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believed to have been as ancient as the days of Darius ,the son of Hystaspes , because it was brought from the cityhe built, Persepolis , having this representation.
The plant we know by that name, still in botany retainsits ancient appellation ; it is called crocus: of which thereare two species, one of them blossoms in spring, and theother is in flower in autumn. The flowers of the latterspecies, which appears in germ before the green leaves, (re-taining its leaves through the winter,) contains those smallthreads, or filaments, which were used in medicine, food,and for the purposes of painting and dyeing, among theancients.
This little valuable plant has virtues in medicine whichwere soon discovered by ancient botanists, and which the mo-dern practisers in the healing art still appreciate. For asthe rudiments of medical knowledge were derived by Europe from Greece , previous to the mode of its culture being knownin Europe , it formed a portion of their materia uiedica and ofthe trade of the Levant. The ancients describe it as a bulbousplant, growing wild in the mountains, as appears from thewritings of Theophrastus , Histor. Plant, lib. vi. cap. 6.Geopon. lib. xi. cap. 26, and Pliny , lib. xxi. cap. 6.
The taste of the ancients appears to have differed from thegout of the moderns; for the most luxurious of the formeremployed it in numerous of their made dishes, in sauces, &c.and, what is more strange, they universally employed it asan agreeable perfume! as innumerable passages in theirdramatists and poets inform us. As the public are agreeablyapprised of their taste in dishes, in one of Smollet’s inimi-table novels, we shall not attempt to debase his descriptionby any feeble efForts of our own pen. But really the relishof Apicius for fricasees of sucking puppeys, sausages, withsingular mixtures of ingredients, and other eccentricities ofhis flavour, could not be mentioned with a certainty ofsafety in the presence of a modern table, without incurringthe risk to make the stomach render its contents by thesame way it was filled.
We read of their fumigating their baths, theatres, halls,and all places of public fashionable assemblage, with theodour of this plant. Of the ancient opinion respecting theagreeable flavour of its scent, we can collect an idea fromthe 809th verse of Lucan ’s Pharsalia, where he says, de-