472 FICUS CARICA. 
wards applied to all informers, parasites, liars, flatterers, imposters &c. ; hence 
the modern word sycophant. 
The fig was a fruit much admired by the Romans, who brought it from most 
of the countries they conquered, and had so increased the varieties in Italy, by 
the commencement of the Christian era, that Pliny has furnished us with a 
description of twenty-nine sorts. He says, "figs are restorative, and the best 
food that can be taken by those who are brought low by long sickness, and are 
on the recovery." He adds, " that figs increase the strength of young people, 
preserve the elderly in better health, and make them look younger, and with 
fewer wrinkles. They are so nutritive as to cause corpulency and strength ; on 
which account, professed wrestlers and champions were in times past, fed with 
figs." This naturalist mentions the African figs, as being admired; but says, 
"it is not long since they began to grow figs in Africa." These appear to have 
been of an early kind ; for, we find that, when Cato wished to stimulate the sen- 
ators to declare war against Carthage, he took an early African fig in his hand, 
and then addressing the assembly, he said, "I would demand of you how long it 
is since this fig was plucked from the tree?" and when they all agreed that it 
was freshly gathered, "Yes," answered Cato, " it is not yet three days since this 
fig was gathered at Carthage ; and by it, see how near to the walls of our city 
we have a mortal enemy." With this argument, he prevailed upon them to 
begin the third Punic war, in which Carthage, that had so long been a rival to 
Rome, was utterly destroyed. "The Lydian figs," continues Pliny, "are of a 
reddish-purple colour; the Rhodian, of a blackish hue; as is the Tiburtine, 
which ripens before the others. The white figs were from Herculaneum ; the 
Chelidonian figs are the latest, and ripen against the winter ; some bear twice a 
year, and some of the Chalcidian kinds bear three times a year." The Romans 
had figs from Chalcis and Chios, and many of their varieties, it appears, were 
named after those who first introduced or cultivated them in Italy. For instance, 
the " Livian Fig" was so called after Livia, wife of the Emperor Augustus, who. 
it is said, made the unnatural use of it to poison her husband. 
The fig-tree is said to have been first brought from Italy into Britain, in 1525, 
by Cardinal Pole; though probably it was introduced long before, by the Ro- 
mans and the monks. The specimens, which were of the Marseilles kind, were 
planted against the walls of the archiepiscopal palace, at Lambeth, and bore 
excellent fruit. In the course of their long existence, they attained a size far 
exceeding the standard fig-tree in its natural habitat, being fifty feet in height, 
with trunks from twenty-one to twenty-eight inches in circumference, and a 
spread of branches of forty feet. These trees were much injured by the severe 
winter of 1813-14; but the main stems, being cut down, they recovered, so as to 
be in tolerable vigour, in 1817; but some years since, while the palace was under 
repair, they were destroyed. The " Pocock Fig-tree" was once supposed to have 
been the first of the white Marseilles figs, introduced into England. The tradi- 
tion is, that it was brought from Aleppo by Dr. Pocock, the celebrated traveller, 
and planted in the garden of the Regius Professor of Hebrew, at Christ-Church, 
Oxford, in the year 1648. Some of the figs of this tree were exhibited at a meet- 
ing of the London Horticultural Society, in August, 1819 ; and others gained a 
premium as the best white figs, at a meeting of the Oxford and Oxfordshire Hor- 
ticultural Society, in August, 1833. In the year 1806, this tree was twenty-one 
feet high, with a trunk three feet and a half in circumference at its upper part. 
It received considerable damage from the fire that happened at Christ-Church, on 
the 3d of March, 1809, some time previous to which, its trunk had been covered 
with lead to preserve it from the injuries of the weather ; but at the time of the 
fire the lead was stolen, and, soon after, the trunk itself decayed, and was prin- 
cipally removed. In 1833, at the time Mr. Loudon visited this tree, there were 
