pla:n^ts cultivated for their fruits. 297 



botanists hold a contrary opinion;^ and, without speaking 

 of floral details on which they rely, I may say that 

 Gussone obtained from the same seeds plants of the form 

 cajprijicus, and other varieties.^ The remark made by 

 several scholars as to the absence of all mention of the cul- 

 tivated ^gsukai in the Iliad, does not therefore prove the 

 absence of the fig tree in Greece at the time of the Trojan 

 war. Homer mentions the sweet fig in the Odyssey, and 

 that but vaguely. Hesiod, says Hehn, does not mention 

 it, and Archilochus (700 B.C.) is the first to mention 

 distinctly its cultivation by the Greeks of Paros. Accord- 

 ing to this, the species grew wild in Greece, at least in 

 the Archipelago, before the introduction of cultivated 

 varieties of Asiatic origin. Theophrastus and Dioscorides 

 mention wild and cultivated figs.^ 



Romulus and Remus, according to tradition, were 

 nursed at the foot of a fig tree called ruminalis, from 

 rumen, breast or udder.^ The Latin name, ficus, which 

 Hehn derives, by an effort of erudition, from the Greek 

 sukai,^also argues an ancient existence in Italy, and Pliny's 

 opinion is positive on this head. The good cultivated 

 varieties were of later introduction. They came from 

 Greece, Syria, and Asia Minor. In the time of Tiberius, 

 as now, the best figs came from the East. 



We learnt at school how Cato exhibited to the as- 

 sembled senators Carthaginian figs, still fresh, as a proof 

 of the proximity of the hated country. The Phoenicians 

 must have transported good varieties to the coast of 

 Africa and their other colonies on the Mediterranean, 

 even as far as the Canaries, where, however, the wild fig 

 may have already existed. 



For the Canaries we have a proof in the Guanchos 



^ No importance should be attached to the exaggerated divisions 

 made bj Gasparini in Ficus carica, Linnaeus. Botanists who have 

 studied the fig tree since his time retain a single species, and name 

 several varieties of the wild fig. The cultivated forms are numberless. 



^ Gussone, Enum. Plant. Inarimensium, p. 301. 



^ For the history of the fig tree and an account of the operation (of 

 doubtful utility) which consists in planting insect-bearing Caprijici 

 among the cultivated trees (caprification), see Solms' work. 



* Pliny, Hist., lib. xv. cap. 18. ^ Hehn, Culturpflanzen, edit. 3, p. 513. 



