BOOK XVI. Lxxxiv. 232-Lxxxvi. 236 



and their tusks cut in slices, and wood to be inluid 

 and later veenered with ivory. Next came the fancy 

 of ransacking even the sea for material : tortoiseshell 

 was cut up to provide it, and recently, in the 

 principate of Nero, it was discovered by miraculous 

 devices how to cause it to lose its natural ap- 

 pearance by means of paints and fetch a higher 

 price by imitating wood. A Httle time ago luxury 

 had not thought wood good enough, but now it 

 actually manufactures wood out of tortoiseshell. By 

 these methods high prices are sought for couches and 

 orders are given to outdo tuqDcntine wood, make a 

 more costly citrus, and counterfeit maple. 



LXXXV. If one thinks of the remote regions of the instances cj 

 world and the impenetrable forests, it is possible that /S!" ^' 

 some trees have an immeasurable span of \ife. But 

 of those that the memory of man preserves there 

 still live an oUve planted by the hand of the elder 

 Africanus on his estate at Liternum and Ukewise a 

 myrtle of remarkable size in the same place — 

 underneath them is a grotto in which a snake is said 

 to keep guard over Africanus's shade — and a lotus oidueeiin 

 tree in the precinct of Lucina at Rome founded in Rome. 

 375 B.c, a year in which no magistrates were elected ; 

 how much older the tree itself is uncertain, but at aU 

 events there is no doubt that it is clder, since it is 

 from the grove in qtjw^stion that the goddess Lucina <* 

 takes her name. This tree is now about 500 years 

 old ; stiU older, though its age is uncertain, is the 

 lotus tree caUed the Hair Tree. because the \'estal 

 \'irgins' offering of hair is brought to it. 



LXXXVI. But there is another lotus tree in the 

 precincts of \'ulcan founded by Romulus from a 

 tithe of his spoils of victory, which on the authority 



539 



