432 pliny's natural history. [Book XVI, 



ling are the inevitable result, until it has been tnrown over- 

 board. "We have already made mention 06 of Aulocrene, a dis- 

 trict through which you pass in going from Apainia into 

 Phrygia : at this place they show a plane upon which Marsy as 

 was hanged, after he had been conquered by Apollo, it having 

 been chosen even in those days for its remarkable height. 

 At Delos, also, there is a palm 67 " to be seen which dates from 

 the birth of that divinity, and at Olympia there is a wild 

 olive, from which Hercules received his first wreath : at the 

 present day it is preserved with the most scrupulous venera- 

 tion. At Athens, too, the olive produced by Minerva, is said 

 still to exist. 



CHAP. 90. TEEES WHICH ARE THE MOST SHORT-LIVED. 



On the other hand, the pomegranate, 68 the fig, and the apple 

 are remarkably short-lived ; the precocious trees being still 

 more so than the later ripeners, and those with sweet fruit than 

 those with sour : among the pomegranates, too, that variety 

 which bears the sweetest fruit lives the shortest time. The 

 same is the case, too, with the vine, 69 and more particularly 

 the more fruitful varieties. Grseeinus informs us that vines 

 have lasted so long as sixty years. It appears, also, that the 

 aquatic trees die the soonest. The laurel, 70 the apple, and 

 the pomegranate age rapidly, it is true, but then they throw 

 out fresh shoots at the root. The olive must be looked upon, 

 then, as being one of the most long-lived, for it is generally 

 agreed among authors that it will last two hundred years. 



CHAP. 91. TREES THAT HAVE BEEX RENDERED FAMOUS BY 



REMARKABLE EVENTS. 



In the territory about the suburbs of Tusculum, upon a hill 

 known by the name of Corne, there is a grove which has been 

 consecrated to Diana by the people of Latium from time im- 

 memorial ; it is formed of beeches, the foliage of which has all 



<» See B. v. c. 29. 



67 The palm is by no means a long-lived tree. 



68 The pomegranate, on the contrary, has been known to live many cen- 

 turies. 



69 He has elsewhere said that the vine is extremely long-lived. 



70 In the last Chapter he has spoken of a laurel having existed for many 

 centuries. 



