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XXXI. A Dissertation on the Lotus of Antiquity. By R. Duppa, Esq. LL.B. F.S.A.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2012
Extract
The Lotus of the ancients has given rise to many interesting inquiries among the learned; but, like the Pale Violet of Horace and of Virgil, and the Hyacinth of the Greek and Latin poets, we are still without any certain or accurate knowledge upon the subject. In this short Essay, which I presume to lay before the Society to which I have the honour to belong, I propose to shew from ancient authors, that plants of very different characters were known to the Greeks by the name of Lotus: but the particular object which I have in this dissertation, is to shew that the Indian plant known to the Greeks by the name of Κύαμος and Αἰγύπτις κύαμος, and to us by Nelumbium speciosum, or Cyamus nelumbo, was never called Lotus by the ancient Greeks or Egyptians; and I have been the more desirous to establish this fact, as Mons. Savigny, de l'lnstitut d'Egypte, in his learned paper in the Annales du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, has considered it to be a Lotus of the ancients; and in all modern works which have fallen in my way, I have observed a repetition of the same error.
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References
—— of which fruit what man soe'er
Once tasted, no desire felt he to come
With tidings back, or seek his country more,
But rather wish'd to feed on Lotus still
With the Lotophagi, and to renounce
All thoughts of home.——
Cowper.page 277 note b Herodotus, Lib. IV. c. 177. p. 359. Wessel. edit. fo. vide Dioscorides, L. i. c. 89 & 90. This is supposed to be the fruit of the Mastick-tree of the old writers, from which the resinous gum-mastick is produced, and which by modern writers is thought to be the Pistacia lentiscus of Linnaeus, the berries of which yield an oil fit for the lamp and the table.
page 277 note c Theophrastus, Book IV. Δ' c. 4, δ. Some commentators have supposed the true reading of the original to be πριωνῶδες, like a saw, serrated, instead of πρινῶδες, like the Ilex. But Pliny, who appears to have seen this description by Theophrastus, lias conformed to πρινῶδες. See Lib. xiii. c. 17.
page 278 note a According to Dr. Shaw, this shrub is the Seedra of the Arabs. Dr. Shaw's Travels, 4°, p. 143. Mungo Park says that it is found in great plenty on the sandy soil of Kaarta, Ludamar, and the northern parts of Bambarra, where it is one of the commonest shrubs of the country. Travels in Africa, 4°, c. 8. p. 99.
page 278 note b Unharness'd at the chariot's side the steeds
Cropp'd the green Lotus.
page 279 note a For thou art lord of an extensive plain
Where Lotus, herbage of all savours, wheat,
Pulse, and white barley, clothe the fruitful soil.
page 279 note b Be flowering Lotus twined, that loves the ground.
page 279 note c Herodotus, Book II. c. 121.
page 280 note a Theophrastus, Book IV. c. 10.
page 280 note b Dioscorides, Book IV. 114.
page 280 note c AthenæuS, Lib. XV. c. 6.
page 281 note a The passage in Arrian is favourable to this conjecture. “On the banks of the Hydaspes, after Alexander had prepared many vessels with two and with three banks of oars, and ships for the transport of his horses and his army, he resolved to sail down the river as far as the ocean. Here he first saw Crocodiles in the Indus, which he had never before seen in any river but the Nile; and beans growing on the banks of the Acesines, such as are produced in Egypt: and having heard that the Acesines discharged itself into the Indus, he thought that he had discovered the sources of the Nile. Arrian, Exped. Alex. Book 6. c. 1.
page 281 note b b Herodotus, Lib. II. c. 121.
page 282 note a In Shanskreet this plant has many different names,, as Támarasa, Padma, Kamala, Satapatra, Sahasrapatram, &c.