Quod quacunque venis Cosmum migrare putamus, Et fluere excusso cinnama fusa vitro, Martialis Epigramm. lib. v. Unguentum fuerat, quod onyx modo parva gerebat : Nunc furtiva lucri fieri bombycina possunt, Profertur Cosmi nunc mihi siccus onyx. Ibid. vii. Ibid. xi. In Phyllidem. The price of the unguent is computed, both in St. Mark and in St. John, at three hundred pence, denarii, or drachmæ, or more than that sum; which would amount to between nine and ten pounds of English money: that is to say, the unguent was valued at almost one pound per ounce. There can be no question, however, that it was of a rich and costly description, in which case a pound's weight of it, as we shall see, might be worth even more than that price. The name of μúpov vápdivov was given to a species of unguent composed of a variety of sweet spices, besides the nard: Syrian unguents (of which this would probably be one) were reckoned the most excellent in general, and the trade in unguents was so exclusively confined to Syrian or Phenician dealers, that, according to Juvenal, Syrophœnix is but another name for an unguentarius, or vender of unguents. Obvius assiduo Syrophoenix * udus amomo .......Συρίω δὲ μύρω χρύσει ̓ ἀλάβαστρα. Sat. viii. 159. Theocriti Idyll. xv. 114. Among the Syrians themselves none was more esteemed than the nardine. *This term illustrates the propriety of St. Mark's Eupopova, as applied to the woman of Canaan, vii. 26. Athenæi Deipnos. xv. 38. * Vide Arriani Exped. Alex. vi. 22. Ἡδὺ τὸ μύρον, παῖ· (παιδίον) πῶς γὰρ οὐχί; (οὐ) νάρδινον*. Athenæi xv. 42. De folio nardi, observes Pliny, plura dici par est; ut principali in unguentis: and again, In nostro orbe proxime laudatur Syriacum; mox Gallicum; tertio loco Creticumt. Now even the spikenard, unprepared, was worth an hundred denarii a pound"; and the same substance after all the trouble and loss of preparation might easily fetch three times that sum. Athenæus asserts that a cotyla of unguent, the content of which measure, like the alabaster vase full, must be reckoned, according to Arbuthnot, at half the EoTns or pint, was sold at Athens for five minæ, or five hundred drachmæ; almost fifteen pounds English and even at twice that sum. A sextarius, or pint, of balm of Gilead, opobalsamum, was commonly sold in the time of Pliny, by the retail dealers, for one thousand denarii, and, at the custom house itself, for three hundredw: to which unguent Juvenal alludes in these lines; Sed tamen unde Hæc emis, hirsuto spirant opobalsama collo One of the old comedians writes thus ; ii. 40. Στακτὴ δυοῖν μναῖν οὐκ ἀρέσκει μὲ οὐδαμῶς. Athenæi Deipnos. xv. 44. and Pliny mentions an unguent, obtained from the malobathrum, a Syrian shrub, which he describes as a variety of the nard, the common price of which, when the best of its kind, was 300 denarii to the pounds. It is to this that Horace refers, Coronatus nitentes Od. II. vii. 7. * According to Schweighaeuser, this quotation from Menander stands thus: Ἡδὲ τὸ μύρον γ ̓ ὦ παιδίον, ἡδύ. πῶς γὰρ οὐ; t H. N. xii. 12. " Plin. H. N. xii. 12. ▾ xv. 44. H. N. xii. 25. We may collect also that from three to four hundred denarii was the common price of the best unguents at Rome. Excedunt, says Plinyy, quadringenos denarios libræ : and there was so much variety among them that even of one sort, unguent of cinnamomum, the price might vary from thirty-five, to three hundred, denarii2; and there was a time when the raw material of this unguent was worth one thousand denarii a pound. With regard to this circumstance, then, its propriety is unquestionable; and the supposed value of the unguent might be strictly in accordance with the truth. As to the name which is given it both by St. Mark and by St. Johna, vápdos TIσTIxn, this is a denomination to be reckoned among the anak λsyóμeva of the Gospels; and as such it has occasioned some trouble to the critics. Nor do I mean to enumerate the various explanations which have been given of it: I shall notice only that one which derives πιστικὸς from πιστὸς, and πιστὸς from