Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, BOOK XV. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FRUIT-TREES.

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BOOK XV. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FRUIT-TREES.

CHAP. 1. (1.)—THE OLIVE.—HOW LONG IT EXISTED ONLY IN GREECE. AT WHAT PERIOD IT WAS FIRST INTRODUCED INTO ITALY, SPAIN, AND AFRICA.

THEOPHRASTUS,¹ one of the most famous among the Greek writers, who flourished about the year 440 of the City of Rome, has asserted that the olive² does not grow at a distance of more than forty³ miles from the sea. Fenestella tells us that in the year of Rome 173, being the reign of Tarquinius Priscus, it did not exist in Italy, Spain, or Africa;⁴ whereas at the present day it has crossed the Alps even, and has been introduced into the two provinces of Gaul and the middle of Spain. In the year of Rome 505, Appius Claudius, grandson of Appius Claudius Cæcus, and L. Junius being consuls, twelve pounds of oil sold for an as; and at a later period, in the year 680, M. Seius, son of Lucius, the curule ædile, regulated the price of olive oil at Rome, at the rate of ten pounds for the as, for the whole year. A person will be the less surprised at this, when he learns that twenty-two years after, in the third consulship of Cn. Pompeius, Italy was able to export olive oil to the provinces.

Hesiod,⁵ who looked upon an acquaintance with agriculture as conducive in the very highest degree to the comforts of life, has declared that there was no one who had ever gathered fruit from the olive-tree that had been sown by his own hands, so slow was it in reaching maturity in those times; whereas, now at the present day, it is sown in nurseries even, and if transplanted will bear fruit the following year.

CHAP. 2.—THE NATURE OF THE OLIVE, AND OF NEW OLIVE OIL.

Fabianus maintains that the olive will grow⁶ neither in very cold climates, nor yet in very hot ones. Virgil⁷ has mentioned three varieties of the olive, the orchites,⁸ the radius,⁹ and the posia;¹⁰ and says that they require no raking or pruning, nor, in fact, any attention whatever. There is no doubt that in the case of these plants, soil and climate are the things of primary importance; but still, it is usual to prune them at the same time as the vine, and they are improved by lopping between them every here and there. The gathering of the olive follows that of the grape, and there is even a greater degree of skill required in preparing¹¹ oil than in making wine; for the very same olives will frequently give quite different results. The first oil of all, produced from the raw¹² olive before it has begun to ripen, is considered preferable to all the others in flavour; in this kind, too, the first¹³ droppings of the press are the most esteemed, diminishing gradually in goodness and value; and this, whether the wicker-work¹⁴ basket is used in making it, or whether, following the more recent plan, the pulp is put in a stick strainer, with narrow spikes and interstices.¹⁵ The riper the berry, the more unctuous the juice, and the less agreeable the taste.¹⁶ To obtain a result both abundant and of excellent flavour, the best time to gather it is when the berry is just on the point of turning black. In this state it is called "druppa" by us, by the Greeks, "drypetis."

In addition to these distinctions, it is of importance to observe whether the berry ripens in the press or while on the branch; whether the tree has been watered, or whether the fruit has been nurtured solely by its own juices, and has imbibed nothing else but the dews of heaven.

CHAP. 3. (2.)—OLIVE OIL: THE COUNTRIES IN WHICH IT IS PRODUCED, AND ITS VARIOUS QUALITIES.

It is not with olive oil as it is with wine, for by age it acquires a bad flavour,¹⁷ and at the end of a year it is already old. This, if rightly understood, is a wise provision on the part of Nature: wine, which is only produced for the drunkard, she has seen no necessity for us to use when new; indeed, by the fine flavour which it acquires with age, she rather invites us to keep it; but, on the other hand, she has not willed that we should be thus sparing of oil, and so has rendered its use common and universal by the very necessity there is of using it while fresh.

In the production of this blessing as well,¹⁸ Italy holds the highest rank among all countries,¹⁹ and more particularly the territory of Venafrum,²⁰ that part of it in especial which produces the Licinian oil; the qualities of which have conferred upon the Licinian olive the very highest renown. It is our unguents which have brought this oil into such great esteem, the peculiar odour of it adapting itself so well to the full developement of their qualities; at the same time its delicate flavour equally enlists the palate in its behalf. In addition to this, birds will never touch the berry of the Licinian olive.

Next to Italy, the contest is maintained, and on very equal terms, between the territories of Istria and of Bætica. The next rank for excellence is claimed by the other provinces of our Empire, with the exception of Africa,²¹ the soil of which is better adapted for grain. That country Nature has given exclusively to the cereals; of oil and wine she has all but deprived it, securing it a sufficient share of renown by its abundant harvests. As to the remaining particulars connected with the olive, they are replete with erroneous notions, and I shall have occasion to show that there is no part of our agricultural economy upon which people have been more generally mistaken.

(3.) The olive is composed of a stone, oil, flesh, and amurca:²² the last being a bitter liquid, principally composed of water; hence it is that in seasons of drought it is less plentiful, and more abundant when rains²³ have prevailed. The oil is a juice peculiar to the olive, a fact more particularly stated in reference to its unripe state, as we have already mentioned when speaking of omphacium.²⁴ This oil continues on the increase up to the rising of Arcturus,²⁵ or in other words, the sixteenth day before the calends of October;²⁶ after which the increase is in the stone and the flesh. When drought has been followed by abundant rains, the oil is spoilt, and turns to amurca. It is the colour of this amurca that makes the olive turn black; hence, when the berry is just beginning to turn that colour, there is but little amurca in it, and before that period none at all. It is an error then, on the part of persons, to suppose that that is the commencement of maturity, which is in reality only the near approach of corruption. A second error, too, is the supposition that the oil increases proportionably to the flesh of the berry, it being the fact that the oil is all the time undergoing a change into flesh, and the stone is growing larger and larger within. It is for this reason more particularly, that care is taken to water the tree at this period; the real result of all this care and attention, as well as of the fall of copious rains, being, that the oil in reality is absorbed as the berry increases in size, unless fine dry weather should happen to set in, which naturally tends to contract the volume of the fruit. According to Theophrastus,²⁷ heat is the sole primary cause of the oleaginous principle; for which reason it is, that in the presses,²⁸ and in the cellars even, great fires are lighted to improve the quality of the oil.

A third error arises from misplaced economy: to spare the expense of gathering, people are in the habit of waiting till the berry falls from the tree. Others, again, who wish to follow a middle course in this respect, beat the fruit off with poles, and so inflict injury on the tree and ensure loss in the succeeding year; indeed, there was a very ancient regulation in existence relative to the gathering of the olive-" Neither pull nor beat the olive-tree."²⁹ Those who would observe a still greater degree of precaution, strike the branches lightly with a reed on one side of them; but even then the tree is reduced to bearing fruit but once in two years,³⁰ in consequence of the injury done to the buds. Not less injurious, however, are the results of waiting till the berries fall from the tree; for, by remaining on it beyond the proper time, they deprive the crop that is coming on of its due share of nutriment, by occupying its place: a clear proof of which is, that if they are not gathered before the west winds prevail, they are found to have acquired renewed strength, and are all the later before they fall.

CHAP. 4.—FIFTEEN VARIETIES OF OLIVES.

The first olive that is gathered after the autumn is that known as the "posia,"³¹ the berry of which, owing to a vicious method of cultivation, and not any fault on the part of Nature, has the most flesh upon it. Next to this is the orchites, which contains the greatest quantity of oil, and then, after that, the radius. As these are of a peculiarly delicate nature, the heat very rapidly takes effect upon them, and the amurca they contain causes them to fall. On the other hand, the gathering of the tough, hard-skinned olive is put off so late as the month of March, it being well able to resist the effects of moisture, and, consequently, very small. Those varieties known as the Licinian, the Cominian, the Contian, and the Sergian, by the Sabines called the "royal"³² olive, do not turn black before the west winds prevail, or, in other words, before the sixth day before³³ the ides of February. At this period it is generally thought that they begin to ripen, and as a most excellent oil is extracted from them, experience would seem to give its support to a theory which, in reality, is altogether wrong. The growers say that in the same degree that cold diminishes the oil, the ripeness of the berry augments it; whereas, in reality, the goodness of the oil is owing, not to the period at which the olives are gathered, but to the natural properties of this peculiarvariety, in which the oil is remarkably slow in turning to amurca.

A similar error, too, is committed by those who keep the olives, when gathered, upon a layer of boards, and do not press the fruit till it has thrown out a sweat; it being the fact that every hour lost tends to diminish the oil and increase the amurca: the consequence is, that, according to the ordinary computation, a modius of olives yields no more than six pounds of oil. No one, however, ever takes account of the quantity of amurca to ascertain, in reference to the same kind of berry, to what extent it increases daily in amount. Then, again, it is a very general error³⁴ among practical persons to suppose that the oil increases proportionably to the increased size of the berry; and more particularly so when it is so clearly proved that such is not the case, with reference to the variety known as the royal olive, by some called majorina, and by others phaulia;³⁵ this berry being of the very largest size, and yet yielding a minimum of juice. In Egypt,³⁶ too, the berries, which are remarkably meaty, are found to produce but very little oil; while those of Decapolis, in Syria, are so extremely small, that they are no bigger than a caper; and yet they are highly esteemed for their flesh.³⁷ It is for this reason that the olives from the parts beyond sea are preferred for table to those of Italy, though, at the same time, they are very inferior to them for making oil.

In Italy, those of Picenum and of Sidicina³⁸ are considered the best for table. These are kept apart from the others and steeped in salt, after which, like other olives, they are put in amurca, or else boiled wine; indeed, some of them are left to float solely in their own oil,³⁹ without any adventitious mode of preparation, and are then known as colymbades: sometimes the berry is crushed, and then seasoned with green herbs to flavour it. Even in an unripe state the olive is rendered fit for eating by being sprinkled with boiling water; it is quite surprising, too, how readily it will imbibe sweet juices, and retain an adventitious flavour from foreign substances. With this fruit, as with the grape, there are purple⁴⁰ varieties, and the posia is of a complexion approaching to black. Besides those already mentioned, there are the superba⁴¹ and a remarkably luscious kind, which dries of itself, and is even sweeter than the raisin: this last variety is extremely rare, and is to be found in Africa and in the vicinity of Emerita⁴² in Lusi- tania. The oil of the olive is prevented from getting⁴³ thick and rancid by the admixture of salt. By making an incision in the bark of the tree, an aromatic odour may be imparted⁴⁴ to the oil. Any other mode of seasoning, such, for instance, as those used with reference to wine, is not at all gratifying to the palate; nor do we find so many varieties in oil as there are in the produce of the grape, there being, in general, but three different degrees of goodness. In fine oil the odour is more penetrating, but even in the very best it is but short- lived.

CHAP. 5. (4.)—THE NATURE OF OLIVE OIL.

It is one of the properties of oil to impart warmth to the body, and to protect it against the action of cold; while at the same time it promotes coolness in the head when heated. The Greeks, those parents of all vices, have abused it by mak- ing it minister to luxury, and employing it commonly in the gymnasium: indeed, it is a well-known fact that the gover- nors of those establishments have sold the scrapings⁴⁵ of the oil used there for a sum of eighty thousand sesterces. The majesty of the Roman sway has conferred high honour upon the olive: crowned with it, the troops of the Equestrian order are wont to defile upon the ides of July;⁴⁶ it is used, too, by the victor in the minor triumphs of the ovation.⁴⁷ At Athens, also, they are in the habit of crowning the conqueror with olive; and at Olympia, the Greeks employ the wild olive⁴⁸ for a similar purpose.

CHAP. 6. (5.)—THE CULTURE OF THE OLIVE: ITS MODE OF PRESERVATION. THE METHOD OF MAKING OLIVE OIL.

We will now proceed to mention the precepts given by Cato⁴⁹ in relation to this subject. Upon a warm, rich⁵⁰ soil, he recommends us to sow the greater radius, the Salentina, the orehites, the posia, the Sergian, the Cominian, and the albicera;⁵¹ but with a remarkable degree of prudence he adds, that those varieties ought to be planted in preference which are considered to thrive best in the neighbouring localities. In a cold⁵² and meagre soil he says that the Licinian olive should be planted; and he informs us that a rich or hot soil has the effect, in this last variety, of spoiling the oil, while the tree becomes exhausted by its own fertility, and is liable to be attacked by a sort of red moss.⁵³ He states it as his opinion that the olive grounds ought to have a western aspect, and, indeed, he approves of no other.

(6.) According to him, the best method of preserving olives is to put the orchites and the posia, while green, in a strong brine, or else to bruise them first, and preserve them in mastich oil.⁵⁴ The more bitter the olive, he says, the better the oil; but they should be gathered from the ground the very moment they fall, and washed if they are dirty. He says that three days will be quite sufficient for drying them, and that if it is frosty weather, they should be pressed on the fourth, care being taken to sprinkle them with salt. Olives, he informs us,⁵⁵ lose oil by being kept in a boarded store-room, and deteriorate in quality; the same being the case, too, if the oil is left with the amurca and the pulp,⁵⁶ or, in other words, the flesh of the olive that forms the residue and becomes the dregs. For this reason, he recommends that the oil should be poured off several times in the day, and then put into vessels or caul- drons⁵⁷ of lead, for copper vessels will spoil it, he says. All these operations, however, should be carried on with presses heated and tightly closed,⁵⁸ and exposed to the air as little as possible—for which reason he recommends that wood should never be cut there, the most convenient fuel for the fires being the stones of the berries. From the cauldron the oil should be poured into vats,⁵⁹ in order that the pulp and the amurca may be disengaged in a solidified form: to effect which object the vessels should be changed as often as convenient, while at the same time the osier baskets should be carefully cleaned with a sponge, that the oil may run out in as clean and pure a state as possible. In later times, the plan has been adopted of invariably crushing the olives in boiling water, and at once putting them whole in the press—a method of effectually extracting the amurca—and then, after crushing them in the oil-press, sub- jecting them to pressure once more. It is recommended, that not more than one hundred modii should be pressed at one time: the name given to this quantity is "factus,"⁶⁰ while the oil that flows out at the first pressure is called the "flos."⁶¹ Four men, working at two presses day and night, ought to be able to press out three factuses of olives.

CHAP. 7. (7.)—FORTY-EIGHT VARIETIES OF ARTIFICIAL OILS. THE CICUS-TREE OR CROTON, OR SILI, OR SESAMUM.

In those times artificial oils had not been introduced, and hence it is, I suppose, that we find no mention made of them by Cato; at the present day the varieties are very numerous. We will first speak of those⁶² which are produced from trees, and among them more particularly the wild olive.⁶³ This olive is small, and much more bitter than the cultivated one, and hence its oil is only used in medicinal preparations: the oil that bears the closest resemblance to it is that extracted from the chamelæa,⁶⁴ a shrub which grows among the rocks, and not more than a palm in height; the leaves and berries being similar to those of the wild olive. A third oil is that made of the fruit of the cicus,⁶⁵ a tree which grows in Egypt in great abundance; by some it is known as croton, by others as sili, and by others, again, as wild sesamumn: it is not so very long since this tree was first introduced here. In Spain, too, it shoots up with great rapidity to the size of the olive-tree, having a stem like that of the ferula, the leaf of the vine, and a seed that bears a resemblance to a small pale grape. Our people are in the habit of calling it "ricinus,"⁶⁶ from the resemblance of the seed to that insect. It is boiled in water,⁶⁷ and the oil that swims on the surface is then skimmed off: but in Egypt, where it grows in a greater abundance, the oil is extracted without employing either fire or water for the purpose, the seed being first sprinkled with salt, and then subjected to pressure: eaten with food this oil is repulsive, but it is very useful for burning in lamps.

Amygdalinum, by some persons known as "metopium,"⁶⁸ is made of bitter almonds dried and beaten into a cake, after which they are steeped in water, and then beaten again. An oil is extracted from the laurel also, with the aid of olive oil. Some persons use the berries only for this purpose, while others, again, employ the leaves⁶⁹ and the outer skin of the berries: some add storax also, and other odoriferous substances. The best kind for this purpose is the broad-leaved or wild laurel,⁷⁰ with a black berry. The oil, too, of the black myrtle is of a similar nature; that with the broad leaf⁷¹ is reckoned also the best. The berries are first sprinkled with warm water, and then beaten, after which they are boiled: some persons take the more tender leaves, and boil them in olive oil, and then subject them to pressure, while others, again, steep them in oil, and leave the mixture to ripen in the sun. The same method is also adopted with the cultivated myrtle, but the wild variety with small berries is generally preferred; by some it is known as the oxymyrsine, by others as the chamæmyrsine, and by others, again, as the acoron,⁷² from its strong resemblance to that plant, it being short and branching.

An oil is made, too, from the citrus,⁷³ and from the cypress; also, from the walnut,⁷⁴ and known by the name of "caryinon,"⁷⁵ and from the fruit of the cedar, being generally known as "pisselæon."⁷⁶ Oil is extracted from the grain of Cnidos,⁷⁷ the seed being first thoroughly cleaned, and then pounded; and from mastich⁷⁸ also. As to the oil called "cyprinum,"⁷⁹ and that extracted from the Egyptian⁸⁰ berry, we have already mentioned the mode in which they are prepared as perfumes. The Indians, too, are said to extract oils from the chesnut,⁸¹ sesamum, and rice,⁸² and the Ichthyophagi⁸³ from fish. Scarcity of oil for the supply of lamps sometimes compels us to make it from the berries⁸⁴ of the planetree, which are first steeped in salt and water.

