will render in this place. That city, as Cato asserts in a senatorial oration, when king Iapon was gaining control of affairs in Libya, was built by the woman Elissa, a Phoenician by house, and she called it Carthada, which in the mouth of the Phoenicians expresses “new city.” Soon, with the wording turned to the Punic manner, both this became Elisa and that Carthago; and it was destroyed after 677 years from when it had been established.
then by Gaius Gracchus it was given to Italic colonists and by him called Junonia, for a while lowly and in a languid condition: at length, into the renown of a Second Carthage, after 102 years had intervened, under M. Antonius and P. Dolabella, consuls, it shone forth, the second ornament of the world after the city of Rome.
Verum ut ad Africam redeam, interna eius plurimae quidem bestiae, sed principaliter leones tenent. quorum trifariam genus scinditur: nam breviores et iubis crispi plerumque ignavi sunt et inbelles: longiores et coma simplici acres magis: at hi quos creant pardi in plebe remanent iubarum inopes. pariter omnes parcunt a sagina, primum quod alternis diebus potum, alternis cibum capiunt ac frequenter, si digestio non est insecuta, solitae cibationi superponunt diem: tum quod carnes iusto amplius devoratas cum gravantur, insertis in ora unguibus sponte protrahunt.
But to return to Africa, its interior is indeed held by very many beasts, but principally by lions. Whose genus is split threefold: for the shorter and with crisp manes are for the most part slothful and unwarlike: the longer and with simple hair are more keen: but those whom leopards beget remain in the plebeian rank, destitute of manes. Alike all refrain from fattening, first because on alternate days they take drink, on alternate food, and frequently, if digestion has not followed, they superadd a day to the accustomed feeding: then because, when they are burdened by having devoured flesh more than is just, with their claws inserted into their mouths they of their own accord draw it forth.
nor are they separated from mercy: indeed, with continual instances adduced it is evident that they have spared, since many of the captives, meeting several lions, have repatriated untouched: the name of a Gaetulian woman too is included in the books of Juba, who, having adjured the beasts running to meet her, returned immune. turned away they come together (mate): and not these only, but also lynxes and camels and elephants and rhinoceroses and tigers. lionesses at their first bearing bring forth five cubs, then by single ones they boil down the number in the ensuing years, and finally, when maternal fecundity has fallen back to one, they become sterile forever.
The tempers of lions are indicated by the brow and the tail, just as equine motions are understood from the ears: for nature has given these tokens to every creature of the noblest breeding. The greatest force is in the chest, the chief firmness in the head. When they are pressed by dogs, they withdraw with contempt and, halting at times, they dissemble fear by an equivocal retreat: and they do this if they are driven in bare and open fields, for in wooded places, as though they feared no witness of their cowardice, they withdraw themselves by flight as much as they can.
when they pursue, they aid their effort with a leap; when they flee, they are not able to run fast. As they go, they shut the blade-points of their claws in the sheaths of their bodies, lest the tips be blunted by friction. So carefully do they keep this that they run only with their little sickles turned backward.
we learn that small beasts are called “leontophonos,” which, when captured, are burned up, so that by a sprinkling of their ash, meats defiled and thrown at the crossroads of converging footpaths may kill lions, if they take ever so small a quantity from them. therefore lions pursue them with a natural hatred, and whenever opportunity is given, they indeed refrain from biting, but dispatch them, torn to pieces, by the thrusts of their feet. the first to present a spectacle of these at Rome was Scaevola, the son of Publius, in his curule aedileship.
Hyaenam quoque mittit Africa, cui cum spina riget collum continua unitate flectique non quit nisi toto corporis circumactu. multa de ea mira: primum quod sequitur stabula pastorum et auditu assiduo addiscit vocamen quod exprimere possit imitatione vocis humanae, ut in hominem astu accitum nocte saeviat. vomitus quoque humanos mentitur falsisque singultibus sollicitatos sic canes devorat: qui forte si venantes umbram eius dum sequuntur contigerint, latrare nequeunt voce perdita.
Africa also sends forth the hyena, whose neck is rigid with the spine in continuous unity and cannot be bent except by a complete circum-turning of the whole body. Many marvelous things about it: first, that it follows the stables of shepherds and by assiduous hearing learns a vocable which it can express by imitation of the human voice, so that by craft, a man having been called at night, it savages him. It likewise counterfeits human vomitings, and with feigned sobs, having thus solicited them, it devours dogs; which, if by chance while hunting they should happen, as they follow, to touch its shadow, are unable to bark, their voice lost.
in the pupils of whose eyes a stone is found, which they call hyenia, endowed with that power that, if it has been placed under a man’s tongue, it predicts the future. But whatever animal the hyena has thrice encompassed cannot move itself: wherefore they have proclaimed that a magical science is in it. In a part of Ethiopia it mates with a lioness, whence a monster is born, whose name is corocotta.
Inter ea quae dicunt herbatica eadem Africa onagros habet, in quo genere singuli inperitant gregibus feminarum. aemulos libidinis metuunt. inde est quod gravidas suas servant, ut in editis maribus, si qua facultas fuerit, generandi spem morsu detruncent, quod caventes feminae in secessibus partus occulunt.
Among what they call the grassy country, that same Africa has onagers, in which kind each single male commands herds of females. They fear rivals in libido. Hence it is that they keep guard over their pregnant mates, so that, in the newborn males, if any opportunity there be, they truncate by a bite the hope of begetting; wherefore the females, being cautious, hide their births in secluded recesses.
Africa serpentibus adeo fecunda est, ut mali huius merito illi potissimum palma detur. cerastae praeferunt quadrigemina cornicula, quorum ostentatione veluti esca inlice sollicitatas aves perimunt. nam reliqua corporis de industria harenis tegunt nec ullum indicium sui praebent, nisi ex ea parte qua invitatis dolo pastibus necem praepetum aucupentur.
Africa is so fecund in serpents that, deservedly, for this evil the palm is awarded to it above all. The cerastes display fourfold little horns, by the ostentation of which, as by a baited lure, they dispatch birds that have been enticed. For they purposely cover the rest of the body with sands and give no indication of themselves, except from that part by which, with food invited by deceit, they hunt the death of the winged creatures.
The amphisbaena rears up with a twin head, of which one is in its proper place, the other in that part where the tail is: a cause which brings it about that, with a head on either side opposite, by bracing itself it creeps in circular tracts. Javelin-snakes climb trees, from which, whirled with the greatest force, they penetrate whatever animal chance has made to meet them. The scytale so shines forth with such variety of back that, by the charm of its markings, it slows those who see it; and since it is more sluggish at crawling, those whom it cannot overtake it captures, astonished, by the marvel of itself.
in this, however, thanks to the sheen of its scales, it is the first to cast the winter slough. there are many and diverse species of asps, but differing effects for harming: the dipsas kills by thirst: the hypnale, which kills by sleep, is bought for death, Cleopatra being witness. since the venom of the others admits remedies, it merits less repute.
by the bite of the haemorrhois it draws out blood, and with the commerce of the veins dissolved, it calls forth whatever of life there is through the gore. The one whom the prester has struck is distended and, swollen out, is killed by enormous corpulence. After the stroke of the seps, putrefaction follows.
