ough, spitting of blood, a consumption, and weakness of intellect, was
administered to Aratus of Sicyon. Theophrastus speaks of a poison
prepared from aconite, which could be moderated in such a manner as to
have effect in two or three months, or at the end of a year or two
years; and he also relates, that Thrasyas had discovered a method of
preparing from other plants a poison which, given in small doses,
occasioned a certain but easy death, without any pain, and which could
be kept back for a long time without causing weakness or corruption. The
last poison was much used at Rome, about two hundred years before the
christian era. At a later period, a female named Locusta, was the agent
in preparing these poisons, and she destroyed, in this way, at the
instigation of Nero, Britannicus, son of Agrippina.

The Carthagenians seem also to have been acquainted with this act of
diabolical poisoning; and they are said, on the authority of Aulus
Gellius, to have administered some to Regulus, the Roman general.
Contemporary writers, however, it must be added, do not mention this.

The principal poisons known to the ancients were prepared from plants,
and particularly aconite, hemlock, and poppy, or from animal substances;
and among the latter none is more remarkable than that obtained from the
sea-hare (_Lepus marinus_ or _Apylsia depilans_ of the system of
nature). With this, Titus is said to have been dispatched by Domitian.
They do not seem to have been acquainted with the common mineral
poisons.

In the year 1659, during the pontificate of Alexander VII, it was
observed at Rome, that many young women became widows, and that many
husbands died when they became disagreeable to their wives. The
government used great vigilance to detect the poisoners, and suspicion
at length fell upon a society of young wives, whose president appeared
to be an old woman, who pretended to foretel future events, and who had
often predicted very exactly the death of many persons. By means of a
crafty female their practices were detected; the whole society were
arrested and put to the torture, and the old woman, whose name was
Spara, and four others, were publicly hanged. This Spara was a Sicilian,
and is said to have acquired her knowledge from Tofania at Palermo.

Tophania, or Tofania, was an infamous woman, who resided first at
Palermo and afterwards at Naples. She sold the poison which from her
acquired the name of Aqua della Toffana (it was