Chap. 16.] 
THE PIIS'E. 
355 
cottages,^^ too, are made of this material. When a spy has 
been sent out he often leaves information for his general, 
written upon fresh bark, by cutting letters in the parts of it 
that are the most juicy. The bark of the beech is also em- 
ployed for religious purposes in certain sacred rites.^^ This 
tree, however, when deprived of its bark, will not survive. 
CHAP. 15. (10.) — SHII^GLES. 
The best shingles are those made of the wood of the robur ; 
the next best being those furnished by the other glandiferous 
trees and the beech. Those most easily made are cut irom 
the wood of the resinous trees, but they do not last, ^ 
with the exception of those made of pine. Cornelius 
Nepos informs us, that Eome was roofed solely with shingles 
down to the time of the war with Pyrrhus, a period of four 
hundred and seventy years. It is well known that it was 
remarkable for the fine forests in its vicinity. Even at the 
present day, the name of Jupiter Eagutalus points out in 
what locality there stood a grove of beeches;^ the Querque- 
tulan Gate shows where the quercus once stood, and the Yi- 
minal Hill is the spot where the yimen"^ was sought in 
ancient times. In many other parts, too, there were groves 
to be found, and sometimes as many as two. Q. Hortensius, 
the Dictator, on the secession of the plebeians to the Jani- 
culum, passed a law in the JEsculetum,* that what the ple- 
beians had enacted should be binding upon every Eoman 
citizen. ° 
CHAP. 16. THE PINE. 
In those days they regarded as exotics, because they did not 
exist in the vicinity^ of the City, the pine and the fir, as well 
as all the other varieties that produce pitch ; of which we shall 
now proceed to speak, in order that the method of seasoning 
This is still the case in some of the poorer provinces of Spain. 
93 As Fee remarks, Mars is no longer the Divinity in honour of v^honi 
characters are traced on the bark of trees. 
^ On the contrary. Fee says, the resinous woods are the most proof of 
all against the action of the air. 
Festus says that the Fagutal, a shrine of Jupiter, was so called from 
a beech tree (fagus) that stood there, and was sacred to that god. 
^ Or osier. 
^ Or "plantation of the sssculus." ^ a.u.c. 367* 
^ Fee regards this as an extremely doubtful assertion. 
A A 2 
