Delphi Complete Works of Pliny the Elder

by Pliny the Elder

  CHAP. 25. (23.)

  EIGHTEEN VARIETIES OF THE CHESNUT.

  We give the name of nut, too, to the chesnut, although it would seem more properly to belong to the acorn tribe. The chesnut has its armour of defence in a shell bristling with prickles like the hedge-hog, an envelope which in the acorn is only partially developed. It is really surprising, however, that Nature should have taken such pains thus to conceal an object of so little value. We sometimes find as many as three nuts beneath a single outer shell. The skin of the nut is limp and flexible: there is a membrane, too, which lies next to the body of the fruit, and which, both in this and in the walnut, spoils the flavour if not taken off, Chesnuts are the most pleasant eating when roasted: they are sometimes ground also, and are eaten by women when fasting for religious scruples, as bearing some resemblance to bread. It is from Sardes that the chesnut was first introduced, and hence it is that the Greeks have given it the name of the “Sardian acorn;” for the name “Dios balanon” was given at a later period, after it had been considerably improved by cultivation.

  At the present day there are numerous varieties of the chesnut. Those of Tarentum are a light food, and by no means difficult of digestion; they are of a flat shape. There is a rounder variety, known as the “balanitis;” it is very easily peeled, and springs clean out of the shell, so to say, of its own accord. The Salarian chesnut has a smooth outer shell, while that of Tarentum is not so easily handled. The Corellian is more highly esteemed, as is the Etereian, which is an offshoot from it produced by a method upon which we shall have to enlarge when we come to speak of grafting. This last has a red skin, which causes it to be preferred to the three-cornered chesnut and our black common sorts, which are known as “coctivæ.” Tarentum and Neapolis in Campania are the most esteemed localities for the chesnut: other kinds, again, are grown to feed pigs upon, the skin of which is rough and folded inwards, so as to penetrate to the heart of the kernel.

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  CHAP. 26. (24.)

  THE CAROB.

  The carob, a fruit of remarkable sweetness, does not ap- pear to be so very dissimilar to the chesnut, except that the skin is eaten as well as the inside. It is just the length of a finger, and about the thickness of the thumb, being sometimes of a curved shape, like a sickle. The acorn cannot be reckoned in the number of the fruits; we shall, therefore, speak of it along with the trees of that class.

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  CHAP. 27.

  TE FLESHY FRUITS. THE MULBERRY.

  The other fruits belong to the fleshy kind, and differ both in the shape and the flesh. The flesh of the various berries, of the mulberry, and of the arbute, are quite different from one another — and then what a difference, too, between the grape, which is only skin and juice, the myxa plum, and the flesh of some berries, such as the olive, for instance! In the flesh of the mulberry there is a juice of a vinous flavour, and the fruit assumes three different colours, being at first white, then red, and ripe when black. The mulberry blossoms one of the very last, and yet is among the first to ripen: the juice of the fruit, when ripe, will stain the hands, but that of the unripe fruit will remove the marks. It is in this tree that human ingenuity has effected the least Improvement of all; there are no varieties here, no modifications effected by grafting, nor, in fact, any other improvement except that the size of the fruit, by careful management, has been increased. At Rome, there is a distinction made between the mulberries of Ostia and those of Tusculum. A variety grows also on brambles, but the flesh of the fruit is of a very different nature.

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  CHAP. 28.

  THE FRUIT OF THE ARBUTUS.

  The flesh of the ground-strawberry is very different to that of the arbute-tree, which is of a kindred kind: indeed, this is the only instance in which we find a similar fruit growing upon a tree and on the ground. The tree is tufted and bushy; the fruit takes a year to ripen, the blossoms of the young fruit flowering while that of the preceding year is arriving at maturity. Whether it is the male tree or the female that is unproductive, authors are not generally agreed.

  This is a fruit held in no esteem, in proof of which it has gained its name of “unedo,” people being generally content with eating but one. The Greeks, however, have found for it two names— “comaron” and “memecylon,” from which it would appear that there are two varieties. It has also with us another name besides that of “unedo,” being known also as the “arbutus.” Juba states that in Arabia this tree attains the height of fifty cubits.

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  CHAP. 29.

  THE RELATIVE NATURES OF BERRY FRUITS.

  There is a great difference also among the various acinus fruits. First of all, among the grapes, we find considerable difference in respect to their firmness, the thinness or thickness of the skin, and the stone inside the fruit, which in some varieties is remarkably small, and in others even double in number: these last producing but very little juice. Very different, again, are the berries of the ivy and the elder; as also those in the pomegranate, these being the only ones that are of an angular shape. These last, also, have not a membrane for each individual grain, but one to cover them all in common, and of a pale colour. All these fruits consist, too, of juice and flesh, and those more particularly which have but small seeds inside.

  There are great varieties, too, among the berry fruits; the berry of the olive being quite different from that of the laurel, the berry of the lotus from that of the cornel, and that of the myrtle from the berry of the lentisk. The berry, however, of the aquifolium and the thorn is quite destitute of juice.

  The cherry occupies a middle place between the berry and the acinus fruit: it is white at first, which is the case also with nearly all the berries. From white, some of the berries pass to green, the olive and the laurel, for instance; while in the mulberry, the cherry, and the cornel, the change is to red; and then in some to black, as with the mulberry, the cherry, and the olive, for instance.

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  CHAP. 30. (25.)

  NINE VARIETIES OF THE CHERRY.

  The cherry did not exist in Italy before the period of the victory gained over Mithridates by L. Lucullus, in the year of the City 680. He was the first to introduce this tree from Pontus, and now, in the course of one hundred and twenty years, it has travelled beyond the Ocean, and arrived in Bri- tannia even. The cherry, as we have already stated, in spite of every care, it has been found impossible to rear in Egypt. Of this fruit, that known as the “Apronian is the reddest variety, the Lutatian being the blackest, and the Cæcilian perfectly round. The Junian cherry has an agreeable flavour, but only, so to say, when eaten beneath the tree, as they are so remarkably delicate that they will not bear carrying. The highest rank, however, has been awarded to the duracinus variety, known in Campania as the “Plinian” cherry, and in Belgica to the Lusitanian cherry, as also to one that grows on the banks of the Rhenus. This last kind has a third colour, being a mixture of black, red, and green, and has always the appearance of being just on the turn to ripening. It is less than five years since the kind known as the “laurel- cherry” was introduced, of a bitter but not unpleasant flavour, the produce of a graft upon the laurel. The Macedonian cherry grows on a tree that is very small, and rarely exceeds three cubits in height; while the chamæcerasus is still smaller, being but a mere shrub. The cherry is one of the first trees to recompense the cultivator with its yearly growth; it loves cold localities and a site exposed to the north. The fruit are sometimes dried in the sun, and preserved, like olives, in casks.

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  CHAP. 31. (26.)

  THE CORNEL. THE LENTISK.

  The same degree of care is expended also on the cultivation of the cornel and the lentisk; that it may not be thought, forsooth, that there is anything that was not made for the craving appetite of man! Various flavours are blended to- gether, and one is compelled to please our palate
s by the aid of another — hence it is that the produce of different lands and various climates are so often mingled with one another. For one kind of food it is India that we summon to our aid, and then for another we lay Egypt under contribution, or else Crete, or Cyrene, every country, in fact: no, nor does man stick at poisons even, if he can only gratify his longing to devour everything: a thing that will be still more evident when we come to treat of the nature of herbs.

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  CHAP. 32. (27.)

  THIRTEEN DIFFERENT FLAVOURS OF JUICES.

  While upon this subject, it may be as well to state that there are no less than thirteen different flavours belonging in common