Pliny: Natural History
quidam et in insulis melius putant gigni, Iuba in insulis negat nasci.
61Quod ex eo rotunditate guttae pependit masculum vocamus, cum alias non fere mas vocetur ubi non sit femina; religioni tributum ne sexus alter usurparetur. masculum aliqui putant a specie testium dictum. praecipua autem gratia est mammoso, cum haerente lacrima priore consecuta alia miscuit se. singula haec manum inplere solita invenio, cum minore deripiendi aviditate lentius nasci liceret. 62Graeci stagonian et atomum tali modo appellant, minorem autem orobian; micas concussu elisas mannam vocamus. etiamnum tamen inveniuntur guttae quae tertiam partem minae, hoc est xxviii denariorum pondus, aequent. Alexandro Magno in pueritia sine parsimonia tura ingerenti aris paedagogus Leonides dixerat ut illo modo cum devicisset turiferas gentes supplicaret; at ille Arabiae potitus ture onustam navem misit ei exhortatus1 ut large deos adoraret.
63Tus collectum Sabotam camelis convehitur, porta ad id una patente degredi via capital reges2 fecere.
Book XII
people also think that a better kind is produced on islands, but Juba says that no incense grows on islands at all.
Frankincense that hangs suspended in a globular Male frankincense. drop we call male frankincense, although in other connexions the term ‘male’ is not usually employed where there is no female; but it is said to have been due to religious scruple that the name of the other sex was not employed in this case. Some people think that male frankincense is so called from its resemblance to the testes. The frankincense most esteemed, however, is the breast-shaped, formed when, while a previous drop is still hanging suspended, another one following unites with it. I find it recorded that one of these lumps used to be a whole handful, in the days when men’s eagerness to pluck them was less greedy and they were allowed to form more slowly. The Greek name for frankincense formed in this manner is ‘drop-incense’ or ‘solid incense,’ and for the smaller kind ‘chick-pea incense’; the fragments knocked off by striking the tree we call manna. Even at the present day, however, drops are found that weigh as much as a third of a mina,a that is 28 denarii. Alexander the Great in his boyhood was heaping frankincense on the altars in lavish fashion, when his tutor Leonides told him that he might worship the gods in that manner when he had conquered the frankincense-producing races; but when Alexander had wonb Arabia he sent Leonides a ship with a cargo of frankincense, with a message charging him to worship the gods without any stint.
Frankincense after being collected is conveyed toTransport of frankincense to the Mediterranean. Sabota on camels, one of the gates of the city being opened for its admission; the kings have made it a