FIG. 151 



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 corpu- 

 lency and strength : for this cause, 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 when Cato wished to stimulate the senators to 

 declare war against Carthage, he took an early African 

 fig in his hand ; then, addressing the assembly, he said, 

 " I would demand of you how long it is since this fig was 

 gathered from the tree ?" and when they all agreed that it 

 was fresh 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 de- 

 stroyed. " The Lydian figs/' says Pliny, " are of a red- 

 dish purple colour ; the Rhodian, of a blackish hue ; as is 

 the Tiburtine, which ripens before others. The white figs 

 are from Herculaneum, Albicerate, and Aratian ; the 

 Chelidonian figs are the latest, and ripen against the 

 winter : some bear twice a-year, and some of the Chalci- 

 dian kind bear three times a-year." The Romans had figs 

 from Chalcis and Chios, &c. ; and many of their varieties, 

 it appears, were named from those who first introduced or 

 cultivated them in Italy. The Li vi an fig was so named 

 after Livia, wife to the Emperor Augustus, who, it is 

 said, made an unnatural use of it to poison her husband. 



If the fig-tree was ever brought to this country by the 

 Romans, it was, in all probability, confined to the southern 

 counties; and, not being generally cultivated, was de- 

 stroyed when their villas were demolished. It is generally 