These monsters, if they hiss, smite more clemently. They have affections: not readily do they wander abroad except as consorts; if one is captured or slain, whichever has survived is carried away into frenzy. The heads in the females are more slender, the bellies more swollen, the pest more noxious.
De gemma heliotropio inter Aethiopiam Africam Cyprum certamen fuit, quaenam mitteret generis huius eminentissimam: deprehensumque est documentis plurimis Aethiopicam aut Libycam palmam tenere. viridi colore est non ita acuto, sed nubilo magis et represso, stellis puniceis superspersa. causa nominis de effectu lapidis est et potestate: deiecta in labris aheneis radios solis mutat sanguineo repercussu extraque aquam splendorem eius abicit et avertit.
Concerning the gem heliotrope there was a contest among Ethiopia, Africa, and Cyprus as to which would send the most eminent of this kind: and it was discovered by very many proofs that the Ethiopian or Libyan holds the palm. It is of a green color, not so sharp, but rather cloudy and subdued, sprinkled over with puniceous stars. The cause of the name is from the effect and power of the stone: when dropped into bronze basins it changes the rays of the sun with a blood-red repercussion, and outside the water it casts off and averts its splendor.
Inter Syrtes quamvis terra pergentibus iter sideribus destinatur nec aliter cursus patescit: nam putris soli faciem aura mutat et minimo licet vento tantam diversitatem flatus efficit, ut subinde perversis sitibus locorum nulla indicia agnitioni relinquantur, cum modo quae fuerant tumulis ardua in valles residunt, modo quae vallibus pressa coitu pulveris aggerantur. ita etiam continens naturam maris sui patitur: nec interest ubi potius sint procellae, cum ad exitium viantium elementis congruentibus in terris flabra saeviant, in mari terrae. utraeque Syrtes CCL milibus passuum separantur.
Between the Syrtes, for those proceeding by land, the route is appointed by the stars, nor does the course become apparent otherwise: for the breeze alters the face of the crumbling soil, and even the least wind produces such a diversity of blowing that, with the sites of the places continually perverted, no indications are left for recognition, since now the parts that had been high with mounds subside into valleys, now those that were pressed in valleys are piled into embankments by the confluence of dust. Thus even the mainland undergoes the nature of its own sea: nor does it matter where rather the storms are, since, with the elements conspiring to the destruction of travelers, on land the blasts rage, on the sea the land does. The two Syrtes are separated by 250 miles.
Supra Garamantas Psylli fuerunt, contra noxium virus muniti incredibili corporis firmitate. soli morsibus anguium non interibant et quamvis dente letali appetiti incorrupta durabant sanitate. recens etiam editos serpentibus offerebant: si essent partus adulteri, matrum crimina plectebantur interitu parvulorum: si pudici, probos ortus a morte paterni sanguinis privilegium tuebatur: sic originis fidem probabant venenis iudicantibus.
Above the Garamantes there were the Psylli, fortified against noxious venom by an incredible firmness of body. They alone did not perish from the bites of snakes, and although assailed by the deadly tooth, they endured with health uncorrupted. They would even offer those newly born to serpents: if the births were adulterous, the mothers’ crimes were punished by the death of the little ones; if chaste, the privilege of the paternal blood protected the upright births from death: thus they proved the good faith of origin, with poisons judging.
but this people perished, captured by the Nasamones, and they left behind nothing of the Psylli except a mere opinion from the trace of their name. The Nasamones provide the Nasamonite stone, entirely blood-red, shaded with black little veins. In the inmost recess of the Greater Syrtis, around the altars of the Philaeni, we learn that there were Lotophagi, nor is it uncertain.
Maior Syrtis ostentat oppidum, Cyrenas vocant, quod Battius Lacedaemonius olympiade quinta et quadragesima, rege Marcio res Romanas tenente, anno post Troiam captam quingentesimo octogesimo sexto condidit: quae domus Callimacho poetae fuit patria. inter hoc oppidum et templum Hammonis milia passuum CCCC sunt. templo fons proximat Soli sacer, qui humoris nexibus humum stringit, fauillam etiam in caespitem solidat.
The Greater Syrtis displays a town, they call Cyrene, which Battus the Lacedaemonian founded in the 45th Olympiad, with King Marcius holding Roman affairs, in the 586th year after Troy was taken: which city was the fatherland of the poet Callimachus. Between this town and the temple of Hammon there are 400 miles. Near the temple a spring stands, sacred to the Sun, which with bonds of moisture tightens the ground, and even solidifies ash into turf.
in which soil, not without a marvel, a grove springs forth, while on every side the fields are parched. There too a stone is gathered, which they call the Horn of Ammon: for it is so tortuous and inflected that it renders the effigy of a ram’s horn; it is of golden effulgence. It is said to represent prophetic dreams when placed beneath the head of those lying asleep. And there is a tree by the name Melopos, from which a viscous humor flows, which from the place we name ammoniac.
Apud Cyrenenses praeterea sirpe gignitur odoratis radicibus, virgulto herbido magis quam arbusto: cuius e culmo exudat aestatis tempore pingue roscidum idque pascentium hircorum inhaeret barbulis: ubi cum arefactum inolevit guttis stiriacis, legitur ad usum mensarum vel medellae magis. dictum est primum lac sirpicum, quoniam manat in modum lacteum: deinde usu derivante laser nominatum. quae germina initio barbaricae inpressionis vastatis agris, postea ob intolerandam vectigalis nimietatem ferme penitus ipsi accolae eruerunt.
Among the Cyrenaeans, moreover, a sirpe is produced, with odoriferous roots, in a thicket grassy rather than arboreal: from its stalk there exudes in summertime a rich, dewy substance, and it adheres to the little beards of grazing goats: when, dried, it has set into icicle-like drops, it is gathered for the use of tables, or rather for medicine. It was first called sirpic milk, since it trickles in a milky manner: then, with usage drawing it off, it was named laser. Its shoots, at the beginning of the barbarian incursion, the fields having been laid waste, later, on account of the intolerable excess of the tax, the inhabitants themselves almost utterly uprooted.
Cyrenis ab laeva Africa est et a dextra Aegyptus, a fronte saevum et inportuosum mare, a tergo barbarorum variae nationes et solitudo inaccessa, quae basiliscum creat, malum in terris singulare. serpens est paene ad semipedem longitudinis, alba quasi mitrula lineatus caput, nec hominis tantum vel aliorum animantium exitiis datus, sed terrae quoque ipsius, quam polluit et exurit ubicumque ferale sortitur receptaculum. denique extinguit herbas, necat arbores, ipsas etiam corrumpit auras, ita ut in aere nulla alitum inpune transvolet infectum spiritu pestilenti.
