TheAspalathusCaper

Abstract

Aspalathus, a plant mentioned in Pliny the Elder's Natural History, Dioscorides' De Materia Medica, Theophrastus' Enquiry into Plants, and Ecclesiasticus is most probably caper (Capparis sp.). It has an Akkadian linguistic cognate, supalu. Ethnobotanical, archaeobotanical, and linguistic evidence show that this plant has played a role in the ancient, but ongoing cultural tradition in the Near East. In the same region [Cyprus] grows camel's thorn [aspalathos ], a white thorn of the size of a moderate-sized tree, with the flower of a rose; the root is in request for unguents. People say that any shrub over which a rainbow forms its arch gives out a scent as sweet as that of the aspalathus, but that if this happens in the case of an aspalathus a scent rises that is indescribably sweet. Some call this shrub red scepter [erysisceptrum] and others scepter. The test of its genuineness lies in its fiery red colour, firmness to the touch and scent like that of beaver-oil. It is sold for 5 denarii a pound (Pliny, Nat. Hist. 12.52.10). Aspalathus, somme call... Erysisceptron [i.e., red scepter]. It is a woody kind of shrub hauing many prickly thornes, growing in Istrus, & Nisyrus, & Syria, & Rhodes, which the oyntment-makers vse for the thickning of their ointments. That is good which is heauie, & after it is barked about, enclining to a red or a purple colour, thick, odoriferous, & bitter in the tast (Dioscorides, De Materia Medica I, 19). I gave a sweet smell like cinnamon and aspalathus, and I yielded a pleasant odour like the best myrrh, as galbanum, and onyx, and sweet storax, and as the fume of frankincense in the tabernacle (Ecclesiasticus 24:15). Now this is a general list of the plants used for perfumes: cassia cinnamon cardamom spikenard nairon balsam of Mecca aspalathos storax iris narte kostos all-heal saffron-crocus myrrh kypeiron ginger-grass sweet-flag sweet marjoram lotos dill. Of these it is the roots, bark, branches, wood, seeds, gum or flowers which in different cases yield the perfume. Some of them grow in many places, but the most excellent and most fragrant all come from Asia and sunny regions. From Europe itself comes none of them except the iris (Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants 9.7.3).