This entry is generated by lines from Aristophanes' Peace (see n.2 below) and the scholia thereto, used to explain the double sense of the headword phrase and to introduce the properties of pennyroyal as a medicinal plant. For the same lines (and scholion), with some modification, see already at beta 339, and cf. kappa 938.
[1] Aristophanes writes blhxwni/an and the related gloss reads blh/xwn, as in beta 339, where we have the same quotation. See n.3; also beta 338 and gamma 287. Dioscorides Pedanius, Pliny the Elder (references in n.3) and others record the use of both forms of this term (b-form and g-form) and explain the use of b-form, arguing that this plant stimulates the bleating (blhxh/) of sheep and goats. Note also that, while Dioscorides Pedanius considers glh/xwn and blh/xwn as belonging to the same botanical species, for Pliny blh/xwn is a different plant: the “wild pennyroyal” or “dictamnos”, with characteristics very similar to the former.
[2] Aristophanes, Peace 710-712 (web address 1 below).
[3] The pennyroyal, glh/xwn, corresponds to Mentha Pulegium, an aromatic plant of the family of Labiatae, genus Mentha (mint). It is recommended by several Greek authors in the medical field for its many useful qualities. In Hippocrates, first it is considered useful in gynaecologic aspects, but in De diaeta 54.36 he adds: *glh/xwn qermai/nei kai\ diaxwre/ei, “pennyroyal warms and is purgative”. In Galenus, Aëtius and Paulus we find this plant in many different therapies: they ascribe to it different qualities, especially warming capacity and the capacity to give more fluidity to body liquids: qermai/nei kai\ leptu/nei. And as demonstration of that, Galen, De simplicium medicamentorum temperamentis ac facultatibus libri XI, 6 perí glêchônos, writes: “it makes it easy to spit out thick and sticky fluids from thorax and lungs, and stimulates menstruations”. But the broadest and more systematic descriptions oft the uses of the plant are by Dioscorides Pedanius, De Materia Medica 3.31, and Pliny the Elder, Natural History 20.54. In Dioscorides the main qualities of pennyroyal are warming, fluidifying and digestive capacity. It stimulates menstruation, expulsion of the placenta and of the foetus (this abortive capacity is attested also in modern texts, when using concentrates of the plant) and expectoration. It attenuates stomach pains and it is purgative. Together with wine, it cures poisonous bites. It is a stimulant and anti-inflammatory. It is good for gout and eruptions and irritations and for flatulencies, indurations and uterine prolapse. Pliny adds several other therapeutic aspects: headaches, chest pain, stones and several inner pains, epilepsy, and even malarial fevers. Although nowadays its properties are considered to be much less than in antiquity, modern herbalists still classify pennyroyal among the main medicinal plants, as a stimulant, diaphoretic and carminative.
[4] Note that in the scholion (and in beta 339) we have o)pou= “juice”, instead of oi)/nou “wine”. Rather than cardiac problems, this explanation refers to digestive problems provoked by an excessive intake of food (for which, as we have seen, pennyroyal was recommended by physicians).