At Cyrene, on the left is Africa and on the right Egypt; in front, a savage and harborless sea; behind, various nations of barbarians and an inaccessible solitude, which begets the basilisk, a singular evil upon the earth. It is a serpent almost half a foot in length, its head striped with a little white mitre-like band, and it is appointed not only for the destruction of man and other living beings, but also of the earth itself, which it defiles and scorches wherever it chances upon a baleful lodging. Finally, it extinguishes grasses, kills trees, and even corrupts the very breezes, so that in the air no bird can fly across with impunity, the air being tainted with pestilential breath.
however, it is conquered by weasels, which the people there cram into the caverns in which it lies hidden. its power, however, is not lacking even when defunct. finally, the Pergamenians procured the relics of a basilisk for an ample sum in sesterces, so that in the temple distinguished by the hand of Apelles neither would spiders weave their webs nor would winged creatures fly in.
Circa extimum Syrtium cornum Bernicen civitatem adluit Lethon amnis, inferna ut putant exundatione prorumpens et apud pristinos vates latice memoratus oblivionis. hanc Berenice munivit quae Ptolemaeo tertio fuit nupta et in maiori Syrti locavit.
Around the farthest horn of the Syrtes, the river Lethon bathes the city Berenice, bursting forth, as they think, from an infernal inundation and, among the ancient vates, being mentioned for a liquid of oblivion. This Berenice, who was married to Ptolemy III, fortified it and sited it in the Greater Syrtis.
Omne autem latifundium quod inter Aegyptum Aethiopiam Libyamque diffunditur, quacumque lucis opacum est, varium implevit simiarum genus. nec quisquam offensus nomine cognitionem gravetur. enimvero operae pretium est nihil omittere in quo naturae spectanda sit providentia.
But the whole broad tract that is diffused between Egypt, Aethiopia, and Libya—wherever it is shadowed from light—has been filled by a various race of simians. Nor let anyone, offended by the name, be burdened against the inquiry; for indeed it is worth the effort to omit nothing wherein the providence of Nature is to be beheld.
The common sort of monkeys is among those which we see everywhere, not without an ingenium for emulation, whereby they more easily come into our hands: for while they avidly imitate the gestures of the hunters, a little smear of birdlime having been left on purpose, seeing that this has been done as a trick, they plaster their own eyes; thus, with their sight overcast, it is easy to seize them. They exult at the new moon, they are sad at the horned and hollow luminary. They love their offspring immoderately, to such a degree that they more easily lose their cubs, whom they love excessively and carry before themselves, since those behind, when neglected, always cling to the mother.
cercopitheci have tails: this is the sole distinction from those previously mentioned. The cynocephali too are of the number of apes, most frequent in parts of Ethiopia, violent at the leap, savage in bite, never so tame as not to be rather rabid. Among the apes are reckoned also sphinxes, shaggy in their hair, with breasts somewhat prominent and deep, teachable to a forgetting of ferocity.
There are also those whom they call satyrs, with a very pleasing face, restless with gesticulating motions. The callitriches differ from the others in almost their entire aspect: on the face there is a beard, the tail is broad. To capture these is not arduous, but to bring them forth is rare: for they do not live in any clime other than the Ethiopian, that is, their own sky.
XXVIII. Inter Nassamonas et Trogodytas gens Amantum est quae salibus domus extruunt: quos in modum cautium e montibus excitatos ad usum aedium caementiciis nectunt struicibus. tanta ibi huiusce venae copia est, ut tecta faciant e salinis. isti sunt Amantes, qui commercium cum Trogodytis habent carbunculi gemmae.
28. Between the Nasamones and the Troglodytes there is a nation of the Amantes, who build houses with salt: which, hewn from the mountains in the manner of rocks, they bind for the use of dwellings with cementitious courses of masonry. So great is the abundance there of this very vein that they make roofs out of salt. These are the Amantes, who have commerce with the Troglodytes in the carbuncle gem.
XXIX. Garamantum oppidum est Debris fonte miro: quidni? qui alternis vicibus die frigeat, nocte ferveat, ac per eadem venarum commercia interdum ignito vapore inaestuet, interdum glaciali algore inhorrescat. incredibile memoratu, ut tam brevi curriculo natura tam dissonam faciat varietatem idque qui percontari velit tenebris, inesse fluori illi aeternam facem credat: qui rimetur die, brumales scatebras numquam aliud aestimet quam perpetuo rigere.
29. There is a town of the Garamantes, Debris, with a wondrous spring; and why not? which by alternate turns is cold by day, hot at night, and through the same interchanges of its veins at times seethes with fiery vapor, at times shudders with glacial chill. Incredible to relate, that in so brief a course nature should make so dissonant a variety; and whoever would inquire into it in the darkness would believe that an eternal torch inheres in that flow; whoever scrutinizes it by day would judge the wintry gushings to be nothing other than perpetually rigid.
whence not undeservedly Deberis is renowned among the nations, whose waters by a celestial vertigo change their quality, though the discipline of the stars is contrary: for when evening tempers the world from heat, from sunset it begins to grow so hot that, unless you abstain from touching, it is harmful to have come into contact; again, when at sunrise things have been made incandescent and all things are heated by the rays, thus it belches forth wintry gushings, so that it cannot be drawn even by the thirsty. who then would not be astonished at a spring that grows cold by heat, grows hot by cold?
Garamanticae regionis caput Garama est, ad quam iter diu inextricabile fuit et invium: nam latrones puteos harenis operiebant, ut temporaria fraude subductis aquis iter infame siti submoveret accessus viantium. sed Vespasiano principe bello, quod cum Oeensibus gestum est, difficultas haec dissoluta est, conpendio spatii brevioris reperto. Garamantas Cornelius Balbus subegit et primus ex hac victoria triumphavit: primus sane de externis utpote Gadibus genitus accessit ad gloriam nominis triumphalis.
The capital of the Garamantic region is Garama, to which the journey was for a long time inextricable and pathless: for bandits used to cover the wells with sands, so that by a temporary fraud, with the waters withdrawn, the route, infamous for thirst, might ward off the approach of wayfarers. But under the emperor Vespasian, in the war that was waged with the Oeenses, this difficulty was dissolved, a shortcut of shorter distance having been discovered. Cornelius Balbus subjugated the Garamantes and was the first to celebrate a triumph from this victory: indeed, he was the first among foreigners—being born at Gades—to attain to the glory of the triumphal name.
the herds of that people feed with slanting necks: for if they direct their mouths straight for grazing, their horns, bent down toward the ground, obstruct. On the side where Cercina is we learn of the island Gauloe, in which a serpent is neither born nor, if brought in, does it live: moreover, dust cast from it, wherever in the world, wards off serpents: sprinkled upon scorpions, it immediately destroys them.
XXX. Aethiopes et gentes Atlanticae Nigri flumine dividuntur, quem partem putant Nili: sic papyro viret, sic calamo praetexitur, animalia eadem edit, iisdem temporibus exundat, intra ripas quoque tunc redit cum contentus est alveo suo Nilus. Garamantici Aethiopes matrimonia privatim nesciunt, sed omnibus in venerem vulgo licet. inde est quod filios matres tantum recognoscunt: nam paterni nominis nulla reverentia est.
30. The Ethiopians and the Atlantic peoples are divided by the Niger river, which they think to be a part of the Nile: thus it is green with papyrus, thus it is fringed with calamus-reed, it produces the same animals, it inundates at the same seasons, and then too it returns within its banks when the Nile is content with its own channel. The Garamantic Ethiopians are unacquainted with private marriages, but publicly it is permitted to all to engage in Venus. Hence it is that only mothers acknowledge the children: for there is no reverence for the paternal name.
Those nearest to these hand over the supreme royal power to a dog, from whose movements they augur what he commands. They say the maritime Ethiopians have four eyes: but belief is otherwise, namely this at any rate, that they both see exceedingly well and most plainly direct the shots of their arrows. Toward the west the Agriophagi hold (the land), who eat only the flesh of panthers and lions, furnished with a king who has a single eye in his forehead.
The Artabatitae go prone and four-footed, and, no differently than wild beasts, they wander without settlements. Bordering on Mauretania, at a fixed season they gather land-locusts and, hardened with salt-brine, have them alone as a safeguard of life; but among them no one passes beyond the 40th year of age.
Ab Oceano isto ad Meroen, quam insulam amplexu primo Nilus facit, milia passuum sunt sexcenta viginti. ultra Meroen super exortum solis Macrobii Aethiopes vocantur: dimidio enim eorum protentior est quam nostra vita. hi Macrobii iustitiam colunt, amant aequitatem, plurimum valent robore, praecipua decent pulchritudine, ornantur aere, auro vincula faciunt noxiorum.
From that Ocean to Meroë, which island the Nile makes by its first embrace, there are 620 miles. beyond Meroë toward the rising of the sun the Ethiopians are called Macrobii: for their life is more extended by a half than ours. these Macrobii cultivate justice, love equity, prevail most by vigor, are adorned with preeminent pulchritude, are ornamented with bronze, they make chains of gold for the guilty.
Among them there is a place Heliutrapeza, always filled with sumptuous banquets, on which without distinction all feed: for they even report that these are increased divinely. There is also in the same place a lake, by which, when bodies are bathed, they gleam as if with oil. From this lake comes a most salubrious draught.
Aethiopia omnis ab oriente hiberno ad occidentem hibernum tenet. quicquid eius est sub meridiano cardine, lucis nitet, qui maxime virent hieme. a media parte mons editus mari inminet, ingenuo igni per aeternum fervidus et in quiete iugis flagrantibus: inter quae incendia iugis aestus draconum magna copia est.
All Ethiopia extends from the winter sunrise to the winter sunset. Whatever of it lies beneath the southern pole glistens with light; these are most verdant in winter. From the middle part a lofty mountain overhangs the sea, aglow with native fire forever, and even in calm with its ridges blazing: amid those conflagrations, along the ridges, there is a great seething of dragons.
In true dragons the mouths are small and do not gape for biting, and the tubes are narrow through which they draw breath and thrust out their tongues: for indeed they have their force not in the teeth but in the tails, and they harm by the lash rather than by the gape. From the brains of dragons the dracontias stone is cut out, but it is not a stone unless it is taken from them while living: for if the serpent dies first, it vanishes along with the soul, its hardness dissolved. In its use the kings of the Orient especially glory, although by its solidity it admits no allurement or adornment of art; and whatever in it is noble, hands do not fashion, nor is the sheen by which it gleams of any other than Nature.
the author Sotacus writes that he himself has even seen this gem and teaches by what methods it is intercepted. men most preeminent in audacity explore the pits and recesses of serpents: then, having waited for them to go out to feed and, when they have sped past with quickened courses, they throw in drugged grasses, as much as possible to incite sleep: thus, when they are lulled by sleep, they cut off the heads, and from the spoils of headlong daring they carry back the booty of their temerity.
Quae locorum Aethiopes tenent feris plena sunt, e quibus quam nabun vocant nos camelopardalim dicimus, collo equi similem, pedibus bubulis, capite camelino, nitore rutilo, albis maculis superspersa. animal hoc Romae circensibus dictatoris Caesaris primum publicatum. iisdem ferme temporibus illinc exhibita monstra sunt, cephos appellant, quorum posteriores pedes crure et vestigio humanos artus mentiuntur, priores hominum manus referunt: sed a nostris non amplius quam semel visa sunt.
The regions which the Ethiopians occupy are full of wild beasts, among which that which they call nabun we call the camelopard, like a horse in its neck, with bovine feet, a camel-like head, a rutilant sheen, oversprinkled with white spots. This animal was first made public in Rome at the circus games of the Dictator Caesar. At nearly the same time, monsters from there were exhibited, which they call cephos, whose hind feet counterfeit human limbs in the leg and footprint, while the fore resemble the hands of men: but by our people they have been seen no more than once.
Before the games of Cn. Pompeius, the Roman spectacles were unacquainted with the rhinoceros: a beast whose color is boxwood, with a single, recurved horn in its nostrils, which, repeatedly rubbed upon rocks, it rouses into a sharp point, and with it it battles against elephants, equal to them in length, shorter in the legs, by nature aiming at the belly, which alone it understands to be penetrable by its blows.
Iuxta Nigrim fluvium catoblepas nascitur modica atque iners bestia, caput praegrave aegre ferens, aspectu pestilenti: nam qui in oculos eius offenderint, protinus vitam exuunt. formicae ibi ad formam canis maximi harenas aureas pedibus eruunt, quos leoninos habent: quas custodiunt, ne quis auferat, captantesque ad necem persequuntur. eadem Aethiopia mittit lycaonem: lupus est cervice iubatus et tot modis varius, ut nullum colorem illi dicant abesse.
By the river Niger the catoblepas is born, a moderate-sized and inert beast, bearing with difficulty its very heavy head, with a pestilent aspect: for those who happen upon its eyes immediately cast off life. Ants there, in the shape of a very great dog, dig out golden sands with their feet, which they have leonine: these they guard, lest anyone carry them off, and they pursue to death those trying to snatch them. The same Ethiopia sends forth the lycaon: it is a wolf with a maned neck and so various in so many ways that they say no color is lacking to it.
It also sends the parandrum, of the size of oxen, with a cloven footprint, branching (ramose) horns, a cervine head, of a bear’s color and likewise with deep shag. They affirm that this parandrum changes its appearance from fear, and, when it lies hidden, becomes similar to whatever thing it has approached, whether that thing be a white rock, or green with shrubbery, or present some other mode. The same thing is done in the sea by polypi, on land by chameleons; but both the polypus and the chameleon are glabrous, so that by the smoothness of the skin it is readier to emulate things near: in this it is something new and singular that the hairiness of the coat effects the alternations of colors.
the porcupine too from that region is very frequent, similar to the hedgehog, its back rough with spines, which for the most part, once loosened, it emits by voluntary hurling, so that with continual showers of little needles it wounds dogs pressing in. of that sky the bird is the pegasus; but this bird has nothing equine except the ears. there is also the tragopan, a bird greater than eagles, displaying a head armed with ram-like horns.
but in truth it is gathered by priests, with the victims first slain: when they have obtained favorable omens, it is observed that the harvest neither anticipates the sunrise nor goes beyond the sunset. whoever holds the primacy divides the heaps of twigs with a spear, which has been consecrated for this ministry: and thus a portion of the bundles is declared to the Sun: which, if it has been justly divided, is kindled of its own accord.
