BOOK X\'II. xx.wiii. 242-245 



black fig, or as when a plane-tree at Laodicea changed 

 into an olive on tlie arrival of Xerxes. Not to launch 

 out into an absolutelv boundloss subject, the volume 

 by Aristander teems with portents of this nature 

 in Greece, as do the Notes of Gaius Epidius in our 

 own country, including cases of trees that talked." 

 An alarming portent occurred a httle before the 

 civil wars of Pompey the Great, when a tree in the 

 territory of Cumae sank into the ground leaving a 

 few branches projecting ; and a statement was found 

 in the SibvlUne Books that this portended a slaughter 

 of human beings, and that the nearer to the city 

 the portent had occurred the greater the slaughter 

 would be. 



Another class of portent is when trees grow in the 

 wrong places, as on the heads of statues or on altars, 

 and when different kinds of trees grow on trees 

 themselves. At Cyzicus bcfore the siege * a fig-tree 

 grew on a laurel ; and similarly at Trallcs about the 

 time of Caesar's civil wars a palm grew up on the 

 pedestal of the dictator's statue. Moreover at Rome 

 during the war with Perseus "^ a palm-tree grew up on 

 the altar of Jove on the Capitol, portending victory 

 and triumphal processions ; and after this tree had 

 been brought down by storms, a fig-tree sprang up in 

 the same p]acc,this occurring during the censorship ^' 

 of Marcus Messala and Gaius Cassius, a period which 

 according to so wcighty an authority as Piso dates 

 the overthrow of the sense of honour. A portent 

 that will eclipse all those ever heard of occurred in 

 our own day in the territory of the Marrucini, at the 

 fall of the emperor Nero : an oHve grove belonging 

 to a leading member of the equestrian order named 

 V^ettius Marcellus bodily crossed the public highway, 



169 



