that country, as we find from various authorities[7]. In the time of Pliny silphium (or laserpitium) had become so scarce in the market, that a single stalk of it was presented to the Emperor Nero as a present (no doubt) of extraordinary value; and Strabo tells us that the barbarous tribes who frequented the country about the Cyrenaica had nearly exterminated the plant altogether (in an irruption which they made on some hostile occasion) by pulling it designedly up by the roots; from which we may infer that the destruction of the silphium was considered as a material injury to Cyrene[8]. We have already mentioned in our account of the Syrtis (on the authority of the same writer) that the silphium and the liquor which was extracted from it formed material articles of a contraband trade at Charax, where they were exchanged with the Carthaginians for wine[9]. And we have ventured, on the same occasion, to differ in opinion with Dr. Della Cella as to the propriety of adopting the change in Strabo’s text proposed by that gentleman (p. 79); as it sufficiently appears, from various authorities, that both the plant and the extract were articles of commerce, and not the extract only, as the Doctor has stated. This is evident from the remarks of ancient writers on the subject[10]; and it is also certain that the liquor (or οπος του σιλφιου, in Latin termed Laser) was obtained from the stem as well as from the root, as Theophrastus, and Pliny (on his authority) have testified[11]. It is evident also from both these authors that the stem of the silphium was in request as an article of food, and was eaten in several ways[12]. This appears equally in Athenæus; and we find both the extract, and the plant, very decidedly mentioned in the bill of fare of the Persian monarchs, as given by Polyænus (Stratagemata, Lib. iv.) and which was discovered by Alexander the Great, engraved on a brazen column in the royal palace. Here we see two pounds, and upwards, of the extract, or juice of the silphium, termed by Pliny Laser; and a talent weight (about sixty-five pounds) of the plant itself in the list[13]. What the extract of the silphium was like we will not pretend to say; but the stem and the root appear to have been eaten much in the same way that we eat celery, (which indeed it very much resembles,) either stewed or boiled[14].