CHAP. 9.—AUTHORS WHO HAVE WRITTEN ON FLOWERS. AN ANECDOTE RELATIVE TO QUEEN CLEOPATRA AND CHAPLETS.
Among the Greeks, the physicians Mnesitheus and Callimachus have written separate treatises on the subject of
chaplets, making mention of such flowers as are injurious to
the head.[1] For, in fact, the health is here concerned to some
extent, as it is at the moments of carousal and gaiety in particular that penetrating odours steal insidiously upon the
brain—witness an instance in the wicked cunning displayed
upon one occasion by Cleopatra.
At the time when preparations were making for the battle
that was eventually fought at Actium, Antonius held the
queen in such extreme distrust as to be in dread of her very
attentions even, and would not so much as touch his food,
unless another person had tasted it first. Upon this, the
queen, it is said, wishing to amuse herself with his fears, had
the extremities of the flowers in a chaplet dipped in poison, and
then placed it upon her head.[2] After a time, as the hilarity
increased apace, she challenged Antonius to swallow the chap-
lets, mixed up with their drink. Who, under such circumstances
as these, could have apprehended treachery? Accordingly,
the leaves were stripped from off the chaplet, and thrown into
the cup. Just as Antonius was on the very point of drinking,
she arrested his arm with her hand.—"Behold, Marcus Antonius," said
she, "the woman against whom you are so careful to take these new
precautions of yours in employing your
tasters! And would then, if I could exist without you, either
means or opportunity of effecting my purpose be wanting to
me?" Saying this, she ordered a man to be brought from
prison, and made him drink off the potion; he did so, and
fell dead[3] upon the spot.
Besides the two authors above-mentioned, Theophrastus,[4]
among the Greeks, has written on the subject of flowers.
Some of our own writers also have given the title of "Anthologica" to their works, but no one, to my knowledge at least,
has treated expressly[5] of flowers. In fact, we ourselves have
no intention here of discussing the mode of wearing chaplets,
for that would be frivolous[6] indeed; but shall proceed to
state such particulars in relation to flowers as shall appear to
us deserving of remark.
1. It is a well-known fact, as Fée remarks, that the smell of flowers is
productive, in some persons, of head-ache, nausea, and vertigo. He states
also that persons have been known to meet their death from sleeping all
night in the midst of odoriferous flowers.
2. "Ipsaque capiti imposita." Holland and Ajasson render this as
though Cleopatra placed the garland on Antony's head, and not her own.
Littré agrees with the translation here adopted.
3. Fée remarks that we know of no poisons, hydrocyanic or prussic acid
excepted, so instantaneous in their effects as this; and that it is very
doubtful if they were acquainted with that poison.
4. Hist. Plant. B. vi. cc. 6, 7.
5. "Persecutus est."
6. A characteristic, it would appear, of the greater part of the
information already given in this Book.