Les « petits-fils » de Jean le Lydien ou le parfum du scorpion

Johannes Lydus' "grandsons " or the Scorpion's Perfume. After the so-called Twelve Tables law the Romans introduced another, De nepotibus, according to J. the Lydian (Mag. I, 42) who proposes the meaning "spendthrift" for the word nepos. To date it has gone unnoticed that he bases his argument on a tradition, according to which scorpions devour their own claws during the winter before regaining them on touching a stalk of calamintha nepeta L. In mythology the well known aromatic properties of calamintha are connected with the ideas of love and death. As a widower who lost his wife very early, John was probably mistrustful of marriage and the risks associated with human reproduction

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