Chap. 38.] PRODIGIES COKS"ECTED WITH TREES. 527 



formed into an olive. In such narratives as these, the book 

 written in Greek by Aristander abounds, not to enter any fur- 

 ther on so extended a subject ; and we have in Latin the Com- 

 mentaries of C. Epidius, in which we find it stated that trees 

 have even been known to speak. In the territory of Cumce, a tree, 

 and a very ominous presage it was, sank into the earth shortly 

 before the civil wars of Pompeius Magnus began, leaving only 

 a few of the branches protruding from the ground. The Sibyl- 

 line Books were accordingly consulted, and it was found that 

 a war of extermination was impending, which would be at- 

 tended with greater carnage the nearer it should approach the 

 city of Rome. 



Another kind of prodigy, too, is the springing up of a tree 

 in some extraordinary and unusual place, the head of a statue, 

 for instance, or an altar, or upon another tree even. 33 A fig- 

 tree shot forth from a laurel at Cyzicus, just before the siege 

 of that city ; and so in like manner, at Tralles, a palm issued 

 from the pedestal of the statue of the Dictator Ca3sar, at the 

 period of his civil wars. So, too, at Rome, in the Capitol 

 there, in the time of the wars against Perseus, a palm-tree 

 grew from the head of the statue of Jupiter, a presage of im- 

 pending victory and triumphs. This palm, however, having 

 been destroyed by a tempest, a fig-tree sprang up in the very 

 same place, at the period of the lustration made by the censors 

 M. Messala and C. Cassius, 33 a time at which, according to Piso, 

 an author of high authority, all sense of shame had been utterly 

 banished. Above all the prodigies, however, that have ever 

 been heard of, we ought to place the one that was seen in our 

 own time, at the period of the fall of the Emperor Nero, in the 

 territory of Marrucinum ; a plantation of olives, belonging to 

 Vectius Marcellus, one of the principal members of the Eques- 

 trian order, bodily crossed the public highway, "while the fields 

 that lay on the opposite side of the road passed over to supply 

 the place which had been thus vacated by the olive-yard. 34 



CKAP. 39. (26.) TREATMENT OF THE DISEASES OF TREES. 



Having set forth the various maladies by which trees -are at- 

 tacked, it seems only proper to mention the most appropriate 



33 This may easily be accounted for, by the seed accidentally lodging in 

 a crevice of the tree. 33 a. u. c. 600. 



34 An exaggerated account merely of a land-slip. 