Œnanthinum,⁸⁵ again, is made from the œnanthe, as we have already stated when speaking of perfumes. In making gleucinum,⁸⁶ must is boiled with olive-oil at a slow heat; some persons, however, do not employ fire in making it, but leave a vessel, filled with oil and must, surrounded with grape husks, for two and twenty days, taking care to stir it twice a day: by the end of that period the whole of the must is imbibed by the oil. Some persons mix with this not only sampsuchum, but perfumes of still greater price: that, too, which is used in the gymnasia is scented with perfumes as well, but those of the very lowest quality. Oils are made, too, from aspalathus,⁸⁷ from calamus,⁸⁸ balsamum,⁸⁹ cardamum,⁹⁰ melilot, Gallic nard, panax,⁹¹ sampsuchum,⁹² helenium, and root of cinnamomum,⁹³ the plants being first left to steep in oil, and then pressed. In a similar manner, too, rhodinum⁹⁴ is made from roses, and juncinum from the sweet rush, bearing a remarkable⁹⁵ resemblance to rose-oil: other oils, again, are extracted from henbane,⁹⁶ lupines,⁹⁷ and narcissus. Great quantities of oil are made in Egypt, too, of radish⁹⁸ seed, or else of a common grass known there as chortinon.⁹⁹ Sesamum¹⁰⁰ also yields an oil, and so does the nettle,¹⁰¹ its oil being known as "enidinum."¹⁰² In other countries, too, an oil is extracted from lilies¹⁰³ left to steep in the open air, and subjected to the influence of the sun, moon, and frosts. On the borders of Cappadocia and Galatia, they make an oil from the herbs of the country, known as "Selgicum,"¹⁰⁴ remarkably useful for strengthening the tendons, similar, in fact, to that of Iguvium¹⁰⁵ in Italy. From pitch an oil¹⁰⁶ is extracted, that is known as pissinum;" it is made by boiling the pitch, and spreading fleeces over the vessels to catch the steam, and then wringing them out: the most approved kind is that which comes from Bruttium, the pitch of that country being remarkably rich and resinous: the colour of this oil is yellow.

There is an oil that grows spontaneously in the maritime parts of Syria, known to us as "elæomeli;"¹⁰⁷ it is an unctuous substance which distils from certain trees, of a thicker consistency than honey, but somewhat thinner than resin; it has a sweet flavour, and is employed for medicinal purposes. Old olive oil¹⁰⁸ is of use for some kinds of maladies; it is thought to be particularly useful, too, in the preservation of ivory from decay:¹⁰⁹ at all events, the statue of Saturn, at Rome, is filled with oil in the interior.

CHAP. 8. (8.)—AMURCA.

But it is upon the praises of amurca¹¹⁰ more particularly, that Cato¹¹¹ has enlarged. He recommends that vats and casks¹¹² for keeping oil should be first seasoned with it, to prevent them from soaking up the oil; and he tells us that threshing-floors should be well rubbed with it, to keep away ants,¹¹³ and to prevent any chinks or crannies from being left. The mortar, too, of walls, he says, ought to be seasoned with it, as well as the roofs and floors of granaries; and he recommends that wardrobes should be sprinkled with amurca as a preservative against wood-worms and other noxious insects. He says, too, that all grain of the cereals should be steeped in it, and speaks of it as efficacious for the cure of maladies in cattle as well as trees, and as useful even for ulcerations in the inside and upon the face of man. We learn from him, also, that thongs, all articles made of leather, sandals, and axletrees used to be anointed with boiled amurca; which was employed also to preserve copper vessels against verdigrease,¹¹⁴ and to give them a better colour; as also for the seasoning of all utensils made of wood, as well as the earthen jars in which dried figs were kept, or of sprigs of myrtle with the leaves and berries on, or any other articles of a similar nature: in addition to which, he asserts that wood which has been steeped in amurca will burn without producing a stifling smoke.¹¹⁵

According to M. Varro,¹¹⁶ an olive-tree which has been licked by the tongue of the she-goat, or upon which she has browsed when it was first budding,¹¹⁷ is sure to be barren. Thus much in reference to the olive and the oils.

CHAP. 9. (9.)—THE VARIOUS KINDS OF FRUIT-TREES AND THEIR NATURES. FOUR VARIETIES OF PINE-NUTS.

The other fruits found on trees can hardly be enumerated, from their diversity in shape and figure, without reference to their different flavours and juices, which have again been modified by repeated combinations and graftings.

(10.) The largest fruit, and, indeed, the one that hangs at the greatest height, is the pine-nut. It contains within a number of small kernels, enclosed in arched beds, and covered with a coat of their own of rusty iron-colour; Nature thus manifesting a marvellous degree of care in providing its seeds with a soft receptacle. Another variety of this nut is the terentina,¹¹⁸ the shell of which may be broken with the fingers; and hence it becomes a prey to the birds while still on the tree. A third, again, is known as the "sappinia,"¹¹⁹ being the produce of the cultivated pitch-tree: the kernels are enclosed in a skin more than a shell, which is so remarkably soft that it is eaten together with the fruit. A fourth variety is that known as the "pityis;" it is the produce of the pinaster,¹²⁰ and is remarkable as a good specific for coughs. The kernels are sometimes boiled in honey¹²¹ among the Taurini, who then call them "aquiceli." The conquerors at the Isthmian games are crowned with a wreath of pine-leaves.

CHAP. 10. (11.)—THE QUINCE. FOUR KINDS OF CYDONIA, AND FOUR VARIETIES OF THE STRUTHEA.

Next in size after these are the fruit called by us "cotonea,"¹²² by the Greeks "Cydonia,"¹²³ and first introduced from the island of Crete. These fruit bend the branches with their weight, and so tend to impede the growth of the parent tree. The varieties are numerous. The chrysomelum¹²⁴ is marked with indentations down it, and has a colour inclining to gold; the one that is known as the "Italian" quince, is of a paler complexion, and has a most exquisite smell: the quinces of Neapolis, too, are held in high esteem. The smaller varieties of the quince which are known as the "struthea,"¹²⁵ have a more pungent smell, but ripen later than the others; that called the "musteum,"¹²⁶ ripens the soonest of all. The cotoneum engrafted¹²⁷ on the strutheum, has produced a peculiar variety, known as the "Mulvianum," the only one of them all that is eaten raw.¹²⁸ At the present day all these varieties are kept shut up in the antechambers of great men,¹²⁹ where they receive the visits of their courtiers; they are hung, too, upon the statues¹³⁰ that pass the night with us in our chambers.

There is a small wild¹³¹ quince also, the smell of which, next to that of the strutheum, is the most powerful; it grows in the hedges.

CHAP. 11.—SIX VARIETIES OF THE PEACH.

Under the head of apples,¹³² we include a variety of fruits, although of an entirely different nature, such as the Persian¹³³ apple, for instance, and the pomegranate, of which, when speaking of the tree, we have already enumerated¹³⁴ nine varieties. The pomegranate has a seed within, enclosed in a skin; the peach has a stone inside. Some among the pears, also, known as "libralia,"¹³⁵ show, by their name, what a remarkable weight they attain.

(12.) Among the peaches the palm must be awarded to the duracinus:¹³⁶ the Gallic and the Asiatic peach are distinguished respectively by the names of the countries of their origin. They ripen at the end of autumn, though some of the early.¹³⁷ kinds are ripe in the summer. It is only within the last thirty years that these last have been introduced; originally they were sold at the price of a denarius a piece. Those known as the "supernatia"¹³⁸ come from the country of the Sabines, but the "popularia" grow everywhere. This is a very harmless fruit, and a particular favourite with invalids: some, in fact, have sold before this as high as thirty sesterces apiece, a price that has never been exceeded by any other fruit. This, too, is the more to be wondered at, as there is none that is a worse keeper: for, when it is once plucked, the longest time that it will keep is a couple of days; and so sold it must be, fetch what it may.

CHAP. 12. (13).—TWELVE KINDS OF PLUMS.

Next comes a vast number of varieties of the plum, the parti-coloured, the black,¹³⁹ the white,¹⁴⁰ the barley¹⁴¹ plum—so called, because it is ripe at barley-harvest—and another of the same colour as the last, but which ripens later, and is of a larger size, generally known as the "asinina,"¹⁴² from the little esteem in which it is held. There are the onychina, too, the cerina,¹⁴³—more esteemed, and the purple¹⁴⁴ plum: the Armenian,¹⁴⁵ also an exotic from foreign parts, the only one among the plums that recommends itself by its smell. The plum-tree grafted on the nut exhibits what we may call a piece of impudence quite its own, for it produces a fruit that has all the appearance of the parent stock, together with the juice of the adopted fruit: in consequence of its being thus compounded of both, it is known by the name of "nuci-pruna."¹⁴⁶ Nut-prunes, as well as the peach, the wild plum,¹⁴⁷ and the cerina, are often put in casks, and so kept till the crop comes of the following year. All the other varieties ripen with the greatest rapidity, and pass off just as quickly. More recently, in Bætica, they have begun to introduce what they call "malina," or the fruit of the plum engrafted on the apple-tree,¹⁴⁸ and "amygdalina," the fruit of the plum engrafted on the almond-tree,¹⁴⁹ the kernel found in the stone of these last being that of the almond;¹⁵⁰ indeed, there is no specimen in which two fruits have been more ingeniously combined in one.

Among the foreign trees we have already spoken¹⁵¹ of the Damascene¹⁵² plum, so called from Damascus, in Syria, but introduced long since into Italy; though the stone of this plum is larger than usual, and the flesh smaller in quantity. This plum will never dry so far as to wrinkle; to effect that, it needs the sun of its own native country. The myxa,¹⁵³ too, may be mentioned, as being the fellow-countryman of the Damascene: it has of late been introduced into Rome, and has been grown engrafted upon the sorb.

CHAP. 13.—THE PEACH.

The name of "Persica," or "Persian apple," given to this fruit, fully proves that it is an exotic in both Greece as well as Asia,¹⁵⁴ and that it was first introduced from Persis. As to the wild plum, it is a well-known fact that it will grow anywhere; and I am, therefore, the more surprised that no mention has been made of it by Cato, more particularly as he has pointed out the method of preserving several of the wild fruits as well. As to the peach-tree, it has been only introduced of late years, and with considerable difficulty; so much so, that it is perfectly barren in the Isle of Rhodes, the first resting-place¹⁵⁵ that it found after leaving Egypt.

It is quite untrue that the peach which grows in Persia is poisonous, and produces dreadful tortures, or that the kings of that country, from motives of revenge, had it transplanted in Egypt, where, through the nature of the soil, it lost all its evil properties—for we find that it is of the "persea"¹⁵⁶ that the more careful writers have stated all this,¹⁵⁷ a totally different tree, the fruit of which resembles the red myxa, and, indeed, cannot be successfully cultivated anywhere but in the East. The learned have also maintained that it was not introduced from Persis into Egypt with the view of inflicting punishment, but say that it was planted at Memphis by Perseus; for which reason it was that Alexander gave orders that the victors should be crowned with it in the games which he instituted there in honour of his¹⁵⁸ ancestor: indeed, this tree has always leaves and fruit upon it, growing immediately upon the others. It must be quite evident to every one that all our plums have been introduced since the time of Cato.¹⁵⁹

CHAP. 14. (14.)—THIRTY DIFFERENT KINDS OF POMES. AT WHAT PERIOD FOREIGN FRUITS WERE FIRST INTRODUCED INTO ITALY, AND WHENCE.

There are numerous varieties of pomes. Of the citron¹⁶⁰ we have already made mention when describing its tree; the Greeks gave it the name of "Medica,"¹⁶¹ from its native country. The jujube¹⁶²-tree and the tuber¹⁶³ are equally exotics; indeed, they have, both of them, been introduced only of late years into Italy; the latter from Africa, the former from Syria. Sextus Papinius, whom we have seen consul,¹⁶⁴ introduced them both in the latter years of the reign of Augustus, produced from slips which he had grown within his camp. The fruit of the jujube more nearly resembles a berry than an apple: the tree sets off a terrace¹⁶⁵ remarkably well, and it is not uncommon to see whole woods of it climbing up to the very roofs of the houses.

Of the tuber there are two varieties; the white, and the one called "syricum,"¹⁶⁶ from its colour. Those fruits, too, may be almost pronounced exotic which grow nowhere in Italy but in the territory of Verona, and are known as the wool-fruit.¹⁶⁷ They are covered with a woolly down; this is found, it is true, to a very considerable extent, on both the strutheum variety of quince and the peach, but still it has given its name to this particular fruit, which is recommended to us by no other remarkable quality.

CHAP. 15.—THE FRUITS THAT HAVE BEEN MOST RECENTLY INTRODUCED.

Why should I hesitate to make some mention, too, of other varieties by name, seeing that they have conferred everlasting remembrance on those who were the first to introduce them, as having rendered some service to their fellow-men? Unless I am very much mistaken, an enumeration of them will tend to throw some light upon the ingenuity that is displayed in the art of grafting, and it will be the more easily understood that there is nothing so trifling in itself from which a certain amount of celebrity cannot be ensured. Hence it is that we have fruits which derive their names from Matius,¹⁶⁸ Cestius, Mallius, and Scandius.¹⁶⁹ Appius, too, a member of the Claudian family, grafted the quince on the Scandian fruit, in consequence of which the produce is known as the Appian. This fruit has the smell of the quince, and is of the same size as the Scandian apple, and of a ruddy colour. Let no one, however, imagine that this name was merely given in a spirit of flattery to an illustrious family, for there is an apple known as the Sceptian,¹⁷⁰ which owes its name to the son of a freedman, who was the first to introduce it: it is remarkable for the roundness of its shape. To those already mentioned, Cato¹⁷¹ adds the Quirinian and the Scantian varieties, which last, he says, keep remarkably well in large vessels.¹⁷² The latest kind of all, however, that has been introduced is the small apple known as the Petisian,¹⁷³ remarkable for its delightful flavour: the Amerinian¹⁷⁴ apple, too, and the little Greek¹⁷⁵ have conferred renown on their respective countries.

The remaining varieties have received their name from various circumstances—the apples known as the "gemella"¹⁷⁶ are always found hanging in pairs upon one stalk, like twins, and never growing singly. That known as the "syricum"¹⁷⁷ is so called from its colour, while the "melapium"¹⁷⁸ has its name from its strong resemblance to the pear. The "musteum"¹⁷⁹ was so called from the rapidity with which it ripens; it is the melimelum of the present day, which derives its appellation from its flavour, being like that of honey. The "orbiculatum,"¹⁸⁰ again, is so called from its shape, which is exactly spherical—the circumstance of the Greeks having called it the "epiroticum" proves that it came originally from Epirus. The orthomastium¹⁸¹ has that peculiar appellation from its resemblance to a teat; and the "spadonium"¹⁸² of the Belgæ is so nicknamed from the total absence of pips. The melofolium¹⁸³ has one leaf, and occasionally two, shooting from the middle of the fruit. That known as the "pannuceum"¹⁸⁴ shrivels with the greatest rapidity; while the "pulmoneum"¹⁸⁵ has a lumpish, swollen appearance.

Some apples are just the colour of blood, owing to an original graft of the mulberry; but they are all of them red on the side which is turned towards the sun. There are some small wild¹⁸⁶ apples also, remarkable for their fine flavour and the peculiar pungency of their smell. Some, again, are so remarkably¹⁸⁷ sour, that they are held in disesteem; indeed their acidity is so extreme, that it will even take the edge from off a knife. The worst apples of all are those which from their mealiness have received the name of "farinacea;"¹⁸⁸ they are the first, however, to ripen, and ought to be gathered as soon as possible.

CHAP. 16. (15.)—FORTY-ONE VARIETIES OF THE PEAR.

A similar degree of precocity has caused the appellation of "superbum"¹⁸⁹ to be given to one species of the pear: it is a small fruit, but ripens with remarkable rapidity. All the world are extremely partial to the Crustumian¹⁹⁰ pear; and next to it comes the Falernian,¹⁹¹ so called from the drink¹⁹² which it affords, so abundant is its juice. This juice is known by the name of "milk" in the variety which, of a black colour, is by some called the pear of Syria.¹⁹³ The denominations given to the others vary according to the respective localities of their growth. Among the pears, the names of which have been adopted in our city, the Decimian pear, and the Pseudo- Decimian—an offshoot from it—have conferred considerable renown upon the name of those who introduced them. The same is the case, too, with the variety known as the "Dolabellian,"¹⁹⁴ remarkable for the length of its stalk, the Pomponian,¹⁹⁵ surnamed the mammosum,¹⁹⁶ the Licerian, the Sevian, the Turranian, a variety of the Sevian, but distinguished from it by the greater length of the stalk, the Favonian,¹⁹⁷ a red pear, rather larger than the superbum,together with the Laterian¹⁹⁸ and the Anician, which come at the end of autumn, and are pleasant for the acidity of their flavour. One variety is known as the "Tiberian,"¹⁹⁹ from its having been a particular favourite with the Emperor Tiberius; it is more coloured by the sun, and grows to a larger size, otherwise it would be identical with the Licerian variety.

