Note 70 — Chapter III · Pliny’s Natural History

Bk. xxxvii, ch. 40. The word in this passage which I render as “potion” is in the Latin “veneficium”—a word difficult to translate owing to its double meaning. “Venenum” signifies a drug or potion of any sort, and then in a bad sense a drug used to poison or a potion used to bewitch. In a passage soon to be cited Pliny contrasts “veneficæ artes” to “magicæ artes” but I doubt if he always preserved such a distinction. A similar confusion exists in regard to the Greek word φάρμακον, as Plato sets forth clearly in his Laws. There are, he says, two kinds of poisons employed by men which cannot be clearly distinguished. One variety injures bodies “according to a natural law.” “There is also another kind which persuades the more daring class that they can do injury by sorceries and incantations....” Laws, bk. xi, p. 933 (Steph.). Jowett’s translation.