Pausanias Analysis

Mount Helicon is among the mountains of Greece most esteemed for excellence of its soil and the abundance of cultivated trees. Its shrubs of strawberry-tree especially yield fruit sweeter for goats than those of any other region. The inhabitants around Helicon also report that none of the grasses and roots growing on this mountain are likely to cause human death. Moreover, even the pasture grounds here render the venom of serpents more feeble, so that those who have been bitten usually survive if they receive treatment from a Libyan of the Psylli race or other suitable remedies.

Indeed, the venom of the fiercest snakes is destructive in all respects alike to both humans and all living creatures. Their feeding-grounds especially contribute greatly to the potency of their venom; indeed, I have even heard from a Phoenician man that roots growing in the mountains of Phoenicia render vipers there more savage. He related that he himself had seen a man fleeing from the attack of a viper; this man climbed up into a tree to escape, and when afterward the viper came to the tree, it discharged venom toward it, and consequently the man no longer survived.

Such things I have heard about this matter. As for the land of the Arabs, I know the following additional facts concerning the snakes that dwell around the balsam-trees there. The balsam-trees are about the size of a myrtle bush, and their leaves resemble the herb called sampsuchon. Beneath each tree in Arabia dwell snakes, sometimes fewer and sometimes greater in number, for their most delightful nourishment is the sap of the balsam-trees, and they also find pleasure in resting in their shade.

When the time has come for the Arabs to gather the juice of balsam, each man brings two wooden sticks against the snakes, striking these sticks together to drive the snakes away; yet they refuse to kill them, considering the snakes sacred to the balsam. And if it ever happens that someone is bitten by these snakes, the wound resembles one inflicted by iron, but the venom carries no danger. For since the snakes feed upon this most fragrant of aromatic substances, their venom is tempered from a deadly poison to something milder.