The following kinds receive their respective names from their native countries: the Amerinian,²⁰⁰ the latest pear of all, the Picentine, the Numantine, the Alexandrian, the Numidian, the Greek, a variety of which is the Tarentine, and the Signine,²⁰¹ by some called "testaceum," from its colour, like earthenware; a reason which has also given their respective names to the "onychine"²⁰² and the "purple" kinds. Then, again, we have the "myrapium,"²⁰³ the "laureum," and the "nardinum,"²⁰⁴ so called from the odour they emit; the "hordearium,"²⁰⁵ from the season at which it comes²⁰⁶ in; and the "ampullaceum,"²⁰⁷ so called from its long narrow neck. Those, again, that are known as the "Coriolanian"²⁰⁸ and the "Brut. tian," owe their names to the places of their origin; added to which we have the cucurbitinum,²⁰⁹ and the "acidulum," so named from the acidity of its juice. It is quite uncertain for what reason their respective names were given to the varieties known as the "barbaricum" and the "Venerium,"²¹⁰ which last is known also as the "coloratum;"²¹¹ the royal pear²¹² too, which has a remarkably short stalk, and will stand on its end, as also the patricium, and the voconium,²¹³ a green oblong kind. In addition to these, Virgil²¹⁴ has made mention of a pear called the "volema,"²¹⁵ a name which he has borrowed from Cato,²¹⁶ who makes mention also of kinds known as the "sementivum"²¹⁷ and the "musteum."²¹⁸

CHAP. 17.—VARIOUS METHODS OF GRAFTING TREES. EXPIATIONS FOR LIGHTNING.

This branch of civilized life has long since been brought to the very highest pitch of perfection, for man has left nothing untried here. Hence it is that we find Virgil²¹⁹ speaking of grafting the nut-tree on the arbutus, the apple on the plane, and the cherry on the elm. Indeed, there is nothing further in this department that can possibly be devised, and it is a long time since any new variety of fruit has been discovered. Religious scruples, too, will not allow of indiscriminate grafting; thus, for instance, it is not permitted to graft upon the thorn, for it is not easy, by any mode of expiation, to avoid the disastrous effects of lightning; and we are told²²⁰ that as many as are the kinds of trees that have been engrafted on the thorn, so many are the thunderbolts that will be hurled against that spot in a single flash.

The form of the pear is turbinated; the later kinds remain on the parent tree till winter, when they ripen with the frost; such, for instance, as the Greek variety, the ampullaceum, and the laureum; the same, too, with apples of the Amerinian and the Scandian kinds. Apples and pears are prepared for keeping just like grapes, and in as many different ways; but, with the exception of plums, they are the only fruit that are stored in casks.²²¹ Apples and pears have certain vinous²²² properties, and like wine these drinks are forbidden to invalids by the physicians. These fruits are sometimes boiled up with wine and water, and, so make a preserve²²³ that is eaten with bread; a preparation which is never made of any other fruit, with the exception of the quinces, known as the "cotoneum" and the "strutheum."

CHAP. 18. (16.)—THE MODE OF KEEPING VARIOUS FRUITS AND GRAPES.

For the better preserving of fruits it is universally recommended that the storeroom should be situate in a cool, dry spot, with a well-boarded floor, and windows looking towards the north; which in fine weather ought to be kept open. Care should also be taken to keep out the south wind by window panes,²²⁴ while at the same time it should be borne in mind that a north-east wind will shrivel fruit and make it unsightly. Apples are gathered after the autumnal equinox; but the gathering should never begin before the sixteenth day of the moon, or before the first hour of the day. Windfalls should always be kept separate, and there ought to be a layer of straw, or else mats or chaff, placed beneath. They should, also, be placed apart from each other, in rows, so that the air may circulate freely between them, and they may equally gain the benefit of it. The Amerinian apple is the best keeper, the melimelum the very worst of all.

(17.) Quinces ought to be stored in a place kept perfectly closed, so as to exclude all draughts; or else they should be boiled in honey²²⁵ or soaked in it. Pomegranates are made hard and firm by being first put in boiling²²⁶ sea-water, and then left to dry for three days in the sun, care being taken that the dews of the night do not touch them; after which they are hung up, and when wanted for use, washed with fresh water. M. Varro²²⁷ recommends that they should be kept in large vessels filled with sand: if they are not ripe, he says that they should be put in pots with the bottom broken out, and then buried²²⁸ in the earth, all access to the air being carefully shut, and care being first taken to cover the stalk with pitch. By this mode of treatment, he assures us, they will attain a larger size than they would if left to ripen on the tree. As for the other kinds of pomes, he says that they should be wrapped up separately in fig-leaves, the windfalls being carefully excluded, and then stored in baskets of osier, or else covered over with potters' earth.

Pears are kept in earthen vessels pitched inside; when filled, the vessels are reversed and then buried in pits. The Tarentine pear, Varro says, is gathered very late, while the Anician keeps very well in raisin wine. Sorb apples, too, are similarly kept in holes in the ground, the vessel being turned upside down, and a layer of plaster placed on the lid: it should be buried two feet deep, in a sunny spot; sorbs²²⁹ are also hung, like grapes, in the inside of large vessels, together with the branches.

Some of the more recent authors are found to pay a more scrupulous degree of attention to these various particulars, and recommend that the gathering of grapes or pomes, which are intended for keeping, should take place while the moon is on the wane,²³⁰ after the third hour of the day, and while the weather is clear, or dry winds prevail. In a similar manner, the selection, they say, ought to be made from a dry spot, and the fruit should be plucked before it is fully ripe, a moment being chosen while the moon is below the horizon. Grapes, they say, should be selected that have a strong, hard mallets-talk, and after the decayed berries have been carefully removed with a pair of scissors, they should be hung up inside of a large vessel which has just been pitched, care being taken to close all access to the south wind, by covering the lid with a coat of plaster. The same method, they say, should be adopted for keeping sorb apples and pears, the stalks being carefully covered with pitch; care should be taken, too, that the vessels are kept at a distance from water.

There are some persons who adopt the following method for preserving grapes. They take them off together with the branch, and place them, while still upon it, in a layer of plaster,²³¹ taking care to fasten either end of the branch in a bulb of squill.²³² Others, again, go so far as to place them within vessels containing wine, taking care, however, that the grapes, as they hang, do not touch it. Some persons put apples in plates of earth, and then leave them to float in wine, a method by which it is thought that a vinous flavour is imparted to them: while some think it a better plan to preserve all these kinds of fruit in millet. Most people, however, content themselves with first digging a hole in the ground, a couple of feet in depth; a layer of sand is then placed at the bottom, and the fruit is arranged upon it, and covered with an earthen lid, over which the earth is thrown. Some persons again even go so far as to give their grapes a coating of potters' chalk, and then hang them up when dried in the sun; when required for use, the chalk is removed with water.²³³ Apples are also preserved in a similar manner; but with them wine is employed for getting off the chalk. Indeed, we find a very similar plan pursued with apples of the finest quality; they have a coating laid upon them of either plaster or wax; but they are apt, if not quite ripe when this was done, by the increase in their size to break their casing.²³⁴ When apples are thus prepared, they are always laid with the stalk downwards.²³⁵ Some persons pluck the apple together with the branch, the ends of which they thrust into the pith of elder,²³⁶ and then bury it in the way already pointed out.²³⁷ There are some who assign to each apple or pear its separate vessel of clay, and after care- fully pitching the cover, enclose it again in a larger vessel: occasionally, too, the fruit is placed on a layer of flocks of wool, or else in baskets,²³⁸ with a lining of chaff and clay. Other persons follow a similar plan, but use earthen plates for the purpose; while others, again, employ the same method, but dig a hole in the earth, and after placing a layer of sand, lay the fruit on top of it, and then cover the whole with dry earth. Persons, too, are sometimes known to give quinces a coating of Pontic²³⁹ wax, and then plunge them in honey. Columella²⁴⁰ informs us, that fruit is kept by being carefully put in earthen vessels, which then receive a coating of pitch, and are placed in wells or cisterns to sink to the bottom. The people of maritime Liguria, in the vicinity of the Alps, first dry their grapes in the sun,²⁴¹ and wrap them up in bundles of rushes, which are then covered with plaster. The Greeks follow a similar plan, but substitute for rushes the leaves of the plane- tree, or of the vine itself, or else of the fig, which they dry for a single day in the shade, and then place in a cask in alternate layers with husks²⁴² of grapes. It is by this method that they preserve the grapes of Cos and Berytus, which are inferior to none in sweetness. Some persons, when thus pre- paring them, plunge the grapes into lie-ashes the moment they take them from the vine, and then dry them in the sun; they then steep them in warm water, after which they put them to dry again in the sun: and last of all, as already mentioned, wrap them up in bundles formed of layers of leaves and grape husks. There are some who prefer keeping their grapes in sawdust,²⁴³ or else in shavings of the fir-tree, poplar, and ash: while others think it the best plan to hang them up in the granary, at a careful distance from the apples, directly after the gathering, being under the impression that the very best cover- ing for them as they hang is the dust²⁴⁴ that naturally arises from the floor. Grapes are effectually protected against the attacks of wasps by being sprinkled with oil²⁴⁵ spirted from the mouth. Of palm-dates we have already spoken.²⁴⁶

CHAP. 19. (18.)—TWENTY-NINE VARIETIES OF THE FIG.

Of all the remaining fruits that are included under the name of "pomes," the fig²⁴⁷ is the largest: some, indeed, equal the pear, even, in size. We have already mentioned, while treating of the exotic fruits, the miraculous productions of Egypt and Cyprus²⁴⁸ in the way of figs. The fig of Mount Ida²⁴⁹ is red, and the size of an olive, rounder however, and like a medlar in flavour; they give it the name of Alexandrian in those parts. The stem is a cubit in thickness; it is branchy, has a tough, pliant wood, is entirely destitute of all milky juice,²⁵⁰ and has a green bark, and leaves like those of the linden tree, but soft to the touch. Onesicritus states that in Hyrcania the figs are much sweeter than with us, and that the trees are more prolific, seeing that a single tree will bear as much as two hundred and seventy modii²⁵¹ of fruit. The fig has been introduced into Italy from other countries, Chalcis and Chios, for instance, the varieties being very numerous: there are those from Lydia also, which are of a purple colour, and the kind known as the "mamillana,"²⁵² which is very similar to the Lydian. The callistruthiæ are very little superior to the last in flavour; they are the coldest by nature of all the figs. As to the African fig, by many people preferred to any other, it has been made the subject of very considerable discussion, as it is a kind that has been introduced very recently into Africa, though it bears the name of that country. As to the fig of Alexandria,²⁵³ it is a black variety, with the cleft inclining to white; it has had the name given to it of the "delicate"²⁵⁴ fig: the Rhodian fig, too, and the Tiburtine,²⁵⁵ one of the early kinds, are black. Some of them, again, bear the name of the persons who were the first to introduce them, such, for instance, as the Livian²⁵⁶ and the Pompeian²⁵⁷ figs: this last variety is the best for drying in the sun and keeping for use, from year to year; the same is the case, too, with the marisca,²⁵⁸ and the kind which has a leaf spotted all over like the reed.²⁵⁹ There is also the Herculanean fig, the albicerata,²⁶⁰ and the white aratia, a very large variety, with an extremely diminutive stalk.

The earliest of them all is the porphyritis,²⁶¹ which has a stalk of remarkable length: it is closely followed by the popularis,²⁶² one of the very smallest of the figs, and so called from the low esteem in which it is held: on the other hand, the chelidonia²⁶³ is a kind that ripens the last of all, and to- wards the beginning of winter. In addition to these, there are figs that are at the same time both late and early, as they bear two crops in the year, one white and the other black,²⁶⁴ ripening at harvest-time and vintage respectively. There is another late fig also, that has received its name from the singular hardness of its skin; one of the Chalcidian varieties bears as many as three times in the year. It is at Tarentum only that the remarkably sweet fig is grown which is known by the name of "ona."

Speaking of figs, Cato has the following remarks: "Plant the fig called the 'marisca' on a chalky or open site, but for the African variety, the Herculanean, the Saguntine,²⁶⁵ the winter fig and the black Telanian²⁶⁶ with a long stalk, you must select a richer soil, or else a ground well manured." Since his day there have so many names and kinds come up, that even on taking this subject into consideration, it must be apparent to every one how great are the changes which have taken place in civilized life.

There are winter figs, too, in some of the provinces, the Mœsian, for instance; but they are made so by artificial means, such not being in reality their nature. Being a small variety of the fig-tree, they cover it up with manure at the end of autumn, by which means the fruit on it is overtaken by winter while still in a green state: then when the weather, becomes milder the fruit is uncovered along with the tree, and so restored to light. Just as though it had come into birth afresh, the fruit imbibes the heat of the new sun with the greatest avidity—a different sun, in fact, to that²⁶⁷ which originally gave it life—and so ripens along with the blossom of the coming crop; thus attaining maturity in a year not its own, and this in a country,²⁶⁸ too, where the greatest cold prevails.

CHAP. 20.—HISTORICAL ANECDOTES CONNECTED WITH THE FIG.

²⁶⁹ The mention by Cato of the variety which bears the name of the African fig, strongly recalls to my mind a remarkable fact connected with it and the country from which it takes its name.

Burning with a mortal hatred to Carthage, anxious, too, for the safety of his posterity, and exclaiming at every sitting of the senate that Carthage must be destroyed, Cato one day brought with him into the Senate-house a ripe fig, the produce of that country. Exhibiting it to the assembled senators, "I ask you," said he, "when, do you suppose, this fruit was plucked from the tree?" All being of opinion that it had been but lately gathered, —Know then," was his reply, "that this fig was plucked at Carthage but the day before yesterday²⁷⁰—so near is the enemy to our walls." It was immediately after this occurrence that the third Punic war commenced, in which Carthage was destroyed, though Cato had breathed his last, the year after this event. In this trait which are we the most to admire? was it ingenuity²⁷¹ and foresight on his part, or was it an accident that was thus aptly turned to advantage? which, too, is the most surprising, the extraordinary quickness of the passage which must have been made, or the bold daring of the man? The thing, however, that is the most astonishing of all—indeed, I can conceive nothing more truly marvellous—is the fact that a city thus mighty, the rival of Rome for the sovereignty of the world during a period of one hundred and twenty years, owed its fall at last to an illustration drawn from a single fig!

Thus did this fig effect that which neither Trebia nor Thrasimenus, not Cannæ itself, graced with the entombment of the Roman renown, not the Punic camp entrenched within three miles of the city, not even the disgrace of seeing Hannibal riding up to the Colline Gate, could suggest the means of accomplishing. It was left for a fig, in the hand of Cato, to show how near was Carthage to the gates of Rome!

In the Forum even, and in the very midst of the Comitium²⁷² of Rome, a fig-tree is carefully cultivated, in memory of the consecration which took place on the occasion of a thunderbolt²⁷³ which once fell on that spot; and still more, as a memorial of the fig-tree which in former days overshadowed Romulus and Remus, the founders of our empire, in the Lupercal Cave. This tree received the name of "ruminalis," from the circumstance that under it the wolf was found giving the breast—rumis it was called in those days—to the two infants. A group in bronze was afterwards erected to consecrate the remembrance of this miraculous event, as, through the agency of Attus Navius the augur, the tree itself had passed spontaneously from its original locality²⁷⁴ to the Comitium in the Forum. And not without some direful presage is it that that tree has withered away, though, thanks to the care of the priesthood, it has been since replaced.²⁷⁵

There was another fig-tree also, before the temple of Saturn,²⁷⁶ which was removed on the occasion of a sacrifice made by the Vestal Virgins, it being found that its roots were gradually undermining the statue of the god Silvanus. Another one, accidentally planted there, flourished in the middle of the Forum,²⁷⁷ upon the very spot, too, in which, when from a direful presage it had been foreboded that the growing empire was about to sink to its very foundations, Curtius, at the price of an inestimable treasure—in other words, by the sacrifice of such unbounded virtue and piety—redeemed his country by a glorious death. By a like accident, too, a vine and an olive-tree have sprung up in the same spot,²⁷⁸ which have ever since been carefully tended by the populace for the agreeable shade which they afford. The altar that once stood there was afterwards removed by order of the deified Julius Cæsar, upon the occasion of the last spectacle of gladiatorial combats²⁷⁹ which he gave in the Forum.

CHAP. 21.—CAPRIFICATION.

