Chap. 3.] 
THE ACOEN OAK. 
341 
' attain their growth : undermined by the waves or uprooted by 
the blasts, with their entwining roots they carry vast forests 
aloDg with them, and, thus balanced, stand upright as they float 
along, while they spread afar their huge branches like the 
rigging of so many ships. Many is the time that these trees 
have struck our fleets with alarm, when the waves have driven 
them, almost purposely it would seem, against their prows as 
they stood at anchor in the night; and the men, destitute of 
all remedy and resource, have had to engage in a naval com- 
bat with a forest of trees ! 
(2.) In the same northern regions, too, is the Hercynian^^ 
Forest, whose gigantic oaks,^^ uninjured by the lapse of ages, 
and contemporary with the creation of the world, by their near 
approach to immortality surpass all other marvels kno wn. JS'ot 
to speak of other matters that would surpass all belief, it is a 
well-known fact that their roots, as they meet together, up- 
heave vast hills ; or, if the earth happens not to accumulate 
with them, rise aloft to the very branches even, and, as they 
contend for the mastery, form arcades, like so many portals 
thrown open, and large enough to admit of the passage of a 
squadron of horse. 
(3.) All these trees, in general, belong to the glandiferous 
class, and have ever been held in the highest honour by the 
Eoman people. x . 
CHAP. 3. (4.) THE ACOEN OAK. THE CIVIC CEOWN^. 
It is with the leaves of this class of trees that our civic 
crown is made, the most glorious reward that can be bestowed 
on military valour, and, for this long time past, the emblem of 
the imperiaP^ clemency ; since the time, in fact, when, after 
11 See B. iv. c. 28, and the Note, Yol. i. p. 348. The village of Her- 
cingen, near Waldsee, is supposed to retain the ancient name. 
i-^ *' Robora." It will be seen in this Book that the robur has not been 
identified, any more than the quercus. 
13 Fee treats this story as utterly fabulous. The branches of the Ficus 
Indica grow downwards, and so form arcades certainly ; but such is not the 
-case with any European tree. 
1* Not only oaks, but a variety of other trees, were included under this 
name by the ancients; the ''glans" embracing not only the acorn, but 
the mast of the beech, and the hard fruits of other trees. 
1^ He alludes to the crown of oak-leaves, which was suspended on the 
gates before the palace of the emperors. A civic crown had been voted by 
the senate to Julius Caesar, on the ground of having saved his country. 