πιώ, potare facio or potandum do; because this at first sight may appear the most plausible, and yet, in my humble judgment, is far from being correct. That there is such a verbal derivative as TOTòs, used by good authors in the Greek language, and that Tixòs might be thence deducible, I should not think of denying. I would ask, however, assuming that it was so derived, what it must mean? nard liquid, as such, or nard potable, as such? nard the reverse of solid, or nard fit to be drunk? With regard to the first of these, it would be a distinction without a difference; for nard liquid could not be so designated, except in opposition to nard solid; and who ever heard or read of nard solid? It was peculiar to every species of μúpov, as such, to be made with oil, and άpúμara, of some kind or another; and consequently to be liquid. Sic ut amaracini blandum, stactæque, liquorem, Et nardi florem, nectar qui naribus halat, Quom facere instituas, cum primis quærere par est y xiii. 3. z Ibid. i. xii. 19. a Mark xiv. 3. John xii. 3. Quoad licet, ac possis reperire, inolentis olivi Nec casia liquidi corrumpitur usus olivi. Lucretii ii. 846. Virgilii Georgic. ii. 466. Quod nec Virgilius, nec carmine dixit Homerus, Martialis Epigramm. Lib. xiv. De Myrobalano. Pliny, indeed, observes, Sed quosdam crassitudo maxime delectat...linique jam, non solum perfundi, unguentis gaudent b: but this implies merely that some unguents were thicker or grosser than others; not that all were not, or should not be, more or less liquid: and he mentions it (xviii. 11.) as a common saying concerning Campania, Plus apud Campanos unguenti, quam apud cæteros olei, fieri. And as to unguent of nard in particular, its excellence was made to consist in its fineness or tenuity more than in any thing else. With regard to the second, nard, considered as potable, or ITI in the literal sense, would be an absolute nonentity. I can cite but one instance only where any thing like púpov seems to have been made to serve the purpose of oil; and that is supplied by Suetonius and Plutarch, in their Lives of Julius Cæsare. Pliny, it is true, speaks of the introduction of unguents into wine; but even of that, only to reprobate the practice, as both new and disgusting*. My own exposition of the sense of IσTIxòs would be as follows. The precious unguent called nard was obtained either wholly, or in part, from a vegetable production A kind of spiced beverage, or sweet wine, called myrrhina (sc. potio) was, indeed, anciently known among the Romans : Plin. H. N. xiv. 13-but this is manifestly a different thing. b H. N. xiii. 3. Suet. Vit. 53. Plutarchi Vit. 17. Vide also Hor. which bore the same name: and though it may be a contested point with the learned, whether the root, píla, or the spike, Tάxus, of this shrub was the most used for the purpose, still whatever uncertainty there may be about the former, there can be none about the latter. Cacumina, says Pliny in his description of the plant, in aristas se spargunt; ideo gemina dote nardi spicas et folia celebrant d. Tinge caput nardi folio, cervical olebit ; Ovid, de Phoenice, Martialis Epigramm. xiv. Quo simul ac casias, et nardi lenis aristas, Metamorphoseon xv. 398. and to the like effect the author of the poem, on the same subject, ascribed to Claudian. His addit teneras nardi pubentis aristas, Et sociat myrrhæ pascua grata nimis. That the aromatic property at least was possessed in perfection by the leaves, the stalks, and the spikes, appears from the following passage of Arrian, where he is giving an account of Alexander's march over the desert of Gedrosia: Ἔχειν δὲ τὴν ἔρημον ταύτην καὶ νάρδου ῥίζαν, πολλήν τε καὶ εὔοσμον —πολὺ δὲ εἶναι αὐτῆς τὸ καταπατούμενον πρὸς τῆς στρατιᾶς, καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ πατουμένου ὀδμὴν ἡδεῖαν κατέχειν ἐπιπολὺ τῆς χώρας. The best nard is said to have been produced about Tarsus in Ciliciaf; whence the epithet Cilissa, as applied to the spikenard. Cernis odoratis ut luceat ignibus æther, Et sonet accensis spica Cilissa focis. |