The fig, the only one among all the pomes, hastens to maturity by the aid of a remarkable provision of Nature. (19.) The wild-fig,²⁸⁰ known by the name of "caprificus," never ripens itself, though it is able to impart to the others the principle of which it is thus destitute; for we occasionally find Nature making a transfer of what are primary causes, and being generated from decay. To effect this purpose the wild fig-tree produces a kind of gnat.²⁸¹ These insects, deprived of all sustenance from their parent tree, at the moment that it is hastening to rottenness and decay, wing their flight to others of kindred though cultivated kind. There feeding with avidity upon the fig, they penetrate it in numerous places, and by thus making their way to the inside, open the pores of the fruit.²⁸² The moment they effect their entrance, the heat of the sun finds admission too, and through the inlets thus made the fecundating air is introduced. These insects speedily consume the milky juice that constitutes the chief support of the fruit in its infant²⁸³ state, a result which would otherwise be spontaneously effected by absorption: and hence it is that in the plantations of figs a wild fig is usually allowed to grow, being placed to the windward of the other trees in order that the breezes may bear from it upon them. Improving upon this discovery, branches of the wild fig are sometimes brought from a distance, and bundles tied together are placed upon the cultivated tree. This method, however, is not necessary when the trees are growing on a thin soil, or on a site exposed to the north-east wind; for in these cases the figs will dry spontaneously, and the clefts which are made in the fruit effect the same ripening process which in other instances is brought about by the agency of these insects. Nor is it requisite to adopt this plan on spots which are liable to dust, such, for instance, as is generally the case with fig-trees planted by the side of much-frequented roads: the dust having the property of drying up²⁸⁴ the juices of the fig, and so absorbing the milky humours. There is this superiority, however, in an ad. vantageous site over the methods of ripening by the agency of dust or by caprification, that the fruit is not so apt to fall; for the secretion of the juices being thus prevented, the fig is not so heavy as it would otherwise be, and the branches are less brittle.

All figs are soft to the touch, and when ripe contain grains²⁸⁵ in the interior. The juice, when the fruit is ripening, has the taste of milk, and when dead ripe, that of honey. If left on the tree they will grow old; and when in that state, they distil a liquid that flows in tears²⁸⁶ like gum. Those that are more highly esteemed are kept for drying, and the most approved kinds are put away for keeping in baskets.²⁸⁷ The figs of the island of Ebusus²⁸⁸ are the best as well as the largest, and next to them are those of Marrucinum.²⁸⁹ Where figs are in great abundance, as in Asia, for instance, huge jars²⁹⁰ are filled with them, and at Ruspina, a city of Africa, we find casks²⁹¹ used for a similar purpose: here, in a dry state, they are extensively used instead of bread,²⁹² and indeed as a general article of provision.²⁹³ Cato,²⁹⁴ when laying down certain definite regulations for the support of labourers employed in agriculture, recommends that their supply of food should be lessened just at the time²⁹⁵ when the fig is ripening: it has been a plan adopted in more recent times, to find a substitute for salt with cheese, by eating fresh figs. To this class of fruit belong, as we have already mentioned,²⁹⁶ the cottana and the carica, together with the cavnea,²⁹⁷ which was productive of so bad an omen to M. Crassus at the moment when he was embarking²⁹⁸ for his expedition against the Parthians, a dealer happening to be crying them just at that very moment. L. Vitellius, who was more recently appointed to the censorship,²⁹⁹ introduced all these varieties from Syria at his country- seat at Alba,³⁰⁰ having acted as legatus in that province in the latter years of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar.

CHAP. 22. (20.)—THREE VARIETIES OF THE MEDLAR.

The medlar and the sorb³⁰¹ ought in propriety to be ranked under the head of the apple and the pear. Of the medlar³⁰² there are three varieties, the anthedon,³⁰³ the setania,³⁰⁴ and a third of inferior quality, which bears a stronger resemblance to the anthedon, and is known as the Gallic³⁰⁵ kind. The setania is the largest fruit, and the palest in colour; the woody seed in the inside of it is softer, too, than in the others, which are of smaller size than the setania, but superior to it in the fragrance of their smell, and in being better keepers. The tree itself is one of very ample³⁰⁶ dimensions: the leaves turn red before they fall: the roots are numerous, and penetrate remarkably deep, which renders it almost impossible to grub it up. This tree³⁰⁷ did not exist in Italy in Cato's time.

CHAP. 23. (21).—FOR VARIETIES OF THE SORB.

There are four varieties of the sorb: there being some that have all the roundness³⁰⁸ of the apple, while others are conical like the pear,³⁰⁹ and a third sort are of an oval³¹⁰ shape, like some of the apples: these last, however, are apt to be remarkably acid. The round kind is the best for fragrance and sweetness, the others having a vinous flavour; the finest, however, are those which have the stalk surrounded with tender leaves. A fourth kind is known by the name of "torminalis:"³¹¹ it is only employed, however, for remedial pur- poses. The tree is a good bearer, but does not resemble the other kinds, the leaf being nearly that of the plane-tree; the fruit, too, is particularly small. Cato³¹² speaks of sorbs being preserved in boiled wine.

CHAP. 24. (22.)—NINE VARIETIES OF THE NUT.

The walnut,³¹³ which would almost claim precedence of the sorb in size, yields the palm to it in reference to the esteem³¹⁴ in which they are respectively held; and this, although it is so favourite an accompaniment of the Fescennine³¹⁵ songs at nuptials. This nut, taken as a whole, is very considerably smaller than the pine nut, but the kernel is larger in proportion. Nature, too, has conferred upon it a peculiar honour, in protecting it with a two-fold covering, the first of which forms a hollowed cushion for it to rest upon, and the second is a woody shell. It is for this reason that this fruit has been looked upon as a symbol consecrated to marriage,³¹⁶ its offspring being thus protected in such manifold ways: an explanation which bears a much greater air of probability than that which would derive it from the rattling which it makes when it bounds from the floor.³¹⁷ The Greek names that have been given to this fruit fully prove that it, like many others, has been originally introduced from Persis; the best kinds being known in that language by the names of "Persicum,"³¹⁸ and "basilicon;,³¹⁹ these, in fact, being the names by which they were first known to us. It is generally agreed, too, that one peculiar variety has derived its name of "caryon,"³²⁰ from the headache which it is apt to produce by the pungency³²¹ of its smell.

The green shell of the walnut is used for dyeing³²² wool, and the nuts, while still small and just developing themselves, are employed for giving a red hue to the hair:³²³ a discovery owing to the stains which they leave upon the hands. When old, the nut becomes more oleaginous. The only difference in the several varieties consists in the relative hardness or brittleness of the shell, it being thin or thick, full of compartments or smooth and uniform. This is the only fruit that Nature has enclosed in a covering formed of pieces soldered together; the shell, in fact, forming a couple of boats, while the kernel is divided into four separate compartments³²⁴ by the intervention of a ligneous membrane.

In all the other kinds, the fruit and the shell respectively are of one solid piece, as we find the case with the hazel—nut,³²⁵ and another variety of the nut formerly known as "Abellina,"³²⁶ from the name³²⁷ of the district in which it was first produced: it was first introduced into Asia and Greece from Pontus, whence the name that is sometimes given to it—the "Pontic nut." This nut, too, is protected by a soft beard,³²⁸ but both the shell and the kernel are round, and formed of a single piece: these nuts are sometimes roasted.³²⁹ In the middle of the kernel we find a germen or navel.

A third class of nuts is the almond,³³⁰ which has an outer covering, similar to that of the walnut, but thinner, with a second coat in the shape of a shell. The kernel, however, is unlike that of the walnut, in respect of its broad, flat shape, its firmness, and the superior tastiness of its flavour. It is a matter of doubt whether this tree was in existence in Italy in the time of Cato; we find him speaking of Greek nuts,³³¹ but there are some persons who think that these belong to the walnut class. He makes mention, also, of the hazel-nut, the calva,³³² and the Prænestine³³³ nut, which last he praises beyond all others, and says³³⁴ that, put in pots, they may be kept fresh and green by burying them in the earth.

At the present day, the almonds of Thasos and those of Alba are held in the highest esteem, as also two kinds that are grown at Tarentum, one with a thin,³³⁵ brittle shell, and the other with a harder³³⁶ one: these last are remarkably large, and of an oblong shape. There is the almond known as the "mollusk,"³³⁷ also, which breaks the shell of itself. There are some who would concede a highly honourable interpretation to the name given to the walnut, and say that "juggles" means the "glens," or" acorn of Jove." It is only very lately that I heard a man of consular rank declare, that he then had in his possession walnut-trees that bore two³³⁸ crops in the year.

Of the pistachio, which belongs also to the nut class, we have already spoken³³⁹ in its appropriate place: Vitellius introduced this tree into Italy at the same time as the others that we mentioned;³⁴⁰ and Flaccus Pompeius, a Roman of Equestrian rank, who served with him, introduced it at the same period into Spain.

CHAP. 25. (23.)—EIGHTEEN VARIETIES OF THE CHESNUT.

We give the name of nut, too, to the chesnut,³⁴¹ although it would seem more properly to belong to the acorn tribe. The chesnut has its armour of defence in a shell bristling with prickles like the hedge-hog, an envelope which in the acorn is only partially developed. It is really surprising, however, that Nature should have taken such pains thus to conceal an object of so little value. We sometimes find as many as three nuts beneath a single outer shell. The skin³⁴² of the nut is limp and flexible: there is a membrane, too, which lies next to the body of the fruit, and which, both in this and in the walnut, spoils the flavour if not taken off, Chesnuts are the most pleasant eating when roasted:³⁴³ they are sometimes ground also, and are eaten by women when fasting for religious scruples,³⁴⁴ as bearing some resemblance to bread. It is from Sardes³⁴⁵ that the chesnut was first introduced, and hence it is that the Greeks have given it the name of the "Sardian acorn;" for the name "Dios balanon"³⁴⁶ was given at a later period, after it had been considerably improved by cultivation.

At the present day there are numerous varieties of the chesnut. Those of Tarentum are a light food, and by no means difficult of digestion; they are of a flat shape. There is a rounder variety, known as the "balanitis;"³⁴⁷ it is very easily peeled, and springs clean out of the shell, so to say, of its own accord. The Salarian³⁴⁸ chesnut has a smooth outer shell, while that of Tarentum is not so easily handled.³⁴⁹ The Corellian is more highly esteemed, as is the Etereian, which is an offshoot from it produced by a method upon which we shall have to enlarge when we come to speak of grafting.³⁵⁰ This last has a red skin,³⁵¹ which causes it to be preferred to the three-cornered chesnut and our black common sorts, which are known as "coctivæ."³⁵² Tarentum and Neapolis in Campania are the most esteemed localities for the chesnut: other kinds, again, are grown to feed pigs upon,³⁵³ the skin of which is rough and folded inwards, so as to penetrate to the heart of the kernel.

CHAP. 26. (24.)—THE CAROB.

The carob,³⁵⁴ a fruit of remarkable sweetness, does not ap- pear to be so very dissimilar to the chesnut, except that the skin³⁵⁵ is eaten as well as the inside. It is just the length of a finger, and about the thickness of the thumb, being sometimes of a curved shape, like a sickle. The acorn cannot be reckoned in the number of the fruits; we shall, therefore, speak of it along with the trees of that class.³⁵⁶

CHAP. 27.—TE FLESHY FRUITS. THE MULBERRY.

The other fruits belong to the fleshy kind, and differ both in the shape and the flesh. The flesh of the various berries,³⁵⁷ of the mulberry, and of the arbute, are quite different from one another—and then what a difference, too, between the grape, which is only skin and juice,³⁵⁸ the myxa plum, and the flesh of some berries,³⁵⁹ such as the olive, for instance! In the flesh of the mulberry there is a juice of a vinous flavour, and the fruit assumes three different colours, being at first white, then red, and ripe when black. The mulberry blossoms one of the very last,³⁶⁰ and yet is among the first to ripen: the juice of the fruit, when ripe, will stain the hands, but that of the unripe fruit will remove the marks. It is in this tree that human ingenuity has effected the least Improvement³⁶¹ of all; there are no varieties here, no modifications effected by grafting, nor, in fact, any other improvement except that the size of the fruit, by careful management, has been increased. At Rome, there is a distinction made between the mulberries of Ostia and those of Tusculum. A variety grows also on brambles, but the flesh of the fruit is of a very different nature.³⁶²

CHAP. 28.—THE FRUIT OF THE ARBUTUS.

The flesh of the ground-strawberry³⁶³ is very different to that of the arbute-tree,³⁶⁴ which is of a kindred kind: indeed, this is the only instance in which we find a similar fruit growing upon a tree and on the ground. The tree is tufted and bushy; the fruit takes a year to ripen, the blossoms of the young fruit flowering while that of the preceding year is arriving at maturity. Whether it is the male tree or the female that is unproductive, authors are not generally agreed.

This is a fruit held in no esteem, in proof of which it has gained its name of "unedo,"³⁶⁵ people being generally content with eating but one. The Greeks, however, have found for it two names—"comaron" and "memecylon," from which it would appear³⁶⁶ that there are two varieties. It has also with us another name besides that of "unedo," being known also as the "arbutus." Juba states that in Arabia this tree attains the height of fifty cubits.

CHAP. 29.—THE RELATIVE NATURES OF BERRY FRUITS.

There is a great difference also among the various acinus fruits. First of all, among the grapes, we find considerable difference in respect to their firmness, the thinness or thickness of the skin, and the stone inside the fruit, which in some varieties is remarkably small, and in others even double in number: these last producing but very little juice. Very different, again, are the berries of the ivy³⁶⁷ and the elder;³⁶⁸ as also those in the pomegranate,³⁶⁹ these being the only ones that are of an angular shape. These last, also, have not a membrane for each individual grain, but one to cover them all in common, and of a pale colour. All these fruits consist, too, of juice and flesh, and those more particularly which have but small seeds inside.

There are great varieties, too, among the berry³⁷⁰ fruits; the berry of the olive being quite different from that of the laurel, the berry of the lotus³⁷¹ from that of the cornel, and that of the myrtle from the berry of the lentisk. The berry, however, of the aquifolium³⁷² and the thorn³⁷³ is quite destitute of juice.

The cherry³⁷⁴ occupies a middle place between the berry and the acinus fruit: it is white at first, which is the case also with nearly all the berries. From white, some of the berries pass to green, the olive and the laurel, for instance; while in the mulberry, the cherry, and the cornel, the change is to red; and then in some to black, as with the mulberry, the cherry, and the olive, for instance.

CHAP. 30. (25.)—NINE VARIETIES OF THE CHERRY.

The cherry did not exist in Italy before the period of the victory gained over Mithridates by L. Lucullus, in the year of the City 680. He was the first to introduce this tree from Pontus, and now, in the course of one hundred and twenty years, it has travelled beyond the Ocean, and arrived in Bri- tannia even. The cherry, as we have already stated,³⁷⁵ in spite of every care, it has been found impossible to rear in Egypt. Of this fruit, that known as the "Apronian³⁷⁶ is the reddest variety, the Lutatian³⁷⁷ being the blackest, and the Cæcilian³⁷⁸ perfectly round. The Junian³⁷⁹ cherry has an agreeable flavour, but only, so to say, when eaten beneath the tree, as they are so remarkably delicate that they will not bear carrying. The highest rank, however, has been awarded to the duracinus³⁸⁰ variety, known in Campania as the "Plinian"³⁸¹ cherry, and in Belgica to the Lusitanian³⁸² cherry, as also to one that grows on the banks of the Rhenus. This last kind has a third colour, being a mixture³⁸³ of black, red, and green, and has always the appearance of being just on the turn to ripening. It is less than five years since the kind known as the "laurel- cherry" was introduced, of a bitter but not unpleasant flavour, the produce of a graft³⁸⁴ upon the laurel. The Macedonian cherry grows on a tree that is very small,³⁸⁵ and rarely exceeds three cubits in height; while the chamæcerasus³⁸⁶ is still smaller, being but a mere shrub. The cherry is one of the first trees to recompense the cultivator with its yearly growth; it loves cold localities and a site exposed to the north.³⁸⁷ The fruit are sometimes dried in the sun, and preserved, like olives, in casks.

CHAP. 31. (26.)—THE CORNEL. THE LENTISK.

The same degree of care is expended also on the cultivation of the cornel³⁸⁸ and the lentisk;³⁸⁹ that it may not be thought, forsooth, that there is anything that was not made for the craving appetite of man! Various flavours are blended to- gether, and one is compelled to please our palates by the aid of another—hence it is that the produce of different lands and various climates are so often mingled with one another. For one kind of food it is India that we summon to our aid, and then for another we lay Egypt under contribution, or else Crete, or Cyrene, every country, in fact: no, nor does man stick at poisons³⁹⁰ even, if he can only gratify his longing to devour everything: a thing that will be still more evident when we come to treat of the nature of herbs.

CHAP. 32. (27.)—THIRTEEN DIFFERENT FLAVOURS OF JUICES.

While upon this subject, it may be as well to state that there are no less than thirteen different flavours³⁹¹ belonging in common to the fruits and the various juices: the sweet, the luscious, the unctuous, the bitter, the rough, the acrid,³⁹² the pungent, the sharp, the sour, and the salt; in addition to which, there are three other kinds of flavours of a nature that is truly singular. The first of these last kinds is that flavour in which several other flavours are united, as in wine, for instance; for in it we are sensible of the rough, the pungent,³⁹³ and the luscious, all at the same moment, and all of them flavours that belong to other substances. The second of these flavours is that in which we are sensible at the same instant of a flavour that belongs to another substance, and yet of one that is peculiar to the individual object of which we are tasting, such as that of milk, for instance: indeed, in milk we cannot correctly say that there is any pronounced flavour that is either sweet, or unctuous, or luscious, a sort of smooth taste³⁹⁴ in the mouth being predominant, which holds the place of a more decided flavour. The third instance is that of water, which has no flavour whatever, nor, indeed, any flavouring principle;³⁹⁵ but still, this very absence of flavour is considered as constituting one of them, and forming a peculiar class³⁹⁶ of itself; so much so, indeed, that if in water any taste or flavouring principle is detected, it is looked upon as impure.

