Restrictions in Forest Use. 15 
Restrictions in the use of woods were not entirely 
absent, but with the exception of reserving ship timber 
in the State forests, they refer only to special classes of 
forest. 
In the frontier forests reserved for defensive purposes, 
and in the holy groves set aside by private or public 
declaration, no wood could be cut thereafter, being 
considered nobody’s property but sanctified and dedi- 
cated to religious use (res sacra), and whoever removed 
any wood from them was considered a “patricide,” ex- 
cept the cutting be done for purposes of improvement 
(thinnings) and after a prescribed sacrifice. 
With the extension of Christendom the holy trees and 
groves became the property of the emperors, who some- 
times substituted Christian holiness for the pagan, and 
retained the restrictions which had preserved them. 
Thus the cutting and selling of cypress and other trees in 
the holy grove near Antioch, and of Persea trees in 
Egypt generally (which had been deemed holy under 
the Pharaos) was prohibited under penalty of five 
pounds gold, unless specially permitted. 
In Attica as well as in Rome the theory that the 
State cannot satisfactorily carry on any business was 
well established. Hence the State forests were rented 
out, under a system of time or perpetual rent, the 
renters after exploiting the timber subletting merely 
the pasture, except where coppice could be profitably 
utilized. The officials with titles referring to their con- 
nection with the woods, as the Roman saltuarii or the 
Greek hylorot (forestguards) and villicus siluarum, the 
overseer, both slaves, had hardly even police functions. 
