THE FIG. 235 



Eome it became a sacred symbol on account of the legen- 

 dary tale that the wolf-suckled twins had been first found 

 reposing under a fig-tree ; and beneath its shade, there- 

 fore, the Romans were accustomed to offer an annual 

 sacrifice to the shepherdess who had discovered and reared 

 their founder. Saturn, to whom was attributed the honour 

 of having first taught agriculture in Italy, was repre- 

 sented crowned with new figs, and a large fig-tree grew 

 before his temple in Eome, on the removal of which, to 

 build a chapel in its place, it was held necessary for the 

 Vestals to offer an expiatory sacrifice. Another famous 

 tree had sprung up spontaneously in the centre of the 

 Forum, on the spot where Curtius consummated his pa- 

 triotic self-sacrifice. Finally, in Bacchanalian processions 

 a basket of figs was carried next to a vessel of wine, the 

 jolly god who presided over both fruits being thought to 

 owe his jolliness as much to the figs on which he fed as 

 to the grape-juice which he imbibed. Pliny, who enume- 

 rates 29 varieties of the fig as known in his day, relates 

 with much force the anecdote of Cato one day Jbringing a 

 ripe one into the senate-house, and asking the assembled 

 council how long ago -they supposed it to have been ga- 

 thered. Seeing its perfect freshness, it was unanimously 

 pronounced to have been very lately taken from the tree. 

 " Know, then," was the rejoinder, "that it was plucked at 

 Carthage but the day before yesterday : so near is the 

 enemy to our walls." Where " Delenda est Carthago " 

 had been reiterated till every one was weary of the sound, 

 yet the words had been heard in vain, a single glance at 

 this fruit sufficed to prevail, and the third Punic War was 

 immediately begun, and ended not until Carthage was no 

 more. " Thus," as Pliny observes, " did this fig effect that 

 which neither Trebia nor Thrasymenus not Cannae it- 

 self, graced with tne emtombment of the Eoman renown 

 not the Punic camp, entrenched within three miles of the 

 city not even the disgrace of seeing Hannibal riding up 

 to the Colline gate could suggest the means of accom- 

 plishing. It was left for a fig in the hands of Cato to- 

 show how near was Carthage to the gates of Eome." 

 When dried, the fruit was extensively used at Eome in- 