Inter haec quae diximus nitore caerulo hyacinthus invenitur, lapis pretiosus, si quidem inculpabilis reperiatur: est enim vitiis non parce obnoxius: nam plerumque aut violaceo diluitur aut nubilo obducitur aut albicantius in aquaticum eliquescit: optimus in illo tenor, si nec densiore fuco sit obtunsior nec propensa perspicuitate detectior, sed ex utroque temperamento lucis et purpurae fucatum suaviter florem trahat. hic est qui sentit auras et cum caelo facit: nec aequaliter rutilat cum aut nubilosus est aut serenus dies. praeterea in os missus magis friget.
Among these which we have said, with cerulean lustre the hyacinth is found, a precious stone, if indeed it be discovered unimpeachable: for it is not sparingly liable to defects: for very often either it is diluted into a violaceous tint or is overcast with cloudiness or, more whitishly, melts away into an aqueous hue: the best tenor in it is this, if it be neither duller by a denser dye nor more laid bare by a forward perspicuity, but from a mixture of both light and purple it may draw a gently tinted bloom. This is the one that feels the breezes and matches the sky: nor does it rutilate equally when the day is either cloudy or serene. Moreover, when put into the mouth it grows the colder.
certainly by no means suited to engravings, as one that rejects being worn down, yet not, however, utterly unconquerable: for it is inscribed and marked with adamant. where the hyacinth is, there too the chrysoprase appears: a stone which light conceals, darkness reveals. for this is the diversity in it, that by night it is fiery, by day pale.
XXXI. Quod ab Atlante usque Canopitanum ostium panditur, ubi Libyae finis est et Aegyptium limen, dictum a Canopo Menelai gubernatore sepulto in ea insula quae ostium Nili facit, gentes tenent dissonae, quae in aviae solitudinis secretum recesserunt. ex his Atlantes ab humano ritu prorsus exulant. nulli proprium vocabulum, nulli speciale nomen.
31. That which is spread out from Atlas as far as the Canopic mouth—where the end of Libya is and the Egyptian threshold—named from Canopus, Menelaus’s helmsman, buried on that island which makes the mouth of the Nile—is held by dissonant peoples, who have withdrawn into the seclusion of pathless solitude. Of these, the Atlantes are utterly exiles from human custom. To none is there a proper appellation, to none a special name.
they receive the sun’s risings with dire imprecations, they pursue its settings with dire ones; scorched everywhere and on every side by the searing stroke of the blazing star, they hate the god of light. they affirm that they do not see dreams and abstain utterly from all animals. the Troglodytes excavate caves; in these they are sheltered.
there is no love of possessing there: from riches they have abdicated themselves by voluntary poverty. they glory only in a single stone, which we call a hexecontalithon, sprinkled with such diverse markings that sixty colors of gems are detected in its small little disk. these men live on the flesh of serpents, and, ignorant of speech, they hiss rather than speak.
But the Augilae worship only the gods below. They compel their women, on the first nights of their marriages, to submit to adulteries; soon after they bind them, by the most severe laws, to perpetual chastity. The Gamphasantes abstain from battles, flee commerce, and allow themselves to be mingled with no foreigner.
Himantopodes, with loose exertions of their legs, crawl rather than advance, and determine the use of proceeding by sliding rather than by ingress. Pharusi, when they had been companions to Hercules as he was proceeding to the Hesperides, out of the tedium of the journey sat down here. thus far Libya.
XXXII. Aegyptus ad meridiem introrsus recedit quoad praetendant Aethiopes a tergo. inferiorem eius partem Nilus circumfluit, qui scissus a loco, cui Delta nomen est, ad insulae faciem spatia amplectitur interamna et incerto paene fonte decurrens proditur ut loquemur. originem habet a monte inferioris Mauretaniae, qui Oceano propinquat.
32. Egypt recedes inward toward the south until the Ethiopians are stretched forth at its rear. The lower part of it the Nile flows around, which, split at the place to which the name Delta is given, embraces tracts between-streams to the aspect of an island; and, running down from an almost uncertain source, it is reported, as we shall say. It has its origin from a mountain of Lower Mauretania, which is near to the Ocean.
This the Punic books affirm; this we learn that King Juba handed down. Therefore forthwith it forms a lake which they call Nilides. They conjecture that from that point it is already the Nile, because this pool produces plants, fishes, and beasts no less than we see in the Nile; and whenever Mauretania, whence its origin is, is irrigated either by denser snows or by more abundant rains, the increases of the inundation in Egypt are augmented.
but, poured out into this lake, it is sucked down by the sands and is concealed in blind tunnels; then, bursting forth in a more ample Caesarean cave, it bears the same indications which we noted at its rising, and again subsides, nor does it render itself before, after intervals of an extended itinerary, it reaches the Ethiopians, where it emerges and makes the river Niger, which above we said is the boundary of the African frontier. The natives call it Astapus, that is, water flowing from darkness.
Multas magnasque ambit insulas: quarum pleraeque sunt tam [diffusae et] vastae magnitudinis, ut vix eas dierum quinque cursu praetermeet, quamvis concitus ibi feratur. nobilissima earum est Meroe, circum quam divisus dextero alveo Astosapes, laevo Astabores nominatur. tunc quoque emensus magna longinqua, cum primum occurrentibus scopulis asperatur, tantis agminibus extollitur inter obiecta rupium, ut ruere potius quam manare credatur: demumque a cataracte ultimo tutus est: ita enim quaedam claustra eius Aegyptii nuncupant.
It encircles many and great islands: of which the greater part are of such [diffuse and] vast magnitude that it scarcely passes them by in a course of five days, although it is borne there at full speed. The most renowned of them is Meroe, around which, being divided, by the right channel it is named Astosapes, by the left Astabores. Then too, after having traversed great distances, when first it is roughened by rocks meeting it, it is lifted in such masses amid the opposing crags that it is believed to rush rather than to flow: and only from the last cataract is it safe; for thus the Egyptians designate certain barriers of it.
Gnari siderum vel locorum varias de excessibus eius causas dederunt. alii adfirmant etesias nubium densitatem illo cogere, unde amnis hic auspicatur, ipsumque fontem humore superno agitatum tantam inundationis habere substantiam, quantum pabuli ad liquorem nubila subministraverint. ferunt alii, quod ventorum flatibus repercussus, cum fluorem solitae velocitatis non queat promovere, aquis in arto luctantibus intumescat: et quo inpensius controversi spiritus repugnaverint, eo excelsius sublimari in altitudinis vertices repercussam celeritatem, quando nec solitus extenuet cursus alveum et stipato iam flumine venis originalibus torrentium pondera superveniant: ita concurrente violentia hinc urgentis elementi hinc resistentis, undis exultantibus molem colligi quae excessus facit.
