CHAP, in SYLVA 31 



oldest trees growing, and the platan set by Menelaus; 

 to these he adds the Delian palm, co-evous with Apollo 

 himself ; and the olive planted by Minerva according 

 to their tradition ; the over-grown myrtil ; the Vati- 

 can and the Holm, and the Tiburtine, and especially 

 that near to Tusculum, whose body was thirty five 

 foot about ; besides divers others which he there 

 enumerates in a large chapter : And what shall we 

 conjecture of the age of Xerxes's huge platanus^ in 

 admiration whereof he staid the march of so many 

 hundred thousand men for so many days ; by which 

 the wise Socrates was us'd to swear ? And certainly, 

 a goodly tree was a powerful attractive, when that 

 prudent consul, Passienus Crispus, fell in love with a 

 prodigious beech of a wonderful age and stature, which 

 he us'd to sleep under, and would sometimes refresh it 

 with pouring wine at the roots ; and that wise Prince 

 Francis the First, as much enamour'd with an huge 

 oak, which he caus'd to be so curiously immur'd at 

 Bourges. 



6. We have already made mention of Tiberius's 

 larch, intended to be employ'd about the Naumachia^ 

 which being one hundred and twenty foot in length, 

 bare two foot diameter all that space, (not counting 

 the top) and was look'd upon as such a wonder, that 

 though it was brought to Rome to be us'd in that 

 vast fabrick, the Emperor would have it kept propter 

 miraculum ; and so it lay unemploy'd till Nero built 

 his amphitheatre. To this might be added the mast 

 of Demetrius's Ga/easse, which consisted but of one 

 cedar : And that of the float which wafted Caligulus's 

 obelisks out of Egypt, four fathoms in circumference. 

 We read also of a cedar growing in the island of 

 Cyprus, which was 1 30 foot long, and 1 8 in diameter; 



