OF FOREST-TREES. 



273 



confines, and were counted as Termini^ which none might remove, with- CHAP. Vl/ 

 out being accounted as sacrilegious, and the person punished with death. 

 These, and the Hermce, were reputed protectors of such boundaries : 



et te pater 



Silvane, tutor finium ! Hor. 



In the mean time, no trees whatsoever might be planted near public 

 aqueducts, lest the roots should insinuate into, and displace the stones ; 

 nor on the very margent of navigable rivers, lest the boats and other ves- 

 sels, passing to and fro, should be hindered ; therefore such impediments 

 were called retce, quia naves ret'ment, says the gloss ; and because the 

 falling of the leaves corrupted the water : so nor within such a distance of 

 highways, (which also our own laws prohibit,) that they might dry the bet- 

 ter, and less cumber the traveller. Trees that obstructed the foundation 

 of houses were to be felled : Barthol. lib. i. doct. c. de Interdict. Ulp. iri 

 L. priore fF. de Arb. csedend. Trees spreading their roots in neighbour- 

 ground to be in common : see Cujas and Paulus in L, Arb, ff. de Com- 

 muni dividend, where more of the alienation of trees felled, and not stands- 

 ing, but with as also of the TJsu-fruit of trees, and the differ- 



ence betwixt Arbores Grandes, and Cremiales or Ceduae ; of all which 

 Ulpian, Baldus, Alciat, with the laws to govern the conlucatores and 



^ The Hervice, or what the Latins call Termmi, were placed for boundaries of lands. 

 They were sometimes worshipped as gods, but the sacrifices offered to them were unbloody ; 

 and Plutarch gives the reason, " lest they should violate the tokens of peace and agree- 

 ment by staining them with blood." The Termini were originally square statues of Mer- 

 cury, and generally without legs and arms. The Athenians placed them in the vestibules of 

 their houses an,d temples, and it was esteemed highly criminal to remove or deface them. 



One night (says Thucydides) the heads of all the Hermae in the city were cut off: 

 strict search was made after the perpetrators of this crime, in order to bring them to punish- 

 ment: Aleibiades was suspected, and obliged to fly into banishment. Other heads, 



besides that of Mercury, were placed upon square pillars, and constituted Termini. 

 When it was a head of Minerva, called in Greek Athena, it was named a Hermathena. 

 Those which had Apollo's head were named Hermapollo ; and those Hermeros which had 

 the head of Cupid, from his being named Eros. Such as had the heads of Hercules, Anubis, 

 Osyris^or Harpocrates, were called Hermheracles, Hermambis, Hermosiris, and Hermharpocrates^ 

 These names frequently occur in the Latin classics. Exclusive of worship, it was strict 

 policy both in the Greeks and Romans to consider their Termini as sacred ; and if we look 

 into the books of the Old Testament, we shall find that vengeance was denounced against 

 such as removed them. " Cursed is he that removeth his neighbour's land-mark." 



