Chap. 30.] CITRUS TABLES. 197 



more : it is quite surprising how greatly it loses in weight by 

 this process. Shipwrecks have recently taught us also that this 

 wood is dried by the action of sea-water, and that it thereby 

 acquires a hardness 63 and a degree of density which render it 

 proof against corruption r no other method is equally sure to 

 produce these results. These tables are kept best, and shine 

 with the greatest lustre, when rubbed with the dry hand, 

 more particularly just after bathing. As if this wood had 

 been created for the behoof of wine, it receives no injury 

 from it. 



(16.) As this tree is one among the elements of more civil- 

 ized life, I think that it is as well on the present occasion to 

 dwell a little further upon it. It was known to Homer even, 

 and in the Greek it is known by the name of " thyon," 63 or 

 sometimes "thya." He says that the wood of this tree was 

 among the unguents that were burnt for their pleasant odour 

 by Circe, 64 whom he would represent as being a goddess ; a 

 circumstance which show r s the great mistake committed by 

 those who suppose that perfumes are meant under that name, 64 * 

 seeing that in the very same line he says that cedar and larch 

 were burnt along with this wood, a thing that clearly proves 

 that it is only of different trees that he is speaking. Theo- 

 phrastus, an author who wrote in the age succeeding that of 

 Alexander the Great, and about the year of the City of Rome 

 440, has awarded a very high rank to this tree, stating that it 

 is related that the raftering of the ancient temples used to be 

 made of this wood, and that the timber, when employed in 

 roofs, will last for ever, so to say, being proof against all de- 

 cay, — quite incorruptible, in fact. He also says that there is 

 nothing more full of wavy veins 65 than the root of this tree, and 

 that there is no workmanship in existence more precious than 

 that made of this material. The finest kind of citrus grows, 

 he says, in the vicinity of the Temple of Jupiter Hammon ; 

 he states also that it is produced in the lower part of Cyre- 

 naica. He has made no mention, however, of the tables that 

 are made of it ; indeed, we have no more ancient accounts of 



62 Fee remarks that this is incorrect, and that this statement betrays an 

 entire ignorance of the vegetable physiology. 



66 Qvov, " wood of sacrifice." 



64 Od. B. v. 1. 60. Pliny makes a mistake in saying " Circe ;" it should 

 be " Calypso. 



w * ei/o*\ 65 Crispius. 