In the perception of all these various flavours the smell plays a very considerable³⁹⁷ part, there being a very great affinity between them. Water, however, is properly quite inodorous: and if the least smell is to be perceived, it is not pure water. It is a singular thing that three of the principal elements³⁹⁸ of Nature—water, air, and fire—should have neither taste nor smell, nor, indeed, any flavouring principle whatever.

CHAP. 33. (28.)—THE COLOUR AND SMELL OF JUICES.

Among the juices, those of a vinous³⁹⁹ flavour belong to the pear, the mulberry, and the myrtle, and not to the grape, a very singular fact. An unctuous taste is detected in the olive,⁴⁰⁰ the laurel, the walnut, and the almond; sweetness exists in the grape, the fig, and the date; while in the plum class we find a watery⁴⁰¹ juice. There is a considerable difference, too, in the colours assumed by the various juices. That of the mulberry, the cherry, the cornel, and the black grape resembles the colour of blood, while in the white grape the juice is white. The humour found in the summit of the fig⁴⁰² is of a milky nature, but not so with the juice found in the body of the fruit. In the apple it is the colour of foam,⁴⁰³ while in the peach it is perfectly colourless, and this is the case, too, with the duracinus,⁴⁰⁴ which abounds in juice; for who can say that he has ever detected any colour in it?

Smell, too, presents its own peculiar marvels; in the apple it is pungent,⁴⁰⁵ and it is weak in the peach, while in the sweet⁴⁰⁶ fruits we perceive none at all: so, too, the sweet wines are inodorous, while the thinner ones have more aroma, and are much sooner fit for use than those of a thicker nature.⁴⁰⁷ The odoriferous fruits are not pleasing to the palate in the same degree, seeing that the flavour⁴⁰⁸ of them does not come up to their smell: hence it is that in the citron we find the smell so extremely penetrating,⁴⁰⁹ and the taste sour in the highest degree. Sometimes the smell is of a more delicate⁴¹⁰ nature, as in the quince, for instance; while the fig has no odour whatever.

CHAP. 34.—THE VARIOUS NATURES OF FRUIT.

Thus much, then, for the various classes and kinds of fruit: it will be as well now to classify their various natures within a more limited scope. Some fruits grow in a pod which is sweet itself, and contains a bitter seed: whereas in most kinds of fruit the seed is agreeable to the palate, those which grow in a pod are condemned. Other fruits are berries, with the stone within and the flesh without, as in the olive and the cherry: others, again, have the berry within and the stone without, the case, as we have already stated, with the berries that grow in Egypt.⁴¹¹

Those fruits, known as "pomes," have the same characteristics as the berry fruits; in some of them we find the body of the fruit within and the shell without, as in the nut, for example; others, again, have the meat of the fruit without and the shell within, the peach and the plum, for instance: the refuse part being thus surrounded with the flesh, while in other fruits the flesh is surrounded by the refuse part.⁴¹² nuts are enclosed in a shell, chesnuts in a skin; in chesnuts the skin is taken off, but in medlars it is eaten with the rest. Acorns are covered with a crust, grapes with a husk, and pomegranates with a skin and an inner membrane. The mulberry is composed of flesh and juice, while the cherry consists of juice and skin. In some fruits the flesh separates easily from the woody part, the walnut and the date, for instance; in others it adheres, as in the case of the olive and the laurel berry: some kinds, again, partake of both natures, the peach, for example; for in the duracinus⁴¹³ kind the flesh adheres to the stone, and cannot be torn away from it, while in the other sorts they are easily separated. In some fruits there is no stone or shell⁴¹⁴ either within or without, one variety of the date,⁴¹⁵ for instance. In some kinds, again, the shell is eaten, just the same as the fruit; this we have already mentioned as being the case with a variety of the almond found in Egypt.⁴¹⁶ Some fruits have on the outside a twofold refuse covering, the chesnut, the almond, and the walnut, for example. Some, again, are composed of three separate parts—the body of the fruit, then a woody shell, and inside of that a kernel, as in the peach.

Some fruits grow closely packed together, such as grapes and sorbs: these last, just like so many grapes in a cluster, cling round the branch and bend it downwards with their weight. On the other hand, some fruits grow separately, at a distance from one another; this is the case with the peach. Some fruits are enclosed in a sort of matrix, as with the grains of the pomegranate: some hang down from a stalk, such as the pear, for instance: others hang in clusters, grapes and dates, for example. Others, again, grow upon stalks and bunches united: this we find the case with the berries of the ivy and the elder. Some adhere close to the branches, like the laurel berry, while other varieties lie close to the branch or hang from it, as the case may be: thus we find in the olive some fruit with short stalks, and others with long. Some fruits grow with a little calyx at the top, the pomegranate, for example, the medlar, and the lotus⁴¹⁷ of Egypt and the Euphrates.

Then, too, as to the various parts of fruit, they are held in different degrees of esteem according to their respective recommendations. In the date it is the flesh that is usually liked, in those of Thebais it is the crust;⁴¹⁸ the grape and the caryota date are esteemed for their juice, the pear and the apple for their firmness, the melimelum⁴¹⁹ for its soft meat, the mulberry for its cartilaginous consistency, and nuts for their kernels. Some fruits in Egypt are esteemed for their skin; the carica,⁴²⁰ for instance. This skin, which in the green fig is thrown away as so much refuse peeling, when the fig is dried is very highly esteemed. In the papyrus,⁴²¹ the ferula,⁴²² and the white thorn⁴²³ the stalk itself constitutes the fruit, and the shoots of the fig-tree⁴²⁴ are similarly employed.

Among the shrubs, the fruit of the caper⁴²⁵ is eaten along with the stalk; and in the carob,⁴²⁶ what is the part that is eaten but so much wood? Nor ought we to omit one peculiarity that exists in the seed of this fruit—it can be called neither flesh, wood, nor cartilage, and yet no other name has been found for it.

CHAP. 35. (29).—THE MYRTLE.

The nature of the juices that are found in the myrtle are particularly remarkable, for it is the only one⁴²⁷ of all the trees, the berries of which produce two kinds of oil⁴²⁸ as well as of wine, besides myrtidanum,⁴²⁹ of which we have already spoken. The berry of this was also put to another use in ancient times, for before pepper⁴³⁰ was known it was employed in place of it as a seasoning; so much so, indeed, that a name has been derived from it for the highly-seasoned dish which to this day is known by the name of "myrtatum."⁴³¹ It is by the aid of these berries, too, that the flavour of the flesh of the wild boar is improved, and they generally form one of the ingredients in the flavouring of our sauces.

CHAP. 36.—HISTORICAL ANECDOTES RELATIVE TO THE MYRTLE.

This tree was seen for the first time in the regions of Europe, which commence on this side of the Ceraunian mountains,⁴³² growing at Circeii,⁴³³ near the tomb of Elpenor there:⁴³⁴ it still retains its Greek⁴³⁵ name, which clearly proves it to be an exotic. There were myrtles growing on the site now occupied by Rome, at the time of its foundation; for a tradition exists to the effect that the Romans and the Sabines, after they had intended fighting, on account of the virgins who had been ravished by the former, purified themselves, first laying down their arms, with sprigs of myrtle, on the very same spot which is now occupied by the statues of Venus Cluacina; for in the ancient language "cluere" means to purify.

This tree is employed, too, for a species of fumigation;⁴³⁶ being selected for that purpose, because Venus, who presides over all unions, is the tutelary divinity of the tree.⁴³⁷ I am not quite sure, too, whether this tree was not the very first that was planted in the public places of Rome, the result of some ominous presage by the augurs of wondrous import. For at the Temple of Quirinus, or, in other words, of Romulus himself, one of the most ancient in Rome, there were formerly two myrtle-trees, which grew for a long period just in front of the temple; one of these was called the Patrician tree, the other the Plebeian. The Patrician myrtle was for many years the superior tree, full of sap and vigour; indeed, so long as the Senate maintained its superiority, so did the tree, being of large growth, while the Plebeian tree presented a meagre, shrivelled appearance. In later times, however, the latter tree gained the superiority, and the Patrician myrtle began to fail just at the period of the⁴³⁸ Marsic War,⁴³⁹ when the power of the Senate was so greatly weakened: and little by little did this once majestic tree sink into a state of utter exhaustion and sterility. There was an ancient altar⁴⁴⁰ also, consecrated' to Venus Myrtea, known at the present day by the name of Murcia.

CHAP. 37.—ELEVEN VARIETIES OF THE MYRTLE.

Cato⁴⁴¹ makes mention of three varieties of the myrtle, the black, white, and the conjugula, perhaps so called from its reference to conjugal unions, and belonging to the same species as that which grew where Cluacina's statues now stand: at the present day the varieties are differently distinguished into the cultivated and the wild⁴⁴² myrtle, each of which includes a kind with a large leaf. The kind known as "oxymyrsine,"⁴⁴³ belongs only to the wild variety: ornamental gardeners classify several varieties of the cultivated kind; the "Tarentine,"⁴⁴⁴ they speak of as a myrtle with a small leaf, the myrtle of this country⁴⁴⁵ as having a broad leaf, and the hexasticha⁴⁴⁶ as being very thickly covered with leaves, growing in rows of six: it is not, however, made any use of. There are two other kinds, that are branchy and well covered. In my opinion, the conjugula is the same that is now called the Roman myrtle. It is in Egypt that the myrtle is most odoriferous.

Cato⁴⁴⁷ has taught us how to make a wine from the black myrtle, by drying it thoroughly in the shade, and then putting it in must: he says, also, that if the berries are not quite dry, it will produce an oil. Since his time a method has been discovered of making a pale wine from the white variety; two sextarii of pounded myrtle are steeped in three semi-sextarii of wine, and the mixture is then subjected to pressure.

The leaves⁴⁴⁸ also are dried by themselves till they are capable of being reduced to a powder, which is used for the treatment of sores on the human body: this powder is of a slightly corrosive nature, and is employed also for the purpose of checking the perspiration. A thing that is still more re- markable, this oil is possessed of a certain vinous flavour, being, at the same time, of an unctuous nature, and remarkably efficacious for improving⁴⁴⁹ wines. When this is done, the wine strainer⁴⁵⁰ is dipped in the oil before it is used, the result of which is that it retains the lees of the wine, and allows nothing but the pure liquor to escape, while at the same time it accompanies the wine and causes a marked improvement in its flavour.

Sprigs of myrtle, if carried by a person when travelling on foot, are found to be very refreshing⁴⁵¹ on a long journey. Rings, too, made of myrtle which has never been touched by iron, are an excellent specific for swellings in the groin.⁴⁵²

CHAP. 38.—THE MYRTLE USED AT ROME IN OVATIONS.

The myrtle has played⁴⁵³ its part, also, in the successes of war. Posthumius Tubertus, who gained a victory over the Sabines in his consulship,⁴⁵⁴ was the first person who entered the City enjoying the honour of an ovation,⁴⁵⁵ for having achieved this success with ease and without bloodshed; upon which occasion he made his entry crowned with the myrtle of Venus Victrix, and thereby rendered her tree an object of regard⁴⁵⁶ to our enemies even. Ever since this occasion, the wreath of those who have enjoyed an ovation has been made of myrtle, with the exception of M. Crassus,⁴⁵⁷ who, on his victory over the fugitive slaves and Spartacus, made his entry crowned with laurels. Massurius informs us, also, that some generals, on the occasion of a triumph even, have worn a wreath of myrtle in the triumphal car. L. Piso states that Papirius Maso, who was the first to enjoy a triumph for a victory over the Marsi—it was on the Alban Mount⁴⁵⁸—was in the habit of attending at the games of the Circus, wearing a wreath of myrtle: he was the maternal grandfather of the second Scipio Africanus. Marcus Valerius⁴⁵⁹ wore two wreaths, one of laurel, the other of myrtle; it was in consequence of a vow which he had made to that effect.

CHAP. 39. (30.)—THE LAUREL; THIRTEEN VARIETIES OF IT.

The laurel is especially consecrated to triumphs, is remarkably ornamental to houses, and guards the portals of our emperors⁴⁶⁰ and our pontiffs: there suspended alone, it graces the palace, and is ever on guard before the threshold. Cato⁴⁶¹ speaks of two varieties of this tree, the Delphic⁴⁶² and the Cyprian. Pompeius Lenæus has added another, to which he has given the name of "mustax," from the circumstance of its being used for putting under the cake known by the name of "mustaceum."⁴⁶³ He says that this variety has a very large leaf, flaccid, and of a whitish hue; that the Delphic laurel is of one uniform colour, greener than the other, with berries of very large size, and of a red tint approaching to green. He says, too, that it is with this laurel that the victors at Delphi⁴⁶⁴ are crowned, and warriors who enjoy the honours of a triumph at Rome. The Cyprian laurel, he says, has a short leaf, is of a blackish colour, with an imbricated⁴⁶⁵ edge, and crisped.

Since his time, however, the varieties have considerably augmented. There is the tinus⁴⁶⁶ for instance, by some considered as a species of wild laurel, while others, again, regard it as a tree of a separate class; indeed, it does differ from the laurel as to the colour, the berry being of an azure blue. The royal⁴⁶⁷ laurel, too, has since been added, which has of late begun to be known as the "Augustan:" both the tree, as well as the leaf, are of remarkable size, and the berries have not the usual rough taste. Some say, however, that the royal laurel and the Augustan are not the same tree, and make out the former to be a peculiar kind, with a leaf both longer and broader than that of the Augustan. The same authors, also, make a peculiar species of the bacalia the commonest laurel of all, and the one that bears the greatest number of berries. With them, too, the barren laurel⁴⁶⁸ is the laurel of the triumphs, and they say that this is the one that is used by warriors when enjoying a triumph—a thing that surprises me very much; unless, indeed, the use of it was first introduced by the late Emperor Augustus, and it is to be considered as the progeny of that laurel, which, as we shall just now have occasion to mention, was sent to him from heaven; it being the smallest of them all, with a crisped⁴⁶⁹ short leaf; and very rarely to be met with.

In ornamental gardening we also find the taxa⁴⁷⁰ employed, with a small leaf sprouting from the middle of the leaf, and forming a fringe, as it were, hanging from it; the spadonia,⁴⁷¹ too, without this fringe, a tree that thrives remarkably well in the shade: indeed, however dense the shade may be, it will soon cover the spot with its shoots. There is the chamædaphne,⁴⁷² also, a shrub that grows wild; the Alexandrian⁴⁷³ laurel, by some known as the Idean, by others as the "hypoglottion,"⁴⁷⁴ by others as the "carpophyllon,"⁴⁷⁵ and by others, again, as the "hypelates."⁴⁷⁶ From the root it throws out branches three quarters of a foot in length; it is much used in ornamental gardening, and for making wreaths, and it has a more pointed leaf than that of the myrtle, and superior to it in softness, whiteness, and size: the seed, which lies between the leaves, is red. This last kind grows in great abundance on Mount Ida and in the vicinity of Heraclea in Pontus: it is only found, however, in mountainous districts.

The laurel, too, known as the daphnoides,⁴⁷⁷ is a variety that has received many different names: by some it is called the Pelasgian laurel, by others the euthalon, and by others the stephanon Alexandri.⁴⁷⁸ This is also a branchy shrub, with a thicker and softer leaf than that of the ordinary laurel: if tasted, it leaves a burning sensation in the mouth and throat: the berries are red, inclining to black. The ancient writers have remarked, that in their time there was no species of laurel in the island of Corsica. Since then, however, it has been planted there, and has thrived well.

CHAP. 40.—HISTORICAL ANECDOTES CONNECTED WITH THE LAUREL.

This tree is emblematical of peace:⁴⁷⁹ when a branch of it is extended, it is to denote a truce between enemies in arms. For the Romans more particularly it is the messenger of joyful tidings, and of victory: it accompanies the despatches⁴⁸⁰ of the general, and it decorates the lances and javelins of the soldiers and the fasces which precede their chief. It is of this tree that branches are deposited on the lap of Jupiter All-good and All-great,⁴⁸¹ so often as some new victory has imparted uni- versal gladness. This is done, not because it is always green, nor yet because it is an emblem of peace—for in both of those respects the olive would take the precedence of it—but because it is the most beauteous tree on Mount Parnassus, and was pleasing for its gracefulness to Apollo even; a deity to whom the kings of Rome sent offerings at an early period, as we learn from the case of L. Brutus.⁴⁸² Perhaps, too, honour is more particularly paid to this tree because it was there that Brutus⁴⁸³ earned the glory of asserting his country's liberties, when, by the direction of the oracle, he kissed that laurel-bearing soil. Another reason, too, may be the fact, that of all the shrubs that are planted and received in our houses, this is the only one that is never struck by lightning.⁴⁸⁴ It is for these reasons, in my opinion, that the post of honour has been awarded to the laurel more particularly in triumphs, and not, as Massurius says, because it was used for the purposes of fumigation and purification from the blood of the enemy.