Those knowledgeable of the stars or of the locales have given various causes for its overflows. Others affirm that the Etesians drive the density of clouds to that quarter whence this river takes its rise, and that the source itself, agitated by the supernal moisture, has so much substance of inundation as the clouds have supplied fodder to the liquid. Others report that, beaten back by the blasts of the winds, when it cannot advance the flow of its customary velocity, it swells as the waters struggle in a narrow; and the more intensely the opposed breaths have resisted, by so much the more loftily the rebounded celerity is raised into the summits of height, since neither does the usual course attenuate the channel, and, the river now being compressed, from the original veins the weights of torrents come upon it: thus, with the violence concurring—on this side of the pressing element, on that of the resisting—as the waves exult a mass is gathered which makes the excesses.
Some affirm that its source, which is called Phialus, is aroused by the motions of the stars and, drawn up by glowing rays, is suspended by celestial fire—yet not without a certain discipline of law, that is, when the moons are beginning. But that the whole origin of the accession is conceived from the sun, and that the first excesses of swelling happen when the sun is conveyed through Cancer; afterward, with its 30 parts unfolded, when upon entering Leo the rising of Sirius has been stirred, with all accumulations sent forth the whole fluctuation bursts out. Which time the priests judged the birthday of the world, that is between the 13 day before the Kalends of August.
and 11. then to recall all the outflows, when it passes into Virgo, and to take itself wholly within its banks, when it has entered Libra. they also add that it harms equally, whether it swell more abundantly or more sparingly: since exiguity brings the least of fecundity, a more copious supply delays cultivation by long-lasting moisture. the greatest of its outflows rise to 18 cubits, the most just are moderated at 16, nor are fruit-bearing yields lacking at 15; whatever is below causes famine.
They also grant to it this majesty, that it portends the future, since in the Pharsalic war it did not go out beyond five cubits. Now this is manifest: that it alone among rivers exhales no breezes. It begins to be under Egyptian dominion from Syene, in which are the borders of the Ethiopians, and from there as far as it is admitted into the sea the name of the Nile holds.
Inter omnia quae Aegyptus habet digna memoratu praecipue bovem mirantur: Apim vocant. hunc ad instar colunt numinis, insignem albae notae macula, quae dextero lateri eius ingenita corniculantis lunae refert faciem. statutum aevi spatium est, quod ut adfuit, profundo sacri fontis inmersus necatur, ne diem longius trahat quam licebit.
Among all the things which Egypt has worthy of remembrance, they especially marvel at a bull: they call him Apis. They venerate him after the fashion of a numen, distinguished by a spot, a white mark, which, inborn on his right side, recalls the face of a horned moon. There is a fixed span of age, and when it has arrived, he is killed, plunged into the depth of a sacred spring, lest he draw out the day longer than will be permitted.
soon another is sought, not without public mourning, whom, when found, a hundred priests escort to Memphis, so that there, initiated into sacred rites, he may begin to become sacred. the shrines into which he enters or upon which he lies they mystically call bridal chambers. he gives omens manifesting things to come: the greatest is this, if he should take food from the hand of the consulter.
finally, having turned away the right hand of Germanicus Caesar, it revealed the things impending, and not long after Caesar was extinguished. boys follow Apis in flocks and suddenly, as if nymph-struck, they pre-chant the things to come. a female is shown to that bull once in the year, and she herself not without certain insignia; and she, once found and presented, on the same day is given to death.
At Memphis they celebrate the birthday of Apis by the casting of a golden patera, which they fling into the still pool of the Nile. This solemnity is conducted for seven days: during which days the crocodiles have a certain truce with the priests and do not touch them as they wash. But on the eighth day, the ceremonies now completed, as though the license for raging had been restored, they resume their accustomed ferocity.
The strophilos is a very small bird: as it seeks the leftovers of food, it gradually scrapes the mouth of this beast, and, with a coaxing tickle-scratch bit by bit, makes for itself an approach even into the throat. Observing this, the ichneumon penetrates the beast, and, the vitals having been laid waste, goes out through the belly, gnawed away.
Est et delphinum genus in Nilo, quorum dorsa serratas habent cristas. hi delphines crocodilos studio eliciunt ad natandum demersique astu fraudulento tenera ventrium subternatantes secant et interimunt. habitant in insula Nili homines forma perexigui, sed audacia usque eo praediti, ut crocodilis se offerant obvios: nam haec monstra fugientes insequuntur, formidant resistentes: ergo capiuntur, subactique etiam intra aquas suas serviunt et perdomiti metu ita obsequuntur, ut inmemores atrocitatis victores suos inequitantes dorso vehant.
There is also a kind of dolphins in the Nile, whose backs have serrated crests. These dolphins, with zeal, lure crocodiles out to swim; and having dived, with fraudulent cunning, swimming beneath the tender parts of their bellies, they cut and kill them. On an island of the Nile there dwell men of very small form, but endowed with audacity to such a degree that they offer themselves to meet crocodiles: for these monsters pursue those who flee; they fear those who resist: therefore they are captured, and, subdued, they even serve within their own waters, and, thoroughly tamed by fear, they comply so that, forgetful of their ferocity, they carry their victors, riding like horsemen, upon their back.
Hippopotamus in eodem flumine ac solo nascitur, equino et dorso et iuba et hinnitu, rostro resimo, ungulis bifidis, aprinis dentibus, cauda tortuosa. noctibus segetes depascitur, ad quas pergit aversus astu doloso, ut fallente vestigio revertenti nullae ei insidiae praeparentur. idem cum distenditur nimia satietate, harundines recens caesas petit, per quas tamdiu obversatur, quoad stirpium acuta pedes vulnerent, ut profluvio sanguinis levetur sagina: plagam deinde caeno oblinit, usquedum vulnus conducatur in cicatricem.
The hippopotamus is born in the same river and soil, equine in back, mane, and neighing, with a snub muzzle, cloven hoofs, aprine teeth, and a twisting tail. By night it grazes on the cornfields, to which it proceeds backward with crafty guile, so that, its track deceiving, no ambushes may be prepared for it on its return. Likewise, when it is distended with excessive satiety, it seeks reeds recently cut, about which it keeps moving until the sharp points of the stumps wound its feet, so that by an outflow of blood it may be lightened of its fattening; then it daubs the wound with mud, until the wound is drawn together into a scar.
M. Scaurus was the first at Rome to bring in hippopotamuses and crocodiles.
Circa easdem ripas ales est ibis. ea serpentium populatur ova gratissimamque ex his escam nidis suis defert: sic rarescunt proventus fetuum noxiorum. nec tamen aves istae tantum intra fines Aegyptios prosunt: nam quaecumque Arabicae paludes pennatorum anguium mittunt examina, quorum tam citum virus est, ut morsum ante mors quam dolor insequatur, sagacitate qua ad hoc valent aves excitatae in procinctum eunt universae et prius quam terminos patrios externum malum vastet, in aere occursant catervis pestilentibus: ibi agmen devorant universum: quo merito sacrae sunt et inlaesae.
