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"The Buried Classic" from Ancient Greece,
and the roots of the Western World ....
The Life of Apollonius of TyanaPhilostratus {220 AD}
On Nut Gathering & Ancient Ecologies
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On Nut Gathering & Ancient Ecologies ...
THEY say that from this point they crossed the part of the Caucasus
which stretches down to the Red Sea; and this range is thickly overgrown
with aromatic shrubs. The spurs then of the mountain bear the cinnamon
tree, which resembles the young tendrils of the vine, and the goat gives
sure indication of this aromatic shrub; for if you hold out a bit of
cinnamon to a goat, she will whine and whimper after your hand like a
dog, and will follow you when you go away, pressing her nose against it;
and if the goat herd drags her away, she will moan as if she were being
torn away from the lotus. But on the steeps of this mountain - there grow
very lofty frankincense trees, as well as many other species, for example
the pepper trees which are cultivated by the apes. Nor did they neglect
to record the look and appearance of this tree, and I will repeat
exactly their account of it. The pepper tree resembles in general the
willow of the Greeks, and particularly in regard to the berry of the
fruit; and it grows in steep ravines where it cannot be got at by men,
and where a community of apes is said to live in the recesses of the
mountain and in any of its glens; and these apes are held in great esteem
by the Indians, because they harvest the pepper for them, and they drive
the lions off them with dogs and weapons. For the lion, when he is sick,
attacks the ape in order to get a remedy, for the flesh of the ape stays
the course of his disease; and he attacks it when he is grown old to get
a meal, for the lions when they are past hunting stags and wild boars
gobble up the apes, and husband for their pursuit whatever strength they
have left. The inhabitants of the country, however, are not disposed to
allow this, because they regard these animals as their benefactors, and
so make war against the lions in behalf of them. For this is the way
they go to work in collecting the pepper; the Indians go up to the lower
trees and pluck off the fruit, and they make little round shallow pits
around the trees, into which they collect the pepper, carelessly tossing
it in, as if it had no value and was of no serious use to mankind. Then
the monkeys mark their actions from above out of their fastnesses, and
when the night comes on they imitate the action of the Indians, and
twisting off the twigs of the trees, they bring and throw them into the
pits in question; then the Indians at daybreak carry away the heaps of
the spice which they have thus got without any trouble, and indeed
during the repose of slumber.
After crossing the top of the mountain, they say they saw a smooth
plain seamed with cuts and ditches full of water, some of which were
carried crosswise, whilst others were straight; these are derived
from the river Ganges, and serve both for boundaries and also are
distributed over the plain, when the soil is dry. But they say that
this soil is the best in India, and constitutes the greatest of the
territorial divisions of that country, extending in length towards
the Ganges a journey of fifteen days and of eighteen from the sea to
the mountain of the apes along which it skirts. The whole soil of the
plain is black and fertile of everything; for you can see on it
standing corn as high as reeds and you can also see beans three times
as large as the Egyptian kind, as well as sesame and millet of
enormous size. And they say that nuts also grow there, of which many
are treasured up in our temples here as objects of curiosity. But the
vines which grow there are small, like those of the Lydians and
Maeones; their vintage however is not only drinkable, but has a fine
bouquet from the first. They also say that they came upon a tree
there resembling the laurel, upon which there grew a cup or husk
resembling a very large pomegranate; and inside the cup there was a
kernel as blue as the cups of the hyacinth, but sweeter to the taste
than any of the fruits the seasons bring.
[Index of Apollonius Resources]
[Index - Apollonius by Philostratus]
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"The Buried Classic" from Ancient Greece,
and the roots of the Western World ....
The Life of Apollonius of TyanaPhilostratus {220 AD}
On Nut Gathering & Ancient Ecologies
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|---|
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