412 MERGE TO CYRENE.

whenever they smelt it they would rim to the place, and after eating the flower, would scratch up the root and devour it with the same avidity. On this account (says Arrian, who has recorded the fact just mentioned) some of the Cyreneans drive their sheep away from the parts in which the silphium is produced ; and others surround their land with hedges, through which the sheep are not able to pass when they chance to approach near the plants f . Silphium appears to have been found in many parts of Asia, as well as in some parts of Europe; but that of Gyrene was much the most esteemed and constituted a material part of the commerce of that country, as we find from various authorities 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 * The effects of eating silphium (according to Pliny) were manifested in sheep by their falling asleep, and in goats, by sneezing. Si quando incidit pecusin spem nascentis, hoc deprehenditur signo : ove, cum comedeidt, dormienti protinus, capra sternuenti. — (Lib. xix, c. iii).

■f* Etti TCiiSe EV ais ixxxqoraroj aTre’kxuvoiiaiv rxs ‘TTotfj.vas rcniv itia. Xici acvron to mXipiov (pusrxi' oi Ss xxi Trsixcraovai rov %ii/§ov rou ixrtV a, TCsXxaicv ocvta rx TrqoQxra, Svvxra yEVEO&ai Eiacu TTapsXSrEiv. — on tioXKov ajov (he adds) Kfnvcnoiy to tnX(pm. (Exped. Alex. Lib. iii. c. xxix.)

X Among others, see Strabo, Lib. xvii. and Pliny, Lib. xix. and xxii.