certain noxious effluvia which would cause their whole bodies to swell, or, in the case of the dog-rose,[1219] that their sight would be impaired. ----- Footnote 1217: Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 15. 3, sqq. Footnote 1218: Dioscor. iv. 157. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 8. 5. Footnote 1219: Κυνόσβατον. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 8. 5. ----- Those who gathered the mountain rue,[1220] anointed their faces and hands with oil, to guard themselves against cutaneous inflammation. Again, of other herbs the juices are so pungent as to burn like fire: these were collected in the greatest haste. In digging the hellebore,[1221] too, the odour of which was supposed rapidly to affect the brain, they proceeded with great celerity, and were careful to eat a clove or two of garlic beforehand, and to drink a little pure wine after. But all these precautions were trifling compared with those which the good rizotomists had persuaded themselves were indispensable in collecting the peony flower.[1222] About this operation they interwove a sort of netting of romance: it was to be undertaken they affirmed by night, lest the woodpeckers, who regarded it with as much jealousy as the Indian ants do their gold, should fall upon the unfortunate herbalists, and with their sharp beaks pluck out their eyes. So, likewise, in gathering the centaury they were to stand on their guard lest they should be assaulted and maltreated by the hawks. Considering all these numerous evils which rizotomist flesh was heir to, Theophrastus thinks it by no means absurd, that when issuing forth on an enterprise so perilous, they should have fortified their nerves with many prayers. Some few, however, of their practices the philosopher condemns as a trifle beyond the mark, as for example when in digging the root of the Asclepian all-heal, they judged it necessary to propitiate mother earth by burying in its stead a cake composed of many various sweets. And again in unearthing the root of the iris fœtidissima, they interred a cake of spring wheat mixed with honey, not, however, before they had drawn round the spot a treble circle with a two-edged sword. When they had obtained possession of one of the roots, they held it up for some time in the air, and then proceeded to procure a second, and so on. Strangest of all, however, were the ceremonies observed in digging the mandrake.[1223] First, the triple magic circle was inscribed on the earth with a sword, then the pious rizotomist turned his face toward the west, and began to use his knife, while a second operator went dancing round, uttering all kinds of amorous incantations. Still more perilous was the gathering of the black hellebore, which they performed with the face towards the east, and many prayers to Apollo and Asclepios.[1224] The strictest watch was meanwhile to be kept, that no eagle appeared above the horizon; for if the eye of this king of birds happened to fall upon the herbalist while engaged in digging, he would