Page:An Essay on the Age and Antiquity of the Book of Nabathaean Agriculture.djvu/47

Rh scientific names, which those alone could be acquainted with who were accustomed to handle those polyglot “Dioscorides” of which we possess copies. The Greek names of plants given by Ibn Wahshíya are found in the Syriac glossaries of Bar-Ali and of Bar-Bahlul, who probably had taken them from books analogous to the one translated by Ibn Wahshíya.

In all that treats of the names of towns and cities, M. Quatremère affirms that he has not found in “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture” the name of any of the Greek cities of the East. Dr. Chwolson confesses that he has discovered one,—that of Antioch (Anthakia); but he thinks, according to his usual method, that it is only a modern name which Ibn Wahshíya has substituted for one more ancient: nothing can be more gratuitous. The Orientals have never made the name of Anthakia respond to any city but that founded by Seleucus Nicator; and we know, in the most precise manner, that