1. Est planta spinosa, Theophrastus, Plinius.
2. Grata aspectu, sed sine odore, Theophrastus, Plinius.
3. Folio oleæ, Plinius; vel papaveris Heraclei, Theophrastus.
4. Caule ferulaceo, tenui, lanuginoso, eduli, Plinius.
5. Radice magna, acri, medicinali, Plinius, Dioscorides; spumescente, Lucian.
6. Floret æstate, Theophrastus. Plinius; sed semen nullum, Plinius.
7. Nascitur saxosis et asperis locis, Plinius.
8. Sponte, præcipue in Asia Syriaque; trans Euphratem laudatissima; sativa ubique, Plinius.
9. Radix conditur ad lanas lavandas, Theophrastus, Plinius, Dioscorides, Columella, et alii.
10. Herba ovibus lac auget, Plinius.
The above is all that the ancients have told us respecting this plant. The information is indeed very scanty, and at the same time it is not altogether certain; but even if it were, it would be sufficient only to confute some conjectures, but not to establish the systematic name of the plant. I call the properties of it described to us uncertain: first, because I do not know whether Pliny did not mean to distinguish the wild plant from that which was cultivated, and many have understood as alluding to the former that which I have applied to both: secondly, because the words of Theophrastus, being in one passage evidently corrupted, will admit of various constructions; and because in another, on account of some exceptions, of which he speaks, they appear at least to me unintelligible: thirdly, because Pliny, who gives us the best account of it, is the only author who calls the struthium or soap-plant radicula, a name by which is rather to be understood a dye-plant of the same kind as madder. We have reason therefore to suspect that he has confounded the properties of the two plants, especially as the fourth property was ascribed by others to a Rubia, Asperula, or Galium, which was cultivated in Syria, and named often radicula Syriaca. On the other hand, this diminutive is very ill-suited to a root which Pliny himself calls large.
The words of that author, “tingenti, quicquid sit cum quo decoquatur,” have been by some explained as if he meant that the struthium was a dye-plant, though as a soapy plant it must have been destitute of colour; and they have hence deduced a proof that Pliny confounded the struthium with the radicula used in dyeing. On the other hand, Hardouin reads unguentis instead of tingenti. He assures us that he found the former in manuscripts, and is of opinion that the sap of the struthium was used also for ointments.
In my opinion, however, tingenti must be retained; and the meaning is that when cloth was to be dyed it was necessary to prepare it for that purpose by soaking it and washing it with the sap of this plant. This he expressly tells us himself; “tingentibus et radicula lanas præparat.” It is probable that the ancient dyers mixed their dye-liquors with the juice of the struthium, for the same purpose as bran and the seeds of fenugreek are added to dye-liquors at present; that is, to render them thicker and more slimy, in order that the colouring particles may be longer and more equally suspended in or diffused through them254. The words quidquid sit cum quo decoquatur will now become intelligible. Whatever may be employed for dyeing, says the author, the addition of the juice of the struthium is serviceable.
As what has been said contains nothing that can enable us to determine the genus of the struthium according to the rules of botany, we may be allowed to conjecture that it was one of those plants still used for the like purpose in Italy and other neighbouring countries. Fuchs thinks it must have been the Saponaria officinalis (soap-wort), the roots of which indeed contain a saponaceous juice that readily changes the saliva into froth. The root was employed for that purpose by the impostor in Lucian; and the juice is used at present for cleaning wool and cloth. In the Helvetian Alps, the sheep, before they are shorn, are washed with a decoction of the plant and its roots; and with a mixture of ashes it serves for cleaning linen. The taste of it is so sharp, that it is compared by some to that of the small burnet-saxifrage.
This Saponaria officinalis however differs too much from the remaining properties255 of the struthium. Its root is as thick only as a quill, or at most as one’s finger. The stem, which is three feet in height, throws out many branches, and cannot be called caulis ferulaceus, tenuis. It is not rough and prickly, and, instead of growing in poor rocky soil, it is rather fond of deep ground and the borders of corn-fields.
We may therefore conjecture with more probability that the Gypsophila Struthium, Linn.256, a plant still used for washing in the lower part of Italy and Spain, is the struthium of the ancients. This opinion acquires some strength by its being adopted among the Italians and Spaniards; and because the plant, as Pliny says, grows in a rocky soil and on the mountains. It is also still called lanaria by the Calabrian peasants. It has a tender stem; its leaves are so like those of the olive-tree that they might be compared to them by those who are not botanists; and its root is large, but it is neither rough nor prickly. This contradiction may be accounted for by supposing that Pliny, through a mistake, of which I have already accused him, ascribed falsely to the soap-plant the prickly or rough leaves of the dye-plant which had an affinity to madder. But even after this explanation there still remains to be got over a dubious passage of Theophrastus, who indeed seems to make the plant prickly also.
I do not therefore place entire confidence in this opinion; but suspect rather that we shall receive from the East an account of a plant, still used there, which will correspond more exactly with the soap-plant described by Pliny. I am inclined to think that I have already found some precursory information respecting it in Bauhin, who says that in Syria there is another kind of soap-plant, which has prickly leaves like the thistle, and a thick root of a sharp acrid taste. The root, he adds, was employed for washing clothes and wool; and the confectioners of Damascus formed of it, with honey and wine, a kind of sweetmeat which appeared as white as if it had been made of the finest flour and sugar, and which was so hard that it could scarcely be broken with the teeth. This plant seems to belong to those, the cultivation of which was abandoned in Europe, after the use of them was rendered superfluous by newer discoveries.
That the ancients employed their struthium for washing wool is confirmed by various authorities; but I do not remember to have found any evidence of its being used for cleaning clothes which had been worn. Salmasius however quotes a passage from the works, unfortunately never printed, of the old chemist Zosimus, in which he gives directions for restoring, by means of the soap-plant, the lustre of pearls which have become yellow257.
The meal of many kinds of seeds may be used for washing, as well as various kinds of bran. That of almonds, which on account of its oil is remarkably soft, is employed at present for washing the hands by those who are desirous of having a white delicate skin. Cloth, the colours of which easily fade, and which will neither endure soap nor hard rubbing, may be washed extremely well with bran. Our fullers, therefore, and stocking manufacturers use oat-, barley- and bean-meal, especially when they wish the cloth to be slowly milled. Whether the ancients employed bran in the same manner I have not had an opportunity of examining. I am rather inclined to think that they did; and there is a passage of Galen which seems to allude to the use of bean-meal258. In all probability the beans of the ancients were the smallest and roundest variety of our horse-beans, or those used as fodder.
In the last place, the ancients, at those periods of which I speak, used fullers-earth much oftener than it is used at present. Till the countries where it was procured be described by travellers who unite a knowledge of antiquities with skill in mineralogy, the species of this earth, mentioned in the works of ancient authors, cannot be distinguished with accuracy. But from the purposes to which they were applied, we can with certainty conclude that they must have been partly of the nature of marl and partly of the nature of soapstone.
According