Ofarit Isore, Iseger^t)/, cm^ Isijric/', 335 



the infants Romulus and Remus, when the Tiber bore it to the foot 

 of the Palatine. Fig-trees are seldom affecfted by lightning, hut this 

 celebrated Ruminal Fig-tree of Rome was once struck during a 

 thunderstorm, and was ever afterwards held doubly sacred; the an- 

 cients considering that lightning purified every objedt it touched. 

 The Romans bestowed upon Jupiter the surname of Ruminus, be- 

 cause he presided over the nourishment of mankind, and they had a 

 goddess Rumina, who presided over the female breasts, and whose 

 oblations were of milk only. These words are both derived from 

 ruwa, a teat ; and hence the tree under which Romulus and Remus 

 had been suckled by the she-wolf was the Rumina Fiats, sl name 

 most appropriate, because the Fig was the symbol of generation 

 and fecundity. The Fig was consecrated to Juno, as the goddess 

 presiding over marriages and at nuptial festivities. Figs were 

 always carried in a mystic vase. The statues of Priapus, god of 

 orchards, were often made of the wood of the Fig, and the tree 

 was also dedicated to Mercury. Notwithstanding this reverence 

 for the Ficus ruiiiinalis, the Romans considered the Fig a tree 

 at once impure and ill-omened. This is shown by the acftions 

 of the Arvales (twelve priests of Rome, descended from the 

 nurse of Romulus), who made special expiations when the Fig- 

 tree — the impure tree — sprang up by chance on the roof of the 

 temple of the goddess Dia, where Vestals officiated. After they 

 had uprooted the desecrating tree, they destroyed the temple 



as being defiled. Pausanias relates that, according to an 



oracle, the Messenians were to be abandoned by heaven in their 

 struggles with the Spartans, so soon as a goat (tragos) should drink 

 the water of the Neda : the Messenians, therefore, drove out of 

 their country all the goats. But in Messenia grew the wild Fig, 

 which was also called tragos. One of these wild Figs having sprung 

 up on the banks of the Neda, its branches soon dipped into the 

 flowing waters of the river beneath it. The oracle was fulfilled — 

 a tragos had drunk the water of the Neda : soon afterwards the 

 Messenians were defeated. The soothsaj-er Calchas, accord- 

 ing to tradition, owed his death in a measure to the Fig-tree. 

 Challenged by the seer Mopsus, of whom he was jealous, to 

 a trial of their skill in divination, Calchas first asked his anta- 

 gonist how many Figs a neighbouring tree bore. " Ten thousand 

 except one," was the reply of his rival, " and one single vessel can 

 contain them all." The Figs were carefully gathered, and his 

 prediiftions were literally true. It was then the turn of Mopsus 

 to try his adversary. Calchas failed to answer the question put to 

 him, and ISIopsus was adjudged victor. So mortified was Calchas 



at the result of this trial, that he pined away and died. 



The ancient Egyptians held the Fig-leaf sacred to the goddess Isis. 



The Fig is supposed to have been the first cultivated fruit 



tasted by man : beneath the boughs of the F'ig-tree Adam hid him- 

 self after having eaten the forbidden fruit; with its leaves he 



