Again this shows us the reason why Priapus is so frequently called “_ruber_ hortorum custos” (the _red_ keeper of gardens),—_Priapeia_ Praef. 5.; and why he is said, “_Ruber_ sedere cum _rubente_ fascino,” (to sit, _red_ with his _ruddy_ verge),—_Horace_, Odes 84. Sat. I. 8. 5. Now as the blight in grain was regarded specially as a consequence of the dew (mil_dew_), and _ros_ (dew) again is used in the sense of the male semen, as well as for the moisture secreted in the female vagina during coition, we might draw yet another analogy from this, and at the same time a proof of the _verecundia loquentium_ (shamefacedness in speech),—p. 43., of the _old_ Romans. Thus it would seem the Greeks too indicated by their φθινὰς the same thing as the Romans by _robigo_. That it was a human disease, is clearly enough shown by the passage from Pollux, and besides we can see it was so from another in _Plutarch_ in his Life of Galba (ch. 21.), where he says: Τιγελλῖνον μὲν οὐ πολὺν ἔτι βιώσεσθαι φάσκοντος· χρόνον, ὑπὸ _φθινάδος νόσου_ δαπανώμενον, (For he said that Tigellinus would not live much longer, being exhausted by a wasting disease),—a quotation proving at the same time the deadliness of the malady. Once more, _Hesychius_ has for φθινὰ also φοινία, saying, _φοινία_. ἐρυσίβη (φοινία: red blight, and as the adjective corresponding would necessarily be φοινικίος or φοινίκινος, it follows that φοινικίη νόσος and φθινικὴ νόσος,—φθινικὴ being the adjective from φθινὴ or φθινὰς, (which however would more strictly speaking be φθινακή), would mean exactly the same thing, viz. an “Ulcus rubrum et rodens ex coitu cum foeda muliere natum” (red eating ulcer, coming from coition with an unclean woman), the fatal event of which affection was a matter of common observation among the Ancients. Now if this interpretation is the right one in the passage of Hippocrates, it is clear that λεῦκαι were the consequences of this malady, and accordingly we should have a proof that in Antiquity, no less than in modern times, primary ulcers not only preceded secondary affections of the skin, but were actually _recognized as such_. However as the proofs for this _aperçu_ are still too fragmentary on the side of the ancient Physicians, we must suspend our immediate judgement on the point, and content ourselves for the present with saying, that φοινικίη νοῦσος stood originally in the text in the sense of _cunnilingere_ (to be a _cunnilingue_), whereas a later inquirer put φθινικὴ into its place, inasmuch as in his time their meanings had become identical as that of a bodily ailment, and so _the consequence_ of the vice instead of the vice itself found its way even into the text. For granted φθινὰς has the meaning of _robigo_ (blight), there is no doubt this only came to be the case as late as in the time of the Alexandrine critics. Besides this, φοινικιστὴς is also found in the _Etymologicum Magnum_ for _Cunnilingus_; we read: γλωττοκομεῖον, ἐν ᾧ οἱ αὐληταὶ ἀπετίθεσαν