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The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 4 (of 6) cover

The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 4 (of 6)

Chapter 34: CHAP. 32.—THE SEVERAL KINDS OF CHICK-PEASE.
By the Elder Pliny
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The text compiles practical and encyclopedic guidance on crop cultivation and plant uses, beginning with cereals and farm management — types of grain, sowing and harvesting schedules, ploughing, seed selection, storage, and maladies — plus weather and stellar prognostics for agricultural timing. It proceeds to flax and garden plants, detailing varieties, planting and processing methods, garden layout, and pest and disease remedies. The final section assembles medicinal preparations and numerous remedies derived from vegetables and herbs, listing applications and recipes for treating ailments using garden-grown plants.

CHAP. 32.—THE SEVERAL KINDS OF CHICK-PEASE.

The chick-pea261 is naturally salt,262 for which reason it is apt to scorch the ground, and should only be sown after it has been steeped a day in water. This plant presents considerable differences in reference to size, colour,263 form, and taste. One variety resembles in shape a ram’s head, from which circumstance it has received the name of “arietinum;” there are both the white and the black arietinum. There is also the columbine chick-pea, by some known as the “pea of Venus;” it is white, round, and smooth, being smaller than the arietinum, and is employed in the observances of the night festivals or vigils. The chicheling vetch,264 too, is a diminutive kind of chick-pea, unequal and angular, like265 the pea. The chick-pea that is the sweetest in flavour is the one that bears the closest resemblance to the fitch; the pod in the black and the red kinds is more firmly closed than in the white ones.