242 S Y L V A BOOK iv 



of the bold adventurer. Nor was the watry-king 

 Neptune without his groves, the Helicean in Greece 

 was his : So Ceres, and Proserpine, Pluto, Vesta, 

 Castor, and Pollux, had such shady places consecrated 

 to them; add to these the Lebadian, Arsinoan, Paphian, 

 Senonian, and such as were in general dedicated to 

 all the Gods, for 



1 Gods have dwelt in groves. 



And these were as it were Pantheons. To the memory 

 of famous men and heroes were consecrated the Achil- 

 lean, Aglauran, and those to Bellerophon, Hector, 

 Alexander, and to others who disdained not to derive 

 their names from trees and forests ; as Silvius the 

 posthumus of jEneas.; divers of the Albanian Princes, 

 and great persons ; Stolon, Laura, Daphnis, Gfc. And 

 a certain custom there was for the parents to plant a 

 tree at the birth of an heir or son, presaging by the 

 growth and thriving of the tree the prosperity of the 

 child : Thus we read in the life of Virgil, and how 

 far his natalitial poplar had out-stripp'd the rest of its 

 contemporaries. And the reason doubtless of all this 

 was, the general repute of the sanctity of those places ; 

 for no sooner does the poet speak of a grove, but 

 immediately some consecration follows, as believing 

 that out of those shady profundities, some Deity must 

 needs emerge. 



Quo possis viso dicere numen inest. 



So as Tacitus (speaking of the Germans) says, Lucos 

 & nemora consecrant^ deorumque nominibus appellant 

 secretum illud, quod sold reverentid vident ; To the same, 



1 : Habitarunt di quoque silvas. 