In addition to the above particulars, it is not permitted to defile the laurel and the olive by applying them to profane uses; so much so, indeed, that, not even for the propitiation of the divinities, should a fire be lighted with them at either altar or shrine.⁴⁸⁵ Indeed, it is very evident that the laurel protests against such usage by crackling⁴⁸⁶ as it does in the fire, thus, in a manner, giving expresssion to its abhorrence of such treatment. The wood of this tree when eaten is good as a specific for internal maladies and affections of the sinews.⁴⁸⁷

It is said that when it thundered, the Emperor Tiberius was in the habit of putting on a wreath of laurel to allay his apprehensions of disastrous effects from the lightning.⁴⁸⁸ There are also some remarkable facts connected with the laurel in the history of the late Emperor Augustus: once while Livia Drusilla, who afterwards on her marriage with the Emperor assumed the name of Augusta, at the time that she was affianced to him, was seated, there fell into her lap a hen of remarkable whiteness, which an eagle let fall from aloft without its receiving the slightest injury: on Livia viewing it without any symptoms of alarm, it was discovered that miracle was added to miracle, and that it held in its beak a branch of laurel covered with berries. The aruspices gave orders that the hen and her progeny should be carefully preserved, and the branch planted and tended with religious care. This was accordingly done at the country-house belonging to the Cæsars, on the Flaminian Way, near the banks of the Tiber, eight miles from the City; from which circumstance that road has since received the title "Ad gallinas."⁴⁸⁹ From the branch there has now arisen, wondrous to relate, quite a grove: and Augustus Cæsar afterwards, when celebrating a triumph, held a branch of it in his hand and wore a wreath of this laurel on his head; since which time all the succeeding emperors have followed his example. Hence, too, has originated the custom of planting the branches which they have held on these occasions, and we thus see groves of laurel still existing which owe their respective names to this circumstance. It was on the above occasion, too, that not improbably a change was effected in the usual laurel of the triumph.⁴⁹⁰ The laurel is the only one among the trees that in the Latin language has given an appellation to a man,⁴⁹¹ and it is the only one the leaf of which has a distinct name of its own,—it being known by the name of "laurea." The name of this tree is still retained by one place in the city of Rome, for we find a spot on the Aventine Mount still known by the name of "Loretum,"⁴⁹² where formerly a laurel-grove existed. The laurel is employed in purifications, and we may here mention, incidentally, that it will grow from slips⁴⁹³—though Democritus and Theophrastus have expressed their doubts as to that fact.

We shall now proceed to speak of the forest trees.

SUMMARY.—Remarkable facts, narratives, and observations, one hundred and twenty.

ROMAN AUTHORS QUOTED.—Fenestella,⁴⁹⁴ Fabianus,⁴⁹⁵ Virgil,⁴⁹⁶ Corn. Valerianus,⁴⁹⁷ Celsus,⁴⁹⁸ Cato the Censor,⁴⁹⁹ Saserna⁵⁰⁰ father and son, Scrofa,⁵⁰¹ M. Varro,⁵⁰² D. Silanus,⁵⁰³ Fabius Pictor,⁵⁰⁴ Trogus,⁵⁰⁵ Hyginus,⁵⁰⁶ Flaccus Verrius,⁵⁰⁷ Græcinus,⁵⁰⁸ Atticus Julius,⁵⁰⁹ Columella,⁵¹⁰ Massurius Sabinus,⁵¹¹ Tergilla,⁵¹² Cotta Messalinus,⁵¹³ L. Piso,⁵¹⁴ Pompeius Lenæus,⁵¹⁵ Maccius Plautus,⁵¹⁶ Flavius,⁵¹⁷ Dossenus,⁵¹⁸ Scævola,⁵¹⁹ Ælius,⁵²⁰ Ateius Capito,⁵²¹ Sextius Niger,⁵²² Vibius Rufus.⁵²³

FOREIGN AUTHORS QUOTED.—Aristotle,⁵²⁴ Democritus,⁵²⁵ King Hiero,⁵²⁶ King Attalus Philometor,⁵²⁷ Archytas,⁵²⁸ Xenophon,⁵²⁹ Amphilochus⁵³⁰ of Athens, Anaxipolis⁵³¹ of Thasos, Apollodorus⁵³² of Lemnos, Aristophanes⁵³³ of Miletus, Antigonus⁵³⁴ of Cymæ, Agathocles⁵³⁵ of Chios, Apollonius⁵³⁶ of Pergamus, Aristander⁵³⁷ of Athens, Bacchius⁵³⁸ of Miletus, Bion⁵³⁹ of Soli, Chæreas⁵⁴⁰ of Athens, Chæristus⁵⁴¹ of Athens, Diodorus⁵⁴² of Priene, Dion⁵⁴³ of Colophon, Epigenes⁵⁴⁴ of Rhodes, Euagon⁵⁴⁵ of Thasos, Euphronius⁵⁴⁶ of Athens, Androtion⁵⁴⁷ who wrote on Agriculture, Æschrion⁵⁴⁸ who wrote on Agriculture, Lysimachus⁵⁴⁹ who wrote on Agriculture, Dionysius⁵⁵⁰ who translated Mago,⁵⁵¹ Diophanes⁵⁵² who made an Epitome of the work of Dionysius, Asclepiades⁵⁵³ the Physician, Erasistratus⁵⁵⁴ the Physician, Commiades⁵⁵⁵ who wrote on the preparation of Wines, Aristomachus⁵⁵⁶ who wrote on the same subject, Hicesius⁵⁵⁷ who wrote on the same subject, Themiso⁵⁵⁸ the Physician, Onesicritus,⁵⁵⁹ King Juba.⁵⁶⁰

1 Hist. Plant. iv. c.

2 The Olea Europæa of Linnæus. See B. xxi. c. 31.

3 This has not been observed to be the fact. It has been known to grow in ancient Mesopotamia, more than one hundred leagues from the sea.

4 It is supposed that it is indigenous to Asia, whence it was introduced into Africa and the South of Europe. There is little doubt that long before the period mentioned by Pliny, it was grown in Africa by the Car- thaginians, and in the South of Gaul, at the colony of Massilia.

5 This work of Hesiod is no longer in existence; but the assertion is exaggerated, even if he alludes to the growth of the tree from seed. Fee remarks that a man who has sown the olive at twenty, may gather excellent fruit before he arrives at old age. It is more generally propagated by slips or sets. If the trunk is destroyed by accident, the roots will throw out fresh suckers.

6 This is the case. We may remark that the tree will grow in this country, but the fruit never comes to maturity.

7 Georg. ii. 85, also ii. 420.

8 Probably the Olea maximo fructu of Tournefort. It has its name from the Greek ὄρχις,, the "testis," a name by which it is still known in some parts of Provence.

9 Or "shuttle" olive. Probably the modern pickoline, or long olive.

10 Probably the Olea media rotunda præcox of Tournefort. It is slightly bitter.

11 This is so much the case, that though the olives of Spain and Portugal are among the finest, their oils are of the very worst quality.

12 It does not appear that the method of preparing oil by the use of boiling water was known to the ancients. Unripe olives produce an excellent oil, but in very small quantities. Hence they are rarely used for the purpose.

13 Called "virgin," or "native" oil in France, and very highly esteemed.

14 Sporta.

15 "Exilibus regulis." A kind of wooden strainer, apparently invented to supersede the wicker, or basket strainer.

16 It is more insipid the riper the fruit, and the less odorous.

17 By absorbing the oxygen of the air. It may be preserved two or three years even, in vessels hermetically closed. The oil of France keeps better than any other.

18 As well as the grape.

19 In consequence of the faulty mode of manufacture, the oil of Italy is now inferior to that of France. The oil of Aix is particularly esteemed.

20 In Campania. See B. xvii. c. 3. Horace and Martial speak in praise of the Venafran olive. Hardouin suggests that Licinius Crassus may have introduced the Licinian olive.

21 The heat of Africa is unfavourable to the olive.

22 The fæces, marc, or lees. This is a crude juice contained in the cellular tissue of the fruit, known as viridine or chlorophylle.

23 This is owing, Fée says, to a sort of fermentation, which alters the tissue of the cells containing the oil, displaces the constituent elements, and forms others, such as mucus, sugar, acetic acid, ammoniac, &c. When ripe, the olive contains four oils; that of the skin, the flesh, the stone, and the kernel.

24 In B. xii. c. 60.

25 See B. xviii. c. 74.

26 16th of September.

27 De Causis, B. i. c. 23.

28 This cannot possibly increase the oil, but it would render it more fluid, and thereby facilitate its escape from the cells of the berry.

29 But Cato, Re Rust. c. 144, adds the very significant words, "injussu domini aut custodis." "Without the leave of the owner or the keeper."

30 It is found that the olive, after an abundant season, will not bear in the following year; probably the result of exhaustion.

31 More commonly spelt "pausia."

32 "Regia." It is impossible to identify these varieties.

33 8th of February.

34 This assertion of Pliny is not generally true. The large olives of Spain yield oil very plentifully.

35 Probably a member of the variety known to naturalists as the Olea fructu majori, carne crassâ, of Tournefort, the royal olive or "triparde" of the French. The name is thought to be from the Greek φᾶυλος, the fruit being considered valueless from its paucity of oil.

36 There are but few olive-trees in either Egypt or Decapolis at the present day, and no attempts are made to extract oil from them.

37 "Carnis." He gives this name to the solid part, or pericarp.

38 See B. iii. c. 9.

39 These methods are not now adopted for preserving the olive. The fruit are first washed in an alkaline solution, and then placed in salt and water. The colymbas was so called from κολυμβάω, "to swim," in its own oil, namely. Dioscorides descants on the medicinal properties of the colymbades. B. i. c. 140.

40 There are several varieties known of this colour, and more particularly the fruit of the Olea atro-rubens of Gouan.

41 The Spanish olive, Hardouin says. Fée thinks that the name "superba," "haughty," is given figuratively, as meaning rough and austere.

42 The olives of the present Merida, in Spain, are of a rough, disagree- able flavour.

43 This seems to be the meaning of "pinguis;" but, as Fée observes, salt would have no such effect as here stated, but would impart a disagree. able flavour to the oil.

44 Fée regards this assertion as quite fabulous.

45 It will be stated in B. xxviii. c. 13, to what purposes this abominable collection of filth was applied.

46 15th of July. He alludes to the inspection of the Equites, which originally belonged to the Censors, but afterwards to the Emperors. On this occasion there was "recognitio," or "review," and then a "trans- vectio," or "procession" of the horsemen.

47 The ovation was a lesser triumph, at which the general entered the city not in a chariot, but on foot. In later times, however, the victor en- tered on horseback: and a wreath of myrtle, sometimes laurel, was worn by him. For further particulars as to the ovation, see c. 38 of the present Book.

48 Or "oleaster."

49 De Re Rust. c. 6.

50 A middling or even poor soil is chosen for the olive at the present day.

51 Apparently meaning the "white wax" olive.

52 In warm countries, a site exposed to the north is chosen: in colder ones, a site which faces the south.

53 See B. xvii. c. 37. This moss has not been identified with precision; but the leaf of the olive is often attacked by an erysiphus, known to natu- ralists as the Alphitomorpha communis; but it is white, not of a red colour.

54 Fée queries how any one could possibly eat olives that had been steeped in a solution of mastich. They must have been nauseous in the extreme.

55 De Re Rust. c. 64.

56 "Fracibus." The opinion of Pliny, that olives deteriorate by being left in the store-room, is considered to be well founded; the olives being apt to ferment, to the deterioration of the oil: at the same time, he is wrong in supposing that the amount of oil diminishes by keeping the berries.

57 "Cortinas." If we may judge from the name, these vessels were three- footed, like a tripod.

58 There are no good grounds for this recommendation, which is based on the erroneous supposition that heat increases the oil in the berry. The free circulation of the air also ought not to be restricted, as nothing is gained by it. In general, the method of extracting the oil is the same with the moderns as with the ancients, though these last did not employ the aid of boiling water.

59 Labra.

60 A "making," or "batch."

61 Or "flower."

62 It may be remarked, that in this Chapter Pliny totally confounds fixed oils, volatile oils, and medicinal oils. Those in the list which he here gives, and which are not otherwise noticed in the Notes, may be considered to belong to this last class.

63 The oleaster furnishes but little oil, and it is seldom extracted. The oil is thinner than ordinary olive oil, and has a stronger odour.

64 The Daphne Centrum and Daphne Cilium of botanists. See B. xiii. c. 35, also 1. xliv. c. 82. Fée doubts if an oil was ever made from the chamelæa.

65 See B. xxiii. c. 41: the Ricinus communis of Linnæus, which abounds in Egypt at the present day. Though it appears to have been formerly sometimes used for the table, at the present day the oil is only known as "castor" oil, a strong purgative. It is one of the fixed oils. The Jews and Abyssinian Christians say that it was under this tree that Jonah sat.

66 A "tick."

67 This method, Fée says, is still pursued in America.

68 See B. xiii. c. 2. One of the fixed oils.

69 An essential oil may be extracted from either; it is of acrid taste, green, and aromatic; but does not seem to have been known to the an- cients. The berries give by decoction a fixed oil, of green colour, sweet, and odoriferous. The oils in general here spoken of by Pliny as extracted from the laurel, are medicinal oils.

70 The Laurus latifolia of Bauhin.

71 The Myrtus latifolia Romana of Bauhin. It yields an essential oil, and by its decoction might give a fixed oil, in small quantity, but very odoriferous. As boiled with olive oil, he treats it as a volatile oil.

72 See B. xxv. c. 100. This myrtle is the Ruscus aculeatus of Linnæus.

73 See B. xiii. c. 29, and B xxiii. c. 45. A volatile oil might be extracted from the citrus, if one of the thuypæ, as also from the cypress.

74 See B. xxiii. c. 45. It is a fixed oil, still considerably used in some parts of Europe.

75 From the Greek καρύα, a "walnut."

76 "Pitch oil." See B. xxiv. c. 11. This would be a volatile oil.

77 See B. xxiii. c. 45, also B. xiii. c. 35. Fée is of opinion, that as no fixed oil can be extracted from the Daphne Cnidium or Daphne Cneoruni, Pliny must allude to a medicinal composition, like the oil of wild myrtle, previously mentioned.

78 A fixed oil. See B. xii. c. 36. The seeds were used for making it. See B. xxiii. c. 45.

79 See B. xii. c. 51, and B. xxiii. c. 45. The leaves of the Lawsonia are very odoriferous.

80 The myrobalanus, or ben. See B. xii. c. 46, and B. xxiii. c. 46.

81 Neither the chesnut nor rice produce any kind of fixed oil.

82 See B. xvii. c. 13.

83 Or Fish-eaters. See B. xxxii. c. 38. This is one of the fixed oils.

84 In reality, no fixed oil can be obtained from them.

85 Or wild vine. See B. xii. c. 61, and B. xiii. c. 2.

86 Not an oil, so much as a medicinal preparation. Dioscorides mentions as component parts of it, omphacium, sweet rush, Celtic nard, aspalathus, costus, and must. It received its name from γλεῦκος, "must."

87 The Convolvulus scoparius of Linnæus. See B. xii. c. 52, and B. xiii. c. 2.

88 See B. xii. c. 95.

89 See B. xii. c. 54, and B. xiii. c. 2.

90 See B. xii. c. 29.

91 See B. xii. c. 57.

92 See B. xiii. c. 2, p. 163.

93 See B. xii. c. 41.

94 See B. xiii. c. 2.

95 Fée doubts the possibility of such a resemblance.

96 Hyoseyamus. A medicinal oil is still extracted from it. See B. xxiii. c. 49.

97 This medicinal oil is no longer used. The Lupinus albus was formerly held in greater esteem than it is now.

98 The Raphanus sativus of Linnæus. See B. xix. c. 26. This is one of the fixed oils; varieties of it are rape oil, and colza oil, now so extensively used.

99 From the Greek χόρτος,, "grass." This medicinal oil would be totally without power or effect.

100 A fixed oil is still extracted in Egypt from the grain known as sesamum.

101 See B. xxii. c. 15.

102 From κνίδη, a "nettle." The nettle, or Urtica urens of Linnæus, has no oleaginous principles in its seed.

103 Lily oil is still used as a medicinal composition: it is made from the petals of the white lily, Lilium candidum of Linnæus.

104 From Selga, a town of Pisidia. See B. xxiii. c. 49.

105 See B. iii. c. 9, and B. xxiii. c. 49.

106 A volatile oil, mixed with a small proportion of empyreumatic oil and carbon.

107 "Oil-honey." Probably a terebinthine, or oleo-resin. See B. xxiii. c. 50.

108 When rancid and oxygenized by age, it has an irritating quality, and may be found useful for herpetic diseases.

109 It very probably will have this effect; but at the expense of the colour of the ivory, which very soon will turn yellow.

110 It has quite lost its ancient repute: the only use it is now put to is the manufacture of an inferior soap. See B. xxiii. c. 37.

