D. 176, it is denominated cane-honey,
otherwise called sugar (sacchar). So early, therefore, as the Periplus
(about the year A.D. 73,) the name of sacchar was known to the Romans, and
applied by them to sugar. This word does not occur in any earlier author,
unless Dioscorides lived before that period, which is uncertain. It may be
remarked, that the nature, as well as the proper appellation of sugar, must
have been but imperfectly, and not generally known, even at the time of the
rescript, otherwise the explanatory phrase, honey made from cane, would not
have been employed.
The first information respecting sugar was brought to Europe by Nearchus,
the admiral of Alexander. In a passage quoted from his journal by Strabo,
it is described as honey made from reeds, there being no bees in that part
of India. In a fragment of Theophrastus, preserved by Photius, he mentions,
among other kinds of honey, one that is found in reeds. The first mention
of any preparation, by which the juice of the reed was thickened, occurs in
Eratosthenes, as quoted by Strabo, where he describes roots of large reeds
found in India, which were sweet to the taste, both when raw and boiled.
Dioscorides and Pliny describe it as used chiefly, if not entirely, for
medical purposes. In the time of Galen, A.D. 131, it would appear to have
become more common and cheaper at Rome; for he classes it with medicines
that may be easily procured.
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