CHAP. 1. (1.)—TREES WHICH HAVE BEEN SOLD AT ENORMOUS
PRICES.
WE have described the trees which grow spontaneously on
land and in the sea,
1 and it now remains for us to speak of
those which owe their formation, properly speaking, rather than
birth, to art and the inventive genius of man.
2 Here, however, I cannot but express my surprise, that after the state of
penury in which man lived, as already described,
3 in primitive
times, holding the trees of the forest in common with the wild
beasts, and disputing with them the possession of the fruits
that fell, and with the fowls of the air that of the fruits as they
hung on the tree, luxury has now attached to them prices so
enormous.
The most famous instance, in my opinion, of this excess, was
that displayed by L. Crassus and Cneius Domitius Ahenobarbus. Crassus was one of the most celebrated of the Roman
orators; his house was remarkable for its magnificence, though
in some measure surpassed even by that of Q. Catulus,
4
also upon the
Palatine Hill; the same Catulus, who, in conjunction with C. Marius, defeated the Cimbri. But by far
the finest house of all that period, it was universally acknowledged, was that of C. Aquilius, a Roman of Equestrian rank,
situate upon the Viminal Hill; a house, indeed, that conferred
a greater degree of celebrity upon him than even his acquaintance with the civil law. This, however, did not prevent
Crassus being reproached with the magnificence of his. Crassus and Domitius, members, both of them, of the most illus-
trious families, after holding the consulship,
5 were appointed
jointly to the censorship, in the year from the building of the
City 662, a period of office that was fruitful in strife, the
natural result of their dissimilarity of character. On one occasion, Cneius Domitius, naturally a man of hasty temper, and
inflamed besides by a hatred that rivalry only tends to stimulate, gravely rebuked Crassus for living, and he a Censor too,
in a style of such magnificence, and in a house for which, as
he said, he himself would be ready to pay down ten millions
of sesterces. Crassus, a man who united to singular presence
of mind great readiness of wit, made answer that, deducting
six trees only, he would accept the offer; upon which Domitius replied, that upon those terms he would not give so much
as a single denarius for the purchase. "
Well then, Domitius," was the rejoinder of Crassus, "which of the two is it
that sets a bad example, and deserves the reproof of the censorship; I, who live like a plain man in a house that has
come to me by inheritance, or you, who estimate six trees
at a value of ten millions of sesterces?"
6 These trees were
of the lotus
7 kind, and by the exuberance of their branches
afforded a most delightful shade. Cæcina Largus, one of the
grandees of Rome, and the owner of the house, used often to
point them out to me in my younger days; and, as I have already made mention
8 of the remarkable longevity of trees, I
would here add, that they were in existence down to the period when the Emperor Nero set fire to the City, one hundred
and eighty years after the time of Crassus; being still green
and with all the freshness of youth upon them, had not that
prince thought fit to hasten the death of the very trees even.
Let no one, however, imagine that the house of Crassus was
of no value in other respects, or that, from the rebuke of Domitius, there was nothing about it worthy of remark with the
exception of these trees. There were to be seen erected in the
atrium four columns of marble from Mount Hymettus,
9 which
in his ædileship he had ordered to be brought over for the decoration of the stage;
10 and this at a time, too, when no public
buildings even as yet possessed any pillars made of that material. Of such recent date is the luxury and opulence which
we now enjoy, and so much greater was the value which in
those days trees were supposed to confer upon a property!
A pretty good proof of which, was the fact that Domitius even,
with all his enmity, would not keep to the offer he had made,
if the trees were not to be included in the bargain.
The trees have furnished surnames also to the ancients,
11 such,
for instance, as that of Fronditius to the warrior who swam
across the Volturnus with a wreath of leaves on his head, and
distinguished himself by his famous exploits in the war against
Hannibal; and that of Stolo
12 to the Licinian family, such being
the name given by us to the useless suckers that shoot from
trees; the best method of clearing away these shoots was
discovered by the first Stolo, and hence his name. The ancient
laws also took the trees under their protection; and by the
Twelve Tables it was enacted, that he who should wrongfully
cut down trees belonging to another person, should pay twenty-five asses for each. Is it possible then to imagine that they,
who estimated the fruit-trees at so low a rate as this, could ever
have supposed that so exorbitant a value would be put upon the
lotus as that which I have just mentioned? And no less mar-
vellous, too, are the changes that have taken place in the value
of fruit; for at the present day we find the fruit alone of many
of the trees in the suburbs valued at no less a sum than two
thousand sesterces; the profits derived from a single tree thus
being more than those of a whole estate in former times. It
was from motives of gain that the grafting of trees and the
propagation thereby of a spurious offspring was first devised,
so that the growth of the fruits even might be a thing interdicted to the poor. We shall, therefore, now proceed to
state in what way it is that such vast revenues are derived
from these trees, and with that object shall set forth the true
and most approved methods of cultivation; not taking any
notice of the more common methods, or those which we find
generally adopted, but considering only those points of doubt
and uncertainty, in relation to which practical men are most
apt to find themselves at a loss: while, at the same time, to
affect any scrupulous exactness in cases where there is no
necessity for it, will be no part of our purpose. In the first
place, however, we will consider in a general point of view,
those influences of soil as well as weather which are exercised
upon all the trees in common.