Chap. 3.] EXOTIC TEEES. ] 03 



life. It is by the aid of the tree that we plough the deep, and 

 bring near to us far distant lands ; it is by the aid of the tree, 

 too, that we construct our edifices. The statues, even, of the 

 deities were formed of the wood of trees, in the days when no 

 value had been set as yet on the dead carcase 8 of a wild beast, 

 and when, luxury not yet deriving its sanction from the 

 gods themselves, we had not to behold, resplendent with the 

 same ivory, the heads of the divinities 9 and the feet of our 

 tables. It is related that the Gauls, separated from us as they 

 were by the Alps, which then formed an almost insurmountable 

 bulwark, had, as their chief motive for invading Italy, its 

 dried figs, its grapes, its oil, and its wine, samples 10 of which 

 had been brought back to them by Helico, a citizen of the 

 Helvetii, who had been staying at Eome, to practise there as 

 an artizan. "We may offer some excuse, then, for them, when 

 we know that they came in quest of these various productions, 

 though at the price even of war. 



CHAP. 3. EXOTIC TREES. WHEN THE PLANE-TREE FIRST 



APPEARED IN ITALY, AND WHENCE IT CAME. 



But who is there that will not, with good reason, be sur- 

 prised to learn that a tree has been introduced among us from 

 a foreign clime for nothing but its shade ? I mean the plane, 11 

 which was first brought across the Ionian Sea to the Isle 12 of 

 Diomedes, there to be planted at his tomb, and was afterwards 

 imported thence into Sicily, being one of the very first exotic 

 trees that were introduced into Italy. At the present day, 

 however, it has penetrated as far as the country of the 

 Morini, and occupies even a tributary 13 soil; in return for which 



8 He alludes to the pursuit of the elephant, for the purpose of obtaining 

 ivory, which was extensively used in his day, in making the statues of the 

 divinities. 



9 A sarcastic antithesis. And yet Dalechamps would read "hominum" 

 instead of " numinum" ! 



10 Praemissa, The exact meaning of this word does not appear. Though 

 all the MSS. agree in it, it is probably a corrupt reading. Plutarch, in 

 his Life of Camillus, says that the wine of Italy was first introduced in 

 Gaul by Aruns, the Etruscan. 



11 The Platanus orientalis of Linnoeus. It received its name from the 

 Greek ttXcltoq, "breadth," by reason of its wide-spreading branches. 



12 For further mention of this island, now Tremiti, see B. iii. c. 30. 



13 He alludes, probably, to the "vectigal solarium," a sort of ground- 



