Hide browse bar Your current position in the text is marked in blue. Click anywhere in the line to jump to another position:
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
Table of Contents:
1 It may be remarked, that in this Chapter Pliny totally confounds fixed oils, volatile oils, and medicinal oils. Those in the list which he here gives, and which are not otherwise noticed in the Notes, may be considered to belong to this last class.
2 The oleaster furnishes but little oil, and it is seldom extracted. The oil is thinner than ordinary olive oil, and has a stronger odour.
3 The Daphne Centrum and Daphne Cilium of botanists. See B. xiii. c. 35, also 1. xliv. c. 82. Fée doubts if an oil was ever made from the chamelæa.
4 See B. xxiii. c. 41: the Ricinus communis of Linnæus, which abounds in Egypt at the present day. Though it appears to have been formerly sometimes used for the table, at the present day the oil is only known as "castor" oil, a strong purgative. It is one of the fixed oils. The Jews and Abyssinian Christians say that it was under this tree that Jonah sat.
5 A "tick."
6 This method, Fée says, is still pursued in America.
7 See B. xiii. c. 2. One of the fixed oils.
8 An essential oil may be extracted from either; it is of acrid taste, green, and aromatic; but does not seem to have been known to the an- cients. The berries give by decoction a fixed oil, of green colour, sweet, and odoriferous. The oils in general here spoken of by Pliny as extracted from the laurel, are medicinal oils.
9 The Laurus latifolia of Bauhin.
10 The Myrtus latifolia Romana of Bauhin. It yields an essential oil, and by its decoction might give a fixed oil, in small quantity, but very odoriferous. As boiled with olive oil, he treats it as a volatile oil.
11 See B. xxv. c. 100. This myrtle is the Ruscus aculeatus of Linnæus.
12 See B. xiii. c. 29, and B xxiii. c. 45. A volatile oil might be extracted from the citrus, if one of the thuypæ, as also from the cypress.
13 See B. xxiii. c. 45. It is a fixed oil, still considerably used in some parts of Europe.
14 From the Greek καρύα, a "walnut."
15 "Pitch oil." See B. xxiv. c. 11. This would be a volatile oil.
16 See B. xxiii. c. 45, also B. xiii. c. 35. Fée is of opinion, that as no fixed oil can be extracted from the Daphne Cnidium or Daphne Cneoruni, Pliny must allude to a medicinal composition, like the oil of wild myrtle, previously mentioned.
17 A fixed oil. See B. xii. c. 36. The seeds were used for making it. See B. xxiii. c. 45.
18 See B. xii. c. 51, and B. xxiii. c. 45. The leaves of the Lawsonia are very odoriferous.
19 The myrobalanus, or ben. See B. xii. c. 46, and B. xxiii. c. 46.
20 Neither the chesnut nor rice produce any kind of fixed oil.
21 See B. xvii. c. 13.
22 Or Fish-eaters. See B. xxxii. c. 38. This is one of the fixed oils.
23 In reality, no fixed oil can be obtained from them.
24 Or wild vine. See B. xii. c. 61, and B. xiii. c. 2.
25 Not an oil, so much as a medicinal preparation. Dioscorides mentions as component parts of it, omphacium, sweet rush, Celtic nard, aspalathus, costus, and must. It received its name from γλεῦκος, "must."
26 The Convolvulus scoparius of Linnæus. See B. xii. c. 52, and B. xiii. c. 2.
27 See B. xii. c. 95.
28 See B. xii. c. 54, and B. xiii. c. 2.
29 See B. xii. c. 29.
30 See B. xii. c. 57.
31 See B. xiii. c. 2, p. 163.
32 See B. xii. c. 41.
33 See B. xiii. c. 2.
34 Fée doubts the possibility of such a resemblance.
35 Hyoseyamus. A medicinal oil is still extracted from it. See B. xxiii. c. 49.
36 This medicinal oil is no longer used. The Lupinus albus was formerly held in greater esteem than it is now.
37 The Raphanus sativus of Linnæus. See B. xix. c. 26. This is one of the fixed oils; varieties of it are rape oil, and colza oil, now so extensively used.
38 From the Greek χόρτος,, "grass." This medicinal oil would be totally without power or effect.
39 A fixed oil is still extracted in Egypt from the grain known as sesamum.
40 See B. xxii. c. 15.
41 From κνίδη, a "nettle." The nettle, or Urtica urens of Linnæus, has no oleaginous principles in its seed.
42 Lily oil is still used as a medicinal composition: it is made from the petals of the white lily, Lilium candidum of Linnæus.
43 From Selga, a town of Pisidia. See B. xxiii. c. 49.
44 See B. iii. c. 9, and B. xxiii. c. 49.
45 A volatile oil, mixed with a small proportion of empyreumatic oil and carbon.
46 "Oil-honey." Probably a terebinthine, or oleo-resin. See B. xxiii. c. 50.
47 When rancid and oxygenized by age, it has an irritating quality, and may be found useful for herpetic diseases.
48 It very probably will have this effect; but at the expense of the colour of the ivory, which very soon will turn yellow.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.
View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.