BOOK Xlll. XXIX. 92-95 



and also one is recorded as belonging to Gallus 

 Asinius that cost a million. Also two hanging tables 

 were sold at auction by King Juba, of which one 

 fetched 1,200,000 sesterces and the other a httle less. 

 A table that was lately destroyed in a fire came down 

 from the Cethegi and had changed hands at 1,300,000 

 sesterces — the price of a large estate, supposing 

 somebody preferred to devote so large a sum to the 

 purchase of landed property. The size of the largest 

 tables hitherto has been : one made by Ptolemy, 

 king of Mauretania, out of two semicircular slabs of 

 wood joined together, 4i ft. in diameter and 3 in. thick 

 — and the invisibihty of the join makes the table more 

 marvellous as a work of art than it could possibly have 

 been if a product of nature — and a single slab bear- 

 ing the name of Nomius a freedman of the Emperor 

 which is 3 ft. 11 J in. across and 11 J in. thick. Under 

 this head it seems proper to include a table that be- 

 longed to the Emperor Tiberius which was 4 ft. 2J in. 

 across, and 1 J in. thick all over, but was only covered 

 with a veneer of citrus-wood, although the one 

 belonging to his freedman Nomius was so sumptuous. 

 The material is an excrescence of the root, and is 

 very greatly admired when it grows entirely under- 

 ground, and so is more uncommon than the knobs 

 that grow above ground, on the branches as well as on 

 the trunk ; and the timber bought at so high a price 

 is in reahty a disease of the trees, the size and the 

 roots of which can be judged from the circular table- 

 tops. In foliage, scent and the appearance of the 

 trunk these trees resemble the female cypress, which 

 is also a forest tree. A mountain called Ancorarius 

 in Hither Mauretania provided the most celebrated 

 citrus-wood, but the supply is now exhausted. 



155 



