Tuesday, June 13, 2023
Siser
Ronald Syme, "Diet on Capri," in his Roman Papers, VI (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 409-420 (at 411-412):
Latin siser is etymologically related to Greek σίσαρον = parsnip.
On psittacosis see:
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'Siser' is reported from Varro onwards, three times in poetry (Horace, the Moretum, Columella, Book X) with three more in Columella, eight in Pliny. Therefore of some significance for classical scholars. None the less, little care or curiosity has obtained.André = Jacques André, Lexique des termes de botanique en latin (Paris: Klincksieck, 1956).
A familiar passage in Horace proves instructive. 'Siser' occurs in the first course of the banquet of Nasidienus, along with radishes, horseradishes, and others, 'qualia lassum pervellunt stomachum' (Sat. ii 8, 8 ff.). The German commentary has 'Rapunzel', with no doubts expressed.15 That is to say, French 'raiponce', English 'rampion'. It may be for this reason that OLD was content with 'perhaps rampion', offering no alternative (fasc. vii, 1980).
Rampion, a name not often on the lips of men, must be banished forthwith and for ever. It is soft and sweet and miserable, merely 'Campanula rapunculus'.16 By contrast, Umbelliferae, that potent and odorous family with flavours owed to essential oils, which goes all the way from parsley by parsnips to fennel and hemlock.
English translators and commentators on Columella and Pliny likewise conform to the notorious 'déformation professionelle' of classical philology (that is, 'psittacosis'). They bring up another unfamiliar word to vex the innocent reader, namely 'skirret', vouchsafing no kind of elucidation.17
Yet they were on the right track. The skirret is the water parsnip, sevium sisarium, 'formerly much cultivated in Europe for its esculent tubers'.18 Further, it may perhaps be held identical with Pliny's 'siser erraticum' commended on medical grounds (xx 34 f.).
But enough. In the year 1958 a masterly demonstration established the parsnip himself.19 To be ignored only at dire peril.20
15 Kiessling-Heinze (1957). And Villeneuve translated it as 'raiponce' (Budé, 1951).
16 According to OED 'very rare in England'. The Italian name is 'rampanzolo'.
17 In annotation on NH xix 62, the Loeb edition (1950) stated that 'siser' may be the parsnip, but in 90 and 93 it is translated as 'skirret'; and in 88 the parsnip is 'pastinaca'. Again, in Columella's poem (x 114), 'siser' appears as 'Skirwort', to be registered as 'skirwort' four times in the Index (Loeb, vol. iii, 1955). Further, the comprehensive Loeb Index of plants (compiled by W.H.S. Jones) did not help: probably not che skirret 'but rather the parsnip, peucedanum sativum, or the carrot, Daucus carota' (vol. iii (1956), 538).
18 OED. In French 'chenis'; not to be confused with 'chervil', of the same family, which is 'cerfolium'.
19 A.C. Andrews, 'The Parsnip as a Food in the Classical Era', CP liii (1958), 155 ff. He had previously dealt with celery and parsley, CP xliv (1949), 91 ff. and with the carrot, ibid. 182 ff.
20 André was in favour long ago, op. cit. (1956), 395: 'probablement le panais (Pastinaca sativa)'. And no hesitation in his note on NH xix 90 (Budé, 1964), duly citing A.C. Andrews.
Latin siser is etymologically related to Greek σίσαρον = parsnip.
On psittacosis see:
