Aristoteles and the goat and dittany

[glaukias]

Hello all,
it's been a while since I've been active here, but I've been looking in and around here daily, right now I am still getting used to the new forum style. I like it though...

Now, this is definitely a very weird question (and only partly Alexander related), but I hope with so many experts here, you might be able to help me.
A few of you might remember, that I am writing a thesis about the medical background of Curtius Rufus and Alexanders woundings. It is almost done, I am currently proofreading all 300 pages.

But I stumbled about something in Salazar's book, page 59 she writes about dittany which was said to have the effect of drawing arrowheads from the body.
Online I found out, that this is because the Cretic goats(kri-kri, Capra aegagrus - cretica) ate those after being hit by arrows and it fell out. It also said that Aristotels wrote about that.

Now my question after looking online everywhere, not havin access to Aristoteles' works. Does anyone of you know anything about this story and where in Aristoteles I could find that?

Thanks!
Glaukias

[amyntoros]

It's in Aristotle's The History of Animals, Book 9, Part 6. The online version as translated by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson can be found here at the Internet Classicas Archive.

Many other quadrupeds help themselves in clever ways. Wild goats in Crete are said, when wounded by arrows, to go in search of dittany, which is supposed to have the property of ejecting arrows in the body.

The tale can also be found in Pliny, Book 25, Chapter 53 according to the Perseus site although I've seen it referenced elsewhere as 25.52.92 which is somewhat confusing.

It is the hind, too, that, as already stated, first made us acquainted with dictamnon, or dittany; for when wounded, it eats some of this plant, and the weapon immediately falls from the body. This plant grows nowhere but in Crete. The branches of it are remarkably thin; it resembles pennyroyal in appearance, and is hot and acrid to the taste. The leaves are the only part employed, it being destitute of blossom, seed, and stem: the root is thin., and never used. In Crete even, it is found growing only in a very limited locality, and is sought by goats with singular avidity.

In place of it, the pseudodictamnum is employed, a plant that is found growing in many countries. In leaf it is similar to the other, but the branches are more diminutive: by some persons it is known as "chondris." Its properties not being so strongly developed, the difference is immediately recognized: for an infusion of the very smallest piece of the real dittany, [p. 5116] is sufficient to burn the mouth. The persons who gather it are in the habit of enclosing it in a stem of fennel-giant or in a reed, which they close at the ends that the virtues of it may not escape. Some persons say, that both plants grow indiscriminately in numerous localities, the inferior sort being the produce of rich soils, and the genuine dittany being found nowhere but in rugged, uncultivated spots.

We're told the story is also in Aelian, Cicero, and (I believe) Virgil, but unfortunately I don't know the references.

Best regards.

[glaukias]

Wow, I am definitely impressed about your knowledge.
Thank you so much! That was just what I needed.

Thanks! This forum is wonderful!

Glaukias