L 1 B R A R Y 1 AUG - 6 1959 THE ONTAPJO iNST!T'J^^ FOR STUDIES !N EDUCATION THE LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY FOUNDED BY JAMES LOEB, LL.D. EDITED BY fT. E. PAGE, C.H., LITT.D. fE. CAPPS, PH.D., LL.D. fW. H. D. ROUSE, litt.d. L. A. POST, L.H.D. E. H. WARMINGTON, m.a., f.b.hist.soc. PLTXY NATURAL HISTORY V LIBKI XVII-XIX PLINY NATURAL HISTORY WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION IN TEN VOLUMES VOLUME V LIBRl XVIl-XIX BY H. RACKHAM, M.A. FtU-OW OF CHRIST'S COLLICGE, CAMURIDaE CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD MCMLXX Reprinlrtl V.'iil Prinled in Grmt Britnin CONTENTS PAOE IXTRODUCTION V BOOK XVII 1 BOOK XVIII 187 BOOK XIX 419 INDEX 542 INTRODUCTION Tnis volume contains Books XVII, XV^III, XIX, of Flinvs Xaturalis Ilistoria. Book XVTI continues the subject of arboriculture, begun in the preceding Books ; Book X\II1 deals with cereal agriculture ; Book XIX with the cultivation of flax and other plants used for fabrics. and with vegetable gardening. PHnv's own outhne of the contents given in Book I will l)e found in V ohime I, pp. 80-91. At the time of his death Mr. Rackham was engaged in work on the galley proofs of this volume. With the exception of some parts which were re- written by Prof. F,. H. Warmington the translation is Mr. Rackham's work. Note that there is an Index of plants at the end of Vol. Vll. PLINY : NATURAL HLSTORY BOOK XVII PLIXII: NATURALIS HISTORIAE LIBER XVII I. Natura arborum terra marique sponte sua pru- venientium dicta est; restat earum quae arte et humanis ingeniis fiunt verius quam nascuntur. sed prius niirari succurrit qua retulimus paenuria pro indiviso possessas a feris, depugnante cum his homine circa caducos fructus, circa pcndentes vero et ciun alitibus, in tanta deliciarum pretia venisse, clarissimo, ut cquidem arbitror, exemplo L. Crassi atquc Cn. 2 Domitii Ahenobarbi. Crassus orator fuit in primis nominis Romani ; domus ei niagnifica, sed aliquanto praestantior in eodem Palatio Q. CatuU qui Cimbros cum C. Mario fiidit, multo vero pulcerrima consensu omnium aetate ea in colle V^iminali C. Aquilii cquitis Romani clarioris illa etiam quam iuris civllis scientia, " Th. liattlf of the Raudine Plain, lUl B.c. PLINY: NATURAL HISTORY BOOK XVII I. We have now stated the natiu'e of the trees that Arbori. grow of their accord land in the own on and sea ; and 'yuil^^i^ there remain those which owe what is more truly de- '''«^^- >^cribed as their foi-mation than their birth to art and to the ingenioas devices of mankind. But it is in place first to express surprise at the way in which the trees that, under the niggardly system that we have recorded, were held in common ownersliip by the wild animals, with man doing battle with them for the fruit that fell to the ground and also with the birds for that which still hung on the tree, have come to command such high prices as articles of luxury—the most famous instance, in my judgement, being the aifair of Lucius Crassus and Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus. Crassus was one of the leading Roman orators ; he owned a splendid mansion, but it was considerablv surpassed by another that was also on the Palatine Ilill, be- longing to Quintus Catulus, the coUeague of Gaius Marius in the defeat" of the Cimbrians ; while by far the tinest house of that period was by universal agree- ment the one on the Viminal Hill owned by Gaius Aquilius, Knight of Rome, who was even more cele- brated for this property than he was for his knowledge of civil law, although nevertheless in the case of 3 PLINY: NATURAL HLSTORY 3 cum ^ tamen obiecta Crasso sua est. nobilissimarum gentium ambo censuram post consulatus simul gessere anno cunditae urliis dclxii frequentem iur«;iis propter dissiinilitudinem morum. tum Cn. Domitiu»». ut erat vehemens natura, praeterea accensus odio, quod ex aemulatione acidissimum - est, graviter in- crepuit tanti censorem habitare, m hs pro domo eius 4 identidem promittens ; et Crassus, ut praesens ingenio semper et ^ faceto lepore sollers, addicere se re- spondit exceptis sex arboribiLS. ac ne uno quidem denario si adimerentur emptam volente Domitio Crassus ' Utrumne igitur ego sum,' inquit, ' quaeso, Domiti,exemplo gra\is et ipsa mea censura notandus qui domo quae mihi hereditate ol)venit comiter 5 habitem, an tu cjui sex arbores m aestimes?' hae fuere lotoe patula ramorum opacitate lascivae, Caecina Largo e proceribus crebro iuventa nostra eas in domo sua ostentante, duraveruntque, quo- niam et de longissimo aevo arborum diximus, ad Neronis principis incendia [quibus creraavit urbem annis postea] * cultu virides iuvenesque, ni princeps 6 ille adcelerasset etiam arborum mortem. ac ne quis vilem de cetero Crassi domum nihilque in ea ^ tum? Mai/hoff. * acidissimum V Mai/hoff: avidissimuin