111 De Re Rust. cc. 130, 169.

112 Dolia and cadi. Fée observes, that this, if done with the modern vessels, would have a tendency to make the oil turn rancid.

113 On the contrary, Fée is inclined to think it would attract them, from its mucilaginous properties.

114 Olive oil, however, has a tendency to generate verdigrease in copper vessels.

115 This, as Fée remarks, is probably so absurd as not to be worth discussing.

116 Re Rust. B. i. c. 2.

117 If she happens to have destroyed the buds, but not otherwise.

118 The Pinus cembro, probably, of Linnæus.

119 See B. xvi. c. 23. The nuts of the pine are sweet, and have an agreeable flavour.

120 Probably the wild pine, the Pinus silvestris of the moderns. The nuts are slightly resinous.

121 Neither the people of Turin nor of any other place are known at the present day to make this preparation.

122 The quince, the Pirus Cydonia of Linnæus.

123 From Cydonia, a city of Crete. The Latin name is only a corruption of the Greek one: in England they were formerly called "melicotones."

124 Or "golden apple." The quince was sacred to Venus, and was an emblem of love.

125 Apparently meaning the "sparrow quince." Dioscorides, Galen, and Athenæus, however, say that it was a large variety. Qy. if in such case, it might not mean the ostrich quince?

126 "Early ripener."

127 Quinces are not grafted on quinces at the present day, but the pear is.

128 Fée suggests that this is a kind of pear.

129 Probably on account of the fragrance of their scent.

130 We learn from other sources that the bed-chambers were frequently ornamented with statues of the divinities.

131 The Mala cotonea silvestris of Bauhin; the Cydonia vulgaris of modern botanists.

132 "Mala." The term "malum," somewhat similar to "pome" with us, was applied to a number of different fruits: the orange, the citron, the pomegranate, the apricot, and others.

133 Or peach.

134 See B. xiii. c. 34.

135 Or "pound-weight" pears: the Pirus volema of Linnæus.

136 Or "hard-berry"—probably in reference to the firmness of the flesh. It is generally thought to be the nectarine.

137 "Præcocia." It is generally thought that in this name originates the word "apricot," the Prunus Armeniaca of Linnæus. There is, however, an early peach that ripens by the middle of July, though it is very doubtful if it was known to Pliny.

138 "From above."

139 Perhaps the Prunus ungarica of naturalists, the black damask plum; or else the Prunus perdrigona, the perdrigon.

140 Probably the Prunus galatensis of naturalists.

141 "Hordearia:" the Prunus præcox of naturalists; probably our harvest plum.

142 Or "ass"-plum. The Prunus acinaria of naturalists: the cherry plum of the French.

143 Or "wax plum." The Prunus cereola of naturalists: the mirabelle of the French.

144 Possibly the Prunus enucleata of Lamarck: the myrobalan of the French. Many varieties, however, are purple.

145 There are two opinions on this: that it is the Prunus Claudiana of Lamarck, the "Reine Claude" of the French; or else that it is identical with the apricot already mentioned, remarkable for the sweetness of its smell.

146 Or nut-prune.

147 The Prunus insititia of Linnæus.

148 The result of this would only be a plum like that of the tree from which the graft was cut.

149 The same as with reference to the graft on the apple.

150 This is probably quite fabulous.

151 B. xiii. c. 10.

152 The Prunus Damascena of the naturalists; our common damson, with its numerous varieties.

153 Probably the Cordia myxa of Linnæus; the Sebestier of the French. It has a viscous pulp, and is much used as a pectoral. It grows only in Syria and Egypt; and hence Fée is inclined to reject what Pliny says as to its naturalization at Rome, and the account he gives as to its being engrafted on the sorb.

154 I. e. Asia Minor.

155 Hospitium.

156 See B. xiii. c. 17. The Balanites Ægyptiaca of Delille.

157 It was this probably, and not the peach-tree, that would not bear fruit in the isle of Rhodes.

158 Perseus.

159 Fée remarks that the wild plum, the Prunus silvestris or insititia of Linnæus, was to be found in Italy before the days of Cato.

160 See B. xii. c. 7.

161 Of Media.

162 Its fruit will ripen in France, as far north as Tours. It is the Zizyphus vulgaris of Lamarck. It resembles a small plum, and is sometimes used as a sweetmeat. The confection sold as jujube paste is not the dried jelly of this fruit, but merely gum arabic and sugar, coloured.

163 A variety of the jujube, Fée is inclined to think. A nut-peach has also been suggested.

164 A.U.C. 779.

165 Or perhaps embankment: "agger."

166 A reddish colour. For the composition of this colour, see B. xxxv. c. 24.

167 "Lanata;" perhaps rather the "downy" fruit; a variety of quince, Fée thinks. Pliny probably had never seen this fruit, in his opinion, and only speaks after Virgil, Eel. ii. 1. 51. "Ipse ego cana legam tenera lanugine mala."

168 See B. xii. c. 6. The Matian and the Cestian apple are thought by Dalechamps to have been the French "court-pendu," or "short stalk."

169 The Scandian is thought to have been a winter pear.

170 Adrian Junius takes this to be the "kers-appel" of the Flemish.

171 De Re Rust. cc. 7 and 143.

172 Dolia.

173 Hardouin says that this is the "Pomme d'api" of the French; it is the "Court-pendu" with Adrian Junius.

174 The "Pomme de Saint Thomas," according to Adrian Junius: Dalechamps identifies it with the pomme de Granoi. See B. iii. c. 19, and cc. 17 and 18 of the present Book.

175 "Græcula." So called, perhaps, from Tarentum, situated in Magna Græcia.

176 Twins. This variety is unknown.

177 Or "red" apple. The red calville of the French, according to Hardouin; the Pomme suzine, according to Dalechamps.

178 The Girandotte of the French; the appel-heeren of the Dutch.

179 The "early ripener." Dalechamps identifies it with the pomme Saint Jean, the apple of St. John.

180 The Pomme rose, or rose apple, according to Dalechamps.

181 Or "erect teat." The Pomme taponne of the French, according to Dalechamps.

182 Or eunuch. The Passe pomme, or Pomme grillotte of the French.

183 Or "leaf apple." Fée remarks that this occasionally happens, but the apple does not form a distinct variety.

184 The Pomme pannete, according to Dalechamps: the Pomme gelée of Provence.

185 Or "lung" apple. The Pomme folane, according to Dalechamps.

186 The Pirus malus of Linnæus, the wild apple, or estranguillon of the French.

187 It is doubtful whether he does not allude here to a peculiar variety.

188 Or "mealy" apples.

189 Or "proud" pear. The Petite muscadelle, according to Dalechamps. Adrian Junius says that it is the water-peere of the Dutch.

190 From Crustumium in Italy; the Poire perle, or pearl pear, according to Dalechamps: the Jacob's peere of the Flemish.

191 The Poire sucrée, or "sugar-pear," according to Hardouin; the Bergamotte, according to Dalechamps.

192 "Potu." He would appear to allude to the manufacture of perry.

193 The Syrian pear is commended by Martial; it has not been identified, however.

194 The Poire musot, according to Dalechamps. Adrian Junius says that it is the Engelsche braet-peere of the Flemish.

195 The Pirus Pompeiana of Linnæus. Dalechamps identifies it with the Bon chretien, and Adrian Junius with the Taffel-peere of the Flemish.

196 The "breast-formed."

197 The Pirus Favonia of Linnæus: the Grosse poire muscadelle of the French.

198 The Poire prevost, according to Dalechamps.

199 The Poire fore, according to Dalechamps.

200 The Saint Thomas's pear of the Flemish.

201 The Poire chat of the French, according to Dalechamps; the Riet-peere of the Flemish.

202 "Like onyx." The Cuisse-madame, according to Dalechamps.

203 The Calveau rosat, according to Dalechamps. Perhaps the Poire d'ambre, or amber pear, of the French.

204 The Poire d'argent, or silver pear, according to Dalechamps.

205 Or "barley pear." The Poire de Saint Jean, according to Dalechamps; the musquette or muscadella, according to Adrian Junius.

206 Barley-harvest.

207 So called from its resemblance to the "ampulla," a big-bellied vessel with a small neck, identified with the Poire d'angoisse by Dalechamps.

208 The Poire de jalousie, according to Dalechamps.

209 Or gourd-pear. This is the "isbout" according to Adrian Junius, the Poire courge of Dalechamps, and the Poire de sarteau, or de campane of others.

210 The Poire de Venus, according to Adrian Junius; the Poire acciole, according to Dalechamps.

211 Coloured pear.

212 "Regium." The Poire carmagnole, according to Dalechamps; the Mispeel-peere of the Flemish, according to Adrian Junius.

213 The Poire sarteau, according to Dalechamps.

214 Georgics, ii. 87.

215 "A handful"—probably the pound or pounder pear: the Bergamotte, according to Hardouin; the Bon chretien of summer, according to Adrian Junius.

216 De Re Rust. c. 7.

217 Or "Seedling."

218 The "early ripener." Fée suggests that this may be a variety of the Bon chretien.

219 Georgics, ii. 69. This statement of Virgil must be regarded as fabu- lous; grafting being impracticable with trees not of the same family, and not always successful even then.

220 This was probably some superstition taught by the augurs for the purpose of enveloping their profession in additional mystery and awe.

221 Cadis.

222 He probably alludes here to cider and perry. See p. 300, and B. xxiii. c. 62.

223 "Pulmentarii vicem;" properly "a substitute for pulmentarium," which was anything eaten with bread, such as meat, vegetables, &c. He alludes to marmalade. The French raisine is a somewhat similar preparation from pears and quinces boiled in new wine.

224 "Specularibus." the alludes to windows of transparent stone, lapis specularis, or mica; windows of glass being probably unknown in his time. The ordinary windows were merely openings closed with shutters. See B. xxxvi. c. 45.

225 He must allude to a kind of quince marmalade.

226 As Fée remarks, the fruit, if treated thus, would soon lose all the properties for which it is valued.

227 De Re Rust. B.i.c. 59.

228 A faulty proceeding, however dry it may be.

229 This fruit, Fée remarks, keeps but indifferently, and soon becomes soft, vinous, and acid.

230 An absurd superstition.

231 A method not unlikely to spoil the grape, from the difficulty of removing the coat thus given to it.

232 A very absurd notion, as Fée observes. To keep fruit in millet is also condemned.

233 Which, of course, must deteriorate the flavour of the grape.

234 It is doubtful if they will increase in size, when once plucked.

235 The modern authorities recommend the precisely opposite plan.

236 As absurd as the use of the bulb of squill.

237 In a pit two feet deep, &c. See above.

238 Capsæ.

239 See B. xxi. c. 49.

240 De Re Rust. B. xii. c. 43.

241 These must make raisins of the sun.

242 These must have been perfectly dry, or else they would tend to rot the grapes or raisins.

243 Columella, for instance, B. xii. c. 43.

244 The dust is in reality very liable to spoil the fruit, from the tenacity with which it adheres. In all these methods, little attention would seem to be paid to the retention of the flavour of the fruits.

245 A detestable practice, Fée says, as the oil makes an indelible mark on the grape, and gives it an abominable flavour. It is the best method to put the fruit in bags of paper or hair.

246 See B. xiii. c. 19.

247 There are about forty varieties now known.

248 B. xiii. c. 14, 15. These are the Ficus sycomorus of Linnæus.

249 In Troas; called the Alexandrian fig, from the city of Alexandria there. Fée doubts if this was really a fig, and suggests that it might be the fruit of a variety of Diospyros.

250 No fig-tree now known is destitute of this.

251 Fée treats this as an exaggeration.

252 From "mamilla," a teat.

253 In Egypt. The Figue servantine, or cordeliere.

254 "Delicata." The "bon-bouche."

255 Fée suggests that this may have been the small early fig.

256 From Livia, the wife of Augustus.

257 From Pompeius Magnus.

258 Apparently meaning the "marsh" fig.

259 The Laconian reed, Theophrastus says, B. iv. c. 12.

260 The "white-wax" fig.

261 Fée queries whether it may not be the Grosse bourjasotte.

262 Or "people's" fig. The small early white fig.

263 Or "swallow"-fig.

264 Or it may mean "white and black," that being the colour of the fig. Such a variety is still known.

265 A Spanish variety; those of the south of Spain are very highly esteemed.

266 The modern "black" fig.

267 The sun of the former year.

268 In Mœsia—the present Servia and Bulgaria.

269 Another war is said to have originated in this fruit. Xerxes Was tempted by the fine figs of Athens to undertake the invasion of Greece.

270 Tertium ante diem." In dating from an event, the Romans in- cluded both days in the computation; the one they dated from, and the day of, the event.

271 In sending for the fig, and thinking of this method of speaking to the feelings of his fellow-countrymen.

272 A place in the Forum, where public meetings were held, and certain offences tried.

273 He alludes to the Puteal, or enclosed space in the Forum, consecrated by Scribonius Libo, in consequence of the spot having been struck by lightning.

274 On the banks of the Tiber, below the Palatine Mount. The whole of this passage is in a most corrupt siate, and it is difficult to extract a meaning from it.

275 By slips from the old tree, as Tacitus seems to say—" in novos fœtus revivisceret."

276 At the foot of the Capitoline Hill.

277 Probably near where the Curtius Lacus had stood in the early days of Rome. The story of Metius Curtius, who leaped into the yawning gulph in the Forum, in order to save his country, is known to every classical reader.

278 The Forum.

279 See B. xix. c. 6.

280 The Ficus Carica of Linnæus. It does bear fruit, though small, and disagreeable to the taste.

281 This insect is one of the Hymenoptera; the Cynips Psenes of Linnæus and Fabricius. There is another insect of the same genus, but not so well known.

282 Fée observes that the caprification accelerates the ripeness of the fruit, but at the expense of the favour. For the same purpose the upper part of the fig is often pricked with a pointed quill.

283 "Infantiam pomi"—literally, "the infancy of the fruit."

284 Fée denies the truth of this assertion.

285 Frumenta.

286 A mixture of the sugar of the fruit with the milky juice of the tree, which is a species of caoutchouc.

287 Capsis.

288 See B. iii. c. 11. The Balearic Isles still produce great quantities of excellent dried figs.

289 See B. iii. c. 17.

290 Orcæ.

291 Cadi.

292 Ground, perhaps, into a kind of flour.

293 Opsonii vicem. "Opsonium" was anything eaten with bread, such as vegetables, meat, and fish, for instance.

294 De Re Rust. c. 56.

295 Because they would be sure, under any circumstances, to eat plenty, them.

296 See B. xiii. c. 10.

297 These were so called from Caunus, a city of Caria, famous for its dried figs. Pronounced "Cavneas," it would sound to the superstitious, "Cave ne eas," "Take care that you go not."

298 At Brundisium.

299 A.U.C. 801.

300 Alba Longa. See B. iii. c. 9.

301 The sorb belongs to the genus pirus of the naturalists.

302 The Mespilus germanica of the botanists.

303 The azarolier, a tree of the south of Europe, the Mespilus apii folio laciniato of C. Bauhin.

304 The Mespilus Italica folio laurino serrato of C. Bauhin, the Mespilus cotoneaster of J. Bauhin.

305 Its identity is matter of uncertainty; but it has been thought to be the Cratægus oxyacantha of modern botanists.

306 By "amplissimus," he must mean that it spreads out very much in proportion to its height, as it is merely a shrub.

307 Fée thinks it a tree indigenous to the north.

308 The ordinary sorb-apple of horticulturists.

309 The sorb-pear.

310 Varying but little, probably, from the common sorb, the Sorbus domestica of Linnæus.

311 Fée is inclined to think that it is the Sorbus terminalis of Lamarck. Anguillara thinks that it is the Cratægus of Theophrastus, considered by Sprengel to be identical with the Cratægus azarolus of Linnæus. In ripening, the fruit of the sorb undergoes a sort of vinous fermentation: hence a kind of cider made of it.

312 De Re Rust. cc. 7 and 145.

313 The Juglans regia of Linnæus.

314 Tastes have probably altered since this was written.

315 These were rude and sometimes obscene songs sung at festivals, and more particularly marriages. While these songs were being sung at the door of the nuptial chamber, it was the custom for the husband to scramble walnuts among the young people assembled there. The walnut is the nut mentioned in Solomon's Song, vi. 11.

316 Or, more probably, from the union of the two portions of the inner shell.

317 "Tripudium sonivium:" implying that it was considered sacred to marriage, from the use made of it by the friends of the bridegroom when thrown violently against the nuptial chamber, with the view of drowning the cries of the bride. A very absurd notion, to all appearance.

318 The "Persian" nut.

319 The "king's" nut. The walnut-tree still abounds in Persia, and is found wild on the slopes of the Himalaya.

320 Implying that it comes from the Greek κάρη,, "the head." Some etymologists think that it is from the Celto-Seythian carw, a boat; such being the shape of the two parts of the inner shell.

321 It is still a common notion, Fée says, that it is highly injurious to sleep beneath a walnut-tree.

322 It is still used for this purpose.

323 Red hair was admired by the Romans. The Roman females used this juice also for dyeing their hair when grey.

324 They are not entirely separate.

325 The Corylus avellana maxima of Willdenow.

326 The filbert, the Corylus tubulosa of Willdenow.

327 Abellinum, in Campania. See B. iii. c. 9.

328 The down on the nut is more apparent when it is young; but it is easily rubbed off. The outer coat is probably meant.

