BOOK XVI. XV. 36-xvi. 38 



XV. The most suitable roof-.shin«rle.s are got from Roof- 

 the hard-oak, and the next best from the other acorn- *'*"* 

 bearing trees and from the beech ; those most easily 

 obtained are cut from all the trees that produce 

 resin, but these are the least good to last with the 

 exception of those from the pine. Cornehus Nepos 

 informs us that Rome was roofed with shingles right 

 down to the war with Pyrrhus, a period of 470 years." 



At all events its different regions used to be denoted Trees in 

 by designations taken from the woods ^ — the Pre- 1/'^^^'^'^^ 

 cinct of Jupiter of the Beech Tree (which retains the 

 name even to-day) — where there was once a grove of 

 beeches, Oak-forest Gate, Osier Hill, where people 

 went to get osiers, and all the Groves, some even 

 named from two sorts of trees. It was in Winter-oak 

 Grove that Quintus Hortensius as dictator after the 2S7 b.c. 

 secession of the plebeians to the Janiculum Hill 

 carried the law that an order of the plebs shoukl 

 be binding on all citizens. 



XVI. The pine and the fir and all the trees that Treesyieid- 

 produce pitch were in those days considered exotics, *"^^' 

 because there were none in the neighbourhood of the 

 capital. Of these trees we shall now speak, in order 



that the whole of the source from which flavouring 

 for wine is produced may bc known at once, after 

 an account has been given of the trees in Asia or the 

 East which produce pitch. 



In Europe pitch is produced by six kinds of trees, 

 all related to one another. Of these the pine and the 

 \^11d pine have a very narrow long leaf like hair, with 

 a shai*p point at the end. The pine yields the smallest 

 amount of resin, sometimes also produced from its 

 nuts themselves, about which we have spoken, and xv. 36. 

 scarcely enough to justify its classification as a resinous 



413 



