GARDENS OF THE ANCIENTS 



over into Britain. After the conquest of Africa, Fruits 

 Greece,the Lesser Asia,and Syria, were brought firs * m ' d 

 into Italy all the sorts of their Ma/a, which we 

 interpret apples, and might signify no more at 

 first, but were afterwards applied to many other 

 foreign fruits: the apricots coming from Epire, 

 were called Mala Epirotica; peaches from 

 Persia, MalaPersica; citrons of Media, Medica; 

 pomegranates from Carthage, Punica ; quinces 

 Cathonea, from a small island in the Grecian 

 seas; their best pears were brought from Alex- 

 andria, Numidia, Greece, and Numantia; as 

 appears by their several appellations: their 

 plums, from Armenia, Syria, but chiefly from 

 Damascus. The kinds of these are reckoned 

 in Nero's time, to have been near thirty, as well 

 as of figs; and many of them were entertained 

 at Rome, with so great applause, and so general 

 vogue, that thegreatcaptains,and even consular 

 men, who first brought them over, took pride 

 in giving them their own names (by which they 

 run a great while in Rome) as in memory of 

 some great service or pleasure they had done 

 their country; so that not only laws and battles, 

 but several sorts of apples or Mala, and of pears, 

 were called Manlian and Claudian,Pompeyan 



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