n«/ audissimum. ' Rackhnm {ita': Warmington) : ut. ' Serl. Dethfxeii. — BOOK XVII. I. 2-6 Crassus his mansion was considered a reproach to him. Crassus and Domitius both belonged to famiHes of high distinction, and they were colleagues as consuls and afterwards, in 92 b.c, as censors : owing to their dissimilarity of oharacter their tenure of the censorship was fiUed with quarrels between theni. On the oc- casion referred to, Gnaeus Domitius, being a man of hasty temper and moreover inflamed by that par- ticularly sour kind of hatred which springs out of rivalry, gave Crassus a severe rebuke for hving on so expensive a scale when holding the ofKce of censor, and repeatedly declared that he would give a milHon sesterces for his mansion ; and Crassus, who ahvays had a ready wit and was good at clever repartees, repHed that he accepted the bid, with the reservation of half a dozen trees. Domitius dccHned to buy the place even for a shiUing without the timber. ' WeH then,' said Crassus,' teH me pray,Domitius,am I the onewho is setting a bad example and who deserves a mark of censure from the very ofFice which I am m}'self occupying I, who Hve quite unpretentiously in the house that came to me by inheritance, or is it you, who price six trees at a miHion sesterces ? ' The trees referred to were nettle-trees, with an exuberance of spreading, shady branches ; Caecina Largus, one of the great gentlemen of Rome, in our young days used frequently to point them out in the mansion, of which he was then the owner, and they lasted—as we have already also spoken of the Hmits of longevity in xvi. 234 Nero's conflagration, trees—down to the Emperor '^-^ ^^ thanks to careful tendance stiH verdant and vigorous, had not the emperor mentioned hastened the death even of trees. And let nobody suppose that Crassus's inansion was in other respects a poo. affair, and that it 5 PLINY: NATURAL HISTORY iurganti Doniitio fuisse licendum ^ praeter arbores iudicct, iam columnas vi - Hymettii marnioris aedili- tatis gratia ad scenam ornandam advectas in atrio eius domus statuerat, cum in publico nondum essent ullae marmoreae : tam recens estopulentia ! tantoque timc i>lus lionoris arbores domibus adferebant ut sine illis ne inimicitiarum quidem pretium servaverit Domitius. 7 Fuere ab his et cognomina antiqui>^ : Frondicio militi illi qui praeclara facinora \'olturnum transna- tans frondc inposita adversus Hannibalem cdidit, Stolonum Liciniae genti : ita appellatur in ipsis arboribus fruticatio inutilis, unde et pampinatio inventa primo Stoloni dcdit nomon. fuit ct arborum cura lcgibus priscis, cautumque est .\n tabulis ut qui iniuria cecidisset alienas lueret in singulas aeris x.w, quid existimamus, venturasne eas credidisse ad supra dictam aestimationem illos qui vtl frugifcras 8 tanti taxaverant ? nec minus miraculum iii pomo cst multarum circa suburbana fructu annuo addicto binis milibus nummum, maiore singularum reditu quam erat apud antiquos pracdioruni. ob hoc insita et arborum quoque adulteria excogitata sunt, ut nec ' Mayhojf : diconfluni. » Urlichs(cf. XXXVI. 7): iv. — BOOK XVII. I. 6-8 contained nnthing beside trees to attract this pro- voking bid from Domitius ; on the contrary, he liad already erected for decorative purposes in the court of thc niansion six pillars of marble from Mt. Hymettus, which in view of his aedileship he had imported to em- belHsh the staffc of the theatre—and this althouffh hitherto there were no marble pillars in any public place : of so recent a date is luxurious wealth ! And at that date so much greater distinction was added to mansions by trees that Domitius actually would not keep to the price suggested by a quarrel without the timber in question being thrown in. In forraer generations people even got their surnames Meii's names •^''^"* ""^*^*" from trees ; for instance Frondicius, the soldier ^yho performed such remarkable exploits against Hanni- hal, swimming across the Volturno with a screen of fohage on his head, and the Licinian family of the Stolones stolo being the word for the useless suckers growing on the actual trees, on account of which the first Stolo received the name from his invention of a process of trimming vines. In early daj-s trees cven werc protected by the law, and the Twelve Tables provided that anybody wrongfuUy felhng another man's trees should be fined 25 ass^s for each tree. What are we to think ? That people of old who rated even fruit-trees so highlv beUeved that trees woukl rise to the value mentioncd above ? And in the Vaimbie •^''""""'*^*' rnatter of fruit-trees no less marvellous are many of those in the districts surrounding the city, the produce of which is every year knocked down to bids of 2000 sesterces per tree, a single tree yielding a larger return than farms used to do in old days.