Around those same banks there is a bird, the ibis. It ravages the eggs of serpents and carries from these a most gratifying food to its nests: thus the yields of noxious offspring grow rare. Nor, however, do those birds do good only within Egyptian borders: for whatever swarms of winged serpents the Arabian marshes send forth—whose virus is so swift that death follows the bite before pain—the birds, stirred up, by the sagacity in which they are strong for this, all go into battle-order; and, before the foreign evil lays waste their fatherland’s boundaries, they meet in the air the pestilential cohorts: there they devour the whole column; for which merit they are sacred and uninjured.
De arboribus quas sola fert Aegyptus praecipua est ficus Aegyptia, foliis moro comparanda, poma non ramis tantum gestitans, sed et caudice: usque adeo fecunditati suae angusta est. uno anno septies fructum sufficit: unde pomum decerpseris, alterum sine mora protuberat. materia eius in aquam missa subsidit: deinde cum diu desederit in liquore, levior facta sustollitur et versa vice, quod natura in alio ligni genere non recipit, fit humore sicca.
Of the trees which Egypt alone bears, the Egyptian fig is preeminent, its leaves to be compared with the mulberry, bearing fruits not only on the branches but even on the trunk: so much is it straitened by its own fecundity. In one year it supplies fruit seven times: from wherever you pluck a fruit, another without delay swells forth. Its timber, when cast into water, sinks; then, after it has long sat in the liquid, having become lighter it is lifted up, and, with the order reversed—a thing which nature admits in no other kind of wood—it becomes dry by means of the moisture.
Palma quoque Aegyptia dicenda res est: proprie adipsos vocatur, ut dici oportet ea, quae gustata arcet sitim. odor ei idem qui et malis Cydoniis. sed demum sitim sedat, si prius quam maturuerit decerpatur: nam si matura sumatur, sensum intercipit, gressum praepedit, linguam retardat obsessisque officiis mentis et corporis ebrietatis facit vitium.
The Egyptian palm also is a thing to be mentioned: properly it is called adipsos, as it ought to be said of that which, when tasted, wards off thirst. Its odor is the same as that of Cydonian apples. But it sedates thirst only if it is plucked before it has ripened; for if taken when ripe, it intercepts sensation, impedes the step, retards the tongue, and, the offices of mind and body being besieged, it produces the vice of ebriety.
Aegyptium limitem, qua ad Diacecaumenen tendit, incolunt populi, qui momentum, quo reparari mundum ad motus ferunt annuos, hoc studio deprehendunt. eligitur sacer lucus, in quo consaeptant animalia diversissimi generis. ea, ubi ad statum modum caelestis perveniunt disciplinae, sensus suos significationibus produnt quibus possunt: alia ululant, alia mugiunt, quaedam stridunt, nonnulla simul confugiunt ad volutabra.
The Egyptian frontier, where it tends toward Diacecaumene, is inhabited by peoples who, by this study, apprehend the momentum at which they report the world is repaired to its annual motions. A sacred grove is chosen, in which they pen animals of the most diverse kinds. These, when they come to the fixed measure of the celestial discipline, betray their senses by such indications as they can: some howl, others bellow, certain ones screech, and some all together take refuge at the wallowing-places.
Inter Aegyptias urbes numero portarum Thebae nobiles, ad quas commercia Arabes Indique subvehunt: hinc regio Thebaica. Abydos et ipsa nobilis, olim Memnonis regia, nunc Osiris fano exculta. Alexandriam et operis ipsius magnitudo et auctor Macedo nobilitant: quam metatus Dinocrates architecton alterum a conditore in memoria locum detinet.
Among the Egyptian cities, Thebes is notable for the number of its gates, to which Arabs and Indians bring up merchandise: hence the Thebaic region. Abydos too is notable, once the royal seat of Memnon, now adorned with a shrine of Osiris. Alexandria is made famous both by the magnitude of the work itself and by its author, the Macedonian: surveyed by Dinocrates the architect, who holds in memory a second place after the founder.
Est et Pharos, colonia a Caesare dictatore deducta, e qua facibus accensis nocturna dirigitur navigatio: nam Alexandria insidioso accessu aditur, fallacibus vadis, caeco mari, tribusque tantum canalibus admittit navigantes, Posideo Tegano Tauro. hinc igitur in portibus machinas ad praelucendi ministerium fabricatas pharos dicunt. pyramides turres sunt fastigatae ultra excelsitatem omnem quae fieri manu possit: itaque mensuram umbrarum egressae nullas habent umbras.
There is also Pharos, a colony planted by Caesar the Dictator, from which, with torches kindled, nocturnal navigation is directed: for Alexandria is approached by a treacherous access, with deceptive shallows, on a blind sea, and admits sailors only by three channels, Poseideon, Teganon, and Taurus. Hence therefore in harbors they call lighthouses (pharos) the machines constructed for the service of giving light ahead. The pyramids are towers tapering beyond every loftiness which can be made by hand: and so, having passed the measure of shadows, they have no shadows.
XXXIII. Ultra Pelusiacum ostium Arabia est, ad Rubrum pertinens mare, quod Erythraeum ab Erythra rege Persei et Andromedae filio, non solum a colore appellatum Varro dicit. qui affirmat in litore maris istius fontem esse, quem si oves biberint, mutent vellerum qualitatem, et antea candidae amittant quod fuerint usque ad haustum ac furvo postmodum nigrescant colore.
33. Beyond the Pelusiac mouth is Arabia, reaching to the Red Sea, which Varro says is called Erythraean from King Erythras, the son of Perseus and Andromeda, and not only from its color. He affirms that on the shore of that sea there is a spring which, if sheep drink, they change the quality of their fleeces, and though previously white they lose what they had up to the draught, and afterward blacken with a swarthy color.
Rubri autem maris Arsinoe oppidum. verum haec Arabia procedit ad usque illam odoriferam et divitem terram, quam Catabani et Scaenitae tenent Arabes, nobiles monte Cassio: qui Scaenitae causam nominis inde ducunt, quod tentoriis succedunt nec alias domos habent: ipsa autem tentoria cilicia sunt: ita nuncupant velamenta caprarum pilis texta. praeterea suillis carnibus prorsus abstinent.
And on the Red Sea, the town Arsinoe. But this Arabia advances up to that odoriferous and rich land, which the Arab Catabani and Scaenitae hold, notable for Mount Cassius: these Scaenitae derive the reason for their name from this, that they take shelter beneath tents and have no other houses: the tents themselves are cilicia: thus they designate coverings woven from the hairs of goats. Moreover, they wholly abstain from pork.
indeed, if this kind of animal is brought in there, it dies immediately. This Arabia the Greeks have named Eudaemon, our own have named Blessed. It is inhabited on a man-made hill between the river Tigris and the river Eulaeus, which, sprung from the Medes, is renowned for so pure a current that all the kings from there drink no other than its waters.
