Note 107 — LIFE OF CAIUS GRACCHUS.

This was a proverbial expression, of which different explanations were given. Sardinia, it is said, was noted for a bitter herb which contracted the features of those who tasted it. Pausanias (x. 17) says it is a plant like parsley, which grows near springs, and causes people who eat it to laugh till they die; and he supposes that Homer’s expression (Odyssey xx. 302), a Sardanian laugh, is an allusion to this property of the plant: but this is not a probable explanation of the expression in Homer.