329 Hazel nuts are sometimes roasted in some parts of Europe, but not with us.

330 The Amygdalus communis of Linnæus.

331 De Re Rust. c. 8. Some think that this was the bitter almond; and the word "acriore," used by Pliny, would almost seem to imply that such is the case.

332 Apparently the "smooth" or "bald" nut. May not a variety something like the hickory nut of America be meant?

333 Festus says that a kind of nut was so called, because the Prænestines, when besieged by Hannibal at Casilinum, subsisted upon them. See Livy, B. xxiii. Fée considers it only another name for the common hazel nut.

334 De Re Rust, c. 145.

335 The soft-shelled almond, or princess almond of the French: the Amygdalus communis fragilis of naturalists.

336 This last variety does not seem to have been identified: the hard-shell almonds do not appear to be larger than the others.

337 Or "soft" almond, a variety only of the Amygdalus fragilis.

338 There is little doubt that Fée is right in his assertion, that this great personage imposed on our author; as no trees of this family are known to bear two crops.

339 B. xiii. c. 10.

340 In c. xxi. of this Book.

341 The tree is the Fagus castanea of Linnæus.

342 Cortex.

343 The common mode of eating it at the present day. The Italians also take off the skin and dry the nut; thus keeping it from year to year. When required for eating, it is softened by the steam of boiling water.

344 Not improbably said in allusion to the fasts introduced by the Jews, who had become very numerous in Rome.

345 It was said to have come from Castana, a city of Pontus, whence its name "Castanea." It is probably indigenous to Europe.

346 The Greek for "Jove's acorn."

347 Or "acorn chesnut." The same variety, Fée says, that is found in the vicinity of Perigueux, small, nearly round, and without any particular flavour.

348 The Ganebelone chesnut of Perigueux, Fée says, answers to this description.

349 On account of the prickles on the outer shell.

350 B. xvii. c. 26.

351 Fée says that the royal white chesnut of the vicinity of Perigueux answers to this.

352 "Boiling" chesnuts.

353 He alludes to wild or horse chesnuts, probably.

354 See B. xiii. c. 16.

355 This skin is not eatable. It is fibrous and astringent.

356 In B. xvi. c. 6.

357 "Acinis." The grape, ivy-berry, elder-berry, and others.

358 "Inter cutem succumque."

359 Baccis. Some confusion is created by the non-existence of English words to denote the difference between a acinus" and "bacca." The latter is properly the "berry;" the grape being the type of the "acinus."

360 See B. xvi. c. 41. The mulberry is the Morus nigra of modern naturalists. It is generally thought that this was the only variety known to the ancients; but Fée queries, from the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, which represents the mulberry as changing from white to blood colour, that the white mulberry was not unknown to them; but through some cause, now unknown, was gradually lost sight of.

361 This is still the case with the mulberry.

362 See B. xvi. c. 71, and B. xxiv. c. 73. He alludes to the blackberry.

363 The common strawberry, the Fragaria vesca of Linnæus. See B. xxi. c. 50. A native of the Alps and the forests of Gaul, it was unknown to the Greeks.

364 The Arbutus unedo of Linnæus. It is one of the ericaceous trees, and its fruit bears a considerable resemblance to the strawberry—otherwise there is not the slightest affinity between them. The taste of the arbute is poor indeed, compared to that of the strawberry.

365 He suggests that it is so called from "unum edo," "I eat but one;" a rather fanciful etymology, it would seem.

366 This supposition is not warranted, from merely the fact of there being two names.

367 See B. xvi. c. 52.

368 See B. xxiv. c. 35.

369 See B. xiii. c. 34.

370 "Baccis." Berries, properly so called.

371 The Celtis Australis of Linnæus.

372 Supposed by some to be the holly. See B. xxv. c. 72.

373 He alludes to a variety of the crategus.

374 The Cerasus vulgaris of modern botanists. It is said to have obtained its name from Cerasus, in Asia Minor, where Lucullus found it.

375 He must allude to what he has stated in B. xii. c. 3, for he has nowhere said that the cherry will not grow in Egypt. It is said that the cherry is not to he found in Egypt at the present day.

376 The gnotte cherry of the French, the mazzard of the English.

377 A variety of the mazzard, Fée thinks.

378 Some take this for the Cerasus Juliana, the guignier of the French, our white heart; others, again, for the merisier, our morello

379 It is most generally thought that this is the Cerasus avium of bota- nists, our morello, which is a very tender cherry.

380 Or "hard berry," the Prunus bigarella of Linnæus, the red biga- roon.

381 Fée queries whether it may not have received its name of "Pliniaua" in compliment to our author, or one of his family.

382 Hardouin thinks that this Portuguese cherry is the griotte, or mazzard.

383 No such cherry is known at the present day.

384 Such a graft is impossible; the laurel-cherry must have had some other origin.

385 Fée suggests that this may be the early dwarf cherry.

386 Or "ground-cherry;" a dwarf variety, if, indeed, it was a cherry-tree at all, of which Fée expresses some doubt.

387 This explains, Fée says, why it will not grow in Egypt.

388 The Cornus mas of Linnæus. The fruit of the cornel has a tart flavour, but is not eaten in modern Europe, except by school-boys.

389 That produces mastich. See B. xii. c. 36.

390 He alludes more especially, perhaps, to the use of cicuta or hemlock by drunkards, who looked upon it as an antidote to the effects of wine. See B. xiv. c. 7.

391 Fée remarks, that in this enumeration there is no method. Linnæus enumerates eleven principal flavours in the vegetable kingdom—dry or insipid, aqueous, viscous, salt, acrid, styptic, sweet, fat, bitter, acid, and nauseous; these terms, however seem, some of them, to be very indefinite.

392 It requires considerable discernment to appropriate nicely its English synonym to these four varieties of tastes, "acer, acutus, acerbus, and acidus," more especially when we find that the "bitter" and the "rough" are occupied already by the "amarus" and the "austerus."

393 In allusion, probably, to the pungency of the aroma or bouquet.

394 Lenitate.

395 This seems to be the meaning of "succus."

396 The "insipid."

397 This is so much the case, that the most nauseous medicine may be taken almost with impunity—so far as taste is concerned—by tightly pressing the nostrils while taking it.

398 Fée remarks that this is true of fire, and of distilled or perfectly pure water; but that physiologists are universally agreed that the air has its own peculiar smell.

399 All fruits that are rich in sugar and amidine, Fée says, either have, or acquire in time, a vinous flavour, by the development of a certain quantity of alcohol.

400 In the fruit with a fixed oil, this principle succeeds, when they are ripe, to the mucilaginous.

401 He must mean a thinner juice, though still sweet.

402 About the peduncle or stalk of the fig. The juice here, Fée says, is a real sugar, of the same nature as that which circulates throughout the whole fruit: the juice in the interior of which is produced by another order of vessels.

403 The juice is only foamy when the vinous fermentation is established. It has that appearance, however, when the fruit is bitten with the teeth.

404 The "hard-berry," or nectarine.

405 In the sense of aromatic, or penetrating.

406 He probably means those of a luscious or sirupy nature, without any acidity whatever.

407 He seems to mean that the thick, luscious wines require longer keeping, before they will gain any aroma at all. This would be done, probably, at the expense of their sweetness.

408 Or he may mean, that a fine flavour and a fine smell cannot co-exist.

409 The reading here should be "acutissimus," probably, instead of "acerrimus." The odour exists in the rind of the citron and in the outer coat of the quince; if these are removed, the fruit becomes inodorous.

410 "Tenuis." He may possibly mean "faint."

411 The fruit of the ben, or myrobalanus, the Balanites Ægyptiaca. See B. xiii. cc. 17 and 19.

412 Viaticum,.

413 Hard-berry or nectarine. See c. 11.

414 Lignum: literally, "wood." "There is no wood, either within or without." He has one universal name for what we call shell, seed, stones, pips, grains, &c.

415 The "spado," or "eunuch" date. See B. xiii. c. 8.

416 See B. xiii. c. 17. The fruit of the ben is alluded to, but, as Fée observes, Pliny is wrong in calling it an almond, as it is a pulpy fruit.

417 The Nymphæa nelumbo of Linnæus.

418 Or shell, which, as Fée remarks, participates but very little in the properties of the flesh.

419 Or "honey" apple; see c. 15 of this Book.

420 Or "Carian" fig. See c. 19 of this Book.

421 See B. xiii. c. 11.

422 See B. xiii. c. 42, and B. xx. cc. 9 and 23.

423 See B. xiii. c. 26, and B. xxiv. c. 66.

424 See B. xiii. c. 22. Fée remarks that it is singular how the, ancients could eat the branches of the fig-tree, the juice being actually a poison.

425 See B. xiii. c. 44.

426 See c. 26 of this Book.

427 He is wrong: the same is the case with the berries of the laurel, and, indeed, many other kinds of berries.

428 See c. 7 of this Book.

429 See B. xiv. c. 9.

430 See B. xii. c. 14.

431 A kind of sausage, seasoned with myrtle. See also B. xxvii c. 49.

432 He means the Acroceraunian chain in Epirus, mentioned in B. iii.

433 See B. iii. c. 9.

434 He was one of the companions of Ulysses, fabled by Homer and Ovid to have been transformed by Circe into a swine.

435 μυρσἰνη, was its Greek name.

436 See B. xxv. c. 59.

437 See B. xii. c. 2. Ovid, Fasti, B. iv. 1. 15, et seq., says that Venus concealed herself from the gaze of the Satyrs behind this tree.

438 Either this story is untrue, or we have a right to suspect that some underhand agency was employed for the purpose of imposing on the superstitious credulity of the Roman people.

439 Or Social War. See B. ii. c. 85.

440 Near the altar of Census, close to the meta of the Circus.

441 De Re Rust. c. 8,

442 The so-called wild myrtle does not in reality belong to the genus Myrtus.

443 See B. xxiii. c. 83; the Ruscus aculeatus of the family of the Asparagea.

444 The common myrtle, Myrtus communis of the naturalists.

445 Or Roman myrtle, a variety of the Myrtus communis.

446 The "six row" myrtle. Fée thinks that it belongs to the Myrtus angustifolia Bœtica of Bauhin.

447 De Re Rust. 125.

448 See B. xxiii. c. 81.

449 A new proof, as Fée remarks, that the ancients had peculiar notions of their own, as to the flavour of wine; myrtle berries, he says, would impart to wine a detestable aromatic flavour.

450 "Saccis:" the strainer being made of cloth.See B. xiv. e. 28.

451 They would be of no assistance whatever, and this statement is entirely fictitious.

452 He may possibly mean hernia.

453 In addition to all those particulars, he might have stated that the Lares, or household gods, were crowned with myrtle, and that it was not allowed to enter the Temple of Bona Dea.

454 A.U.C. 251.

455 See the Notes to c. 35 of this Book.

456 Because the enemy would be less likely to envy us a bloodless triumph.

457 He disdained the more humble myrtle crown, and intrigued successfully with the Senate to allow him to wear a wreath of laurel.

458 The Senate refused him a triumph; and he accordingly celebrated one on the Alban Mount, B.C. 231. Paulus Diaconus says that his reason for wearing a myrtle crown was his victory over the Corsicans on the Myrtle Plains, though where they were, or what victory is alluded to, is not known.

459 The brother of Valerius Publicola.

460 We learn from two passages in Ovid that the laurel was suspended over the gates of the emperors. This, as Fée remarks, was done for two reasons: because it was looked upon as a protection against lightning, and because it was considered an emblem of immortality.

461 De Re Rust. 133.

462 Or "laurel of Apollo:" it was into this tree that Daphne was fabled to have been changed. See Ovid's Met. B. i. 1. 557, et seq.

463 Cato, De Re Rust. c. 121, tells us that this cake was made of fine wheat, must, anise, cummin, suet, cheese, and scraped laurel sprigs. Laurel leaves were placed under it when baked. This mixture was considered a light food, good for the stomach!

464 At the Pythian Games celebrated there.

465 Meaning that it curves at the edge, something like a pent-house.

466 Or tine tree, the Viburnum tinus of Linnæus, one of the caprifolia. It is not reckoned as one of the laurels, though it has many of the same characteristics.

467 Regia.

468 The barren laurel of the triumphs was the Laurus nobilis of Linnæus, which has only male flowers.

469 The Laurus vulgaris folio undulato of the Parisian Hortus, Fée says.

470 Not a laurel, nor yet a dicotyledon, Fée says, but one of the Asparagea, probably the Ruscus hypoglossum of Linnæus, sometimes known, however, as the Alexandrian laurel.

471 Or "eunuch" laurel; a variety, probably, of the Laurus nobilis.

472 The "ground laurel:" according to Sprengel, this is the Ruscus racemosus of Linnæus. See B. xxiv. c. 81.

473 From Alexandria in Troas: the Ruscus hypophyllum of Linnæus, it is supposed.

474 "The tongue below." This, Fée justly says, would appear to be a more appropriate name for the taxa, mentioned above.

475 From the berry being attached to the leaf.

476 "The thrower out from below," perhaps.

477 Sprengel thinks that it is the Clematis vitalba of Linnæus. Fuch- sius identifies it with the Daphne laureola of Linnæus; and Fée thinks it may be either that or the Daphne mezereum of Linnæus.

478 "Crown of Alexander."

479 Curiously enough, it is generally considered now more suggestive of war than of peace.

480 The despatches were wrapped in laurel leaves.

481 Optimus Maximus.

482 L. Junius Brutus, the nephew of Tarquin. Pliny alludes to the message sent to Delphi, for the purpose of consulting the oracle on a serpent being seen in the royal palace.

483 He alludes to the circumstance of the priestess being asked who should reign at Rome after Tarquin; upon which she answered, "He who first kisses his mother;" on which Brutus, the supposed idiot, stumbled to the ground, and kissed the earth, the mother of all.

484 A mere absurdity; the same has been said of the beech, and with equal veracity.

485 He makes a distinction between "altar" and "ara" here. The former was the altar of the superior Divinities, the latter of the superior and inferior as well.

486 The crackling of the laurel is caused by efforts of the essential oil to escape from the parenchyma or cellular tissue of the leaf, which it breaks with considerable violence when burning.

487 Nervorum. See B. xxiii. c. 80.

488 Suetonius, c. 66, confirms this. Fée says that the same superstition still exists in some parts of France. See B. ii. c. 56.

489 "The Poultry."

490 See c. 39 of this Book.

491 See B. xxxi. c. 3. As Poinsinet remarks, this is not strictly true; the name "Vinucius" most probably came from "vinea," a vineyard. Numerous names were derived also from seeds and vegetables; Piso, Cicero, and Lactuca, for instance, among a host of others. "Scipio," too, means a "walking-stick."

492 The "laurel-grove."

493 See B. xvii. c. 11.

494 See end of B. viii

495 See end of B. ii.

496 See end of B. vii

497 See end of B. iii.

498 See end of B. vii.

499 See end of B. iii.

500 See end of B. x.

501 See end of B. xi.

502 See end of B. ii.

503 See end of B. xiv.

504 See end of B. x.

505 See end of B. vii.

506 See end of B. iii.

507 See end of B. iii.

508 See end of B. xiv.

509 See end of B. xiv.

510 See end of B. viii.

511 See end of B. vii.

512 See end of B. xiv.

513 See end of B. xiv.

514 See end of B. ii.

515 See end of B. xiv.

516 See end of B. xiv.

517 See end of B. xii.

518 See end of B. xiv.

519 See end of B. xiv.

520 See end of B. xiv.

521 See end of B. iii.

522 See end of B. xii.

523 See end of B. xiv.

524 See end of B. ii.

525 See end of B. ii.

526 See end of B. viii.

527 See end of B. viii.

528 See end of B. viii.

529 See end of B. iv.

530 See end of B. viii

531 See end of B. viii.

532 See end of B. viii.

533 See end of B. viii.

534 See end of B. viii.

535 See end of B. viii.

536 See end of B. viii.

537 See end of B. viii.

538 See end of B. viii.

539 See end of B. vi.

540 See end of B. viii.

541 See end of B. xiv.

542 He is mentioned also by Varro and Columella, as a writer upon agri- culture; but all further particulars of him are unknown.

543 See end of B. viii.

544 See end of B. ii.

545 See end of B. x.

546 See end of B. viii.

547 See end of B. viii.

548 See end of B. viii.

549 See end of B. viii.

550 See end of B. xii.

551 See end of B. viii.

552 See end of B. viii.

553 See end of B. vii.

554 See end of B. xi.

555 Beyond what Pliny here says, nothing is known of him.

556 See end of B. xi.

557 A physician who lived probably at the end of the first century B.C. He was a disciple of Erasistratus, and founded a medical school at Smyrna. He is quoted by Athenæus, and in B. xxvii. c. 14, Pliny calls him "a physician of no small authority." He seems to have been a voluminous writer; but none of his works have survived.

558 See end of B. xi.

559 See end of B. ii.

560 See end of B. v.

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

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Pliny the Elder, The Natural History John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.