Eudaemonem non frustra cognominatam hinc capessas, quod praeter odores, quos creat plurimos, sola tus mittit, nec tamen universa. nam in medio eius sunt Astramitae, pagus Sabaeorum, a quo octo mansionibus regio turifera disterminatur, Arabia appellata, id est sacra: hoc enim significari interpretantur. virgulta haec non sunt publica, sed quod inter barbaros novum, in ius posterorum per successiones transeunt familiarum.
From this you may grasp that it was not surnamed Eudaemon in vain, because besides the odors, of which it creates very many, it alone sends frankincense—yet not in its entirety. For in its middle are the Astramitae, a district of the Sabaeans, from which by eight stages the frankincense-bearing region is delimited, called Arabia, that is, “sacred”: for they interpret that this is what is signified. These shrubs are not public, but—what is novel among barbarians—they pass into the right of posterity through family successions.
therefore whoever holds the dominion of that grove are, in Arabic, called “sacri.” Those same men, when they either reap or cut these groves, do not attend funerals, nor are they defiled by congress with women. This tree, before its true character was thoroughly betrayed, some compared to the mastic, others rather to the terebinth, until by the books which King Juba wrote to Caesar, the son of Augustus, it became plain that it is of twisted withe, with branches approximating to the quality of the maple, that it pours out sap in the manner of the almond, and that it is cut at the rising of the Dog(-star), in the most flagrant suns.
In iisdem saltibus myrrha provenit, cuius radices ut vitium rastris proficiunt, ablaqueationibus gaudent; nudatae pinguiori fluunt lacrima. sponte manans pretiosior ex ea sudor est: elicitus corticis vulnere vilior iudicatur. codex in vertiginem flexus et spinis hispidus: folium crispius licet olivae tamen simile: maxima extollitur ad quinque cubita proceritatis.
In the same forest-glades myrrh grows, whose roots, like the vine, profit from rakes, and they delight in ablaqueations; when laid bare they flow with a richer “tear.” The sweat that oozes of its own accord from it is more precious; that elicited by a wound of the bark is judged cheaper. The trunk is bent into a twist and bristly with spines: the leaf, more crisped, yet similar to the olive; at the greatest it is raised to five cubits of stature.
Apud eosdem nascitur phoenix avis, aquilae magnitudine, capite honorato in conum plumis extantibus, cristatis faucibus, circa colla fulgore aureo, postera parte purpureus absque cauda, in qua roseis pennis caeruleus interscribitur nitor. probatum est quadraginta et quingentis eum durare annis. rogos suos struit cinnamis, quos prope Panchaiam concinnat in Solis urbem, strue altaribus superposita.
Among those same people is born the phoenix bird, of eagle magnitude, with a head honored into a cone by protruding feathers, with a crested throat, around the neck with a golden brilliance; on the posterior part purple, except for the tail, in which a sky-blue sheen is interlined with rosy feathers. It has been proved that it endures for 540 years. It builds its own pyres of cinnamon, which it arranges near Panchaia in the City of the Sun, with the pile placed upon altars.
Cinnamolgus perinde Arabiae avis in excellentissimis lucis texit nidos e fruticibus cinnamorum: ad quos quoniam non est pervenire propter ramorum altitudinem et fragilitatem, accolae illas congeries plumbatis petunt iaculis deiectasque pretiis vendunt amplioribus, quod hoc cinnamum magis quam alia mercatores probent.
The Cinnamolgus, likewise, a bird of Arabia, weaves its nests in the most lofty groves from the shrubs of cinnamon: and since it is not possible to reach them on account of the height and fragility of the branches, the inhabitants target those heaps with lead-weighted javelins and sell what is thrown down at higher prices, because merchants approve this cinnamon more than the others.
Arabes longe lateque diffusi diversis et moribus vivunt et cultibus. plurimis crinis intonsus, mitrata capita; redimitu pari pars rasa in cutem barba. commerciis student, aliena non emunt, vendunt sua: quippe et silvis et mari divites.
Arabs, diffused far and wide, live with diverse customs and cultuses. for very many, the hair is unshorn, the heads are mitred; with an equal fillet, a part have the beard shaved to the skin. they devote themselves to commerce; alien wares they do not buy, they sell their own: indeed they are rich both in forests and in the sea.
Ex istius litoris sinu Polycrati regi advecta sardonyx gemma prima in orbe nostro luxuriae excitavit facem. nec multum de ea disserendum puto, adeo sardonyx in omnium venit conscientiam. superficies eius probatur, si meracius rubeat: arguitur, si fuerit faeculentior: medietas circuitur limite candicante: optima est, si nec colorem suum spargat in proximum nec ipsa ex altero mutuetur: reliqua nigro finiuntur.
From the bay of that coast the sardonyx gem, brought to King Polycrates, first in our world kindled the torch of luxury. Nor do I think there is much to be discoursed about it, so widely has sardonyx come into everyone’s cognizance. Its surface is approved, if it is more purely red: it is indicted, if it is more feculent: the middle part is encircled by a gleaming-white border: it is best, if it neither scatters its own color into the neighboring layer nor itself borrows from the other: the remaining parts are terminated in black.
but if it be translucent, it is turned to a defect; if it ward off perspicuity, it advances to decorum. And the Arab found the molochite, verdant more densely than the emerald, resisting by an innate force the perils threatening infants. He also found the iris in the Red Sea, like six-angled crystal, which, when struck by the rays of the sun, with the ruddy repercussion of the air, casts from itself the appearance of the celestial arch.
the same Arabs gather an androdamant of silvery luster, with sides equally squared, which you would think had borrowed somewhat from the adamant. they judge that its name was given from this: that it mollifies the impulses of heated spirits and reins in swelling rages. we also obtain from there the paederote and the Arabic stone.
The Arabica is ivory in aspect, it refuses rays: on the contrary, it is beneficial against troubles of the nerves for those afflicted. In the paederote, whatever is exceptional accords by a certain prerogative of beauty. The crystalline part shines, it blushes with purple, at the extreme edges a saffron-colored crown, as if from a gleaming liquid: with this sweetness it affects the eyes, entices the sight, holds the lookers; by this grace too it pleases the Indians.
XXXIV. A Pelusio Cassius mons est et delubrum Iovis Cassii, atque ita Ostracine locus Pompeii Magni sepulchro inclitus. Idumaea inde incipit palmis opima. deinde Ioppe oppidum antiquissimum orbe toto, utpote ante inundationem terrarum conditum.
34. From Pelusium there is Mount Cassius and the shrine of Jupiter Cassius, and so Ostracine, a place renowned for the tomb of Pompey the Great. From there Idumaea begins, opulent in palms. Then Joppe, the most ancient town in the whole world, inasmuch as it was founded before the inundation of the lands.
that town displays a rock which still retains the traces of Andromeda’s chains. The report that she was exposed to the wild beast has not circulated in vain: indeed, the bones of that monster M. Scaurus made public at Rome, among other marvels, during his aedileship. The matter is known to the annals; the measurement too is contained in trustworthy books, namely that the length of the ribs exceeded 40 feet, the height was loftier than Indian elephants; moreover, the little vertebrae of the spine themselves were more than half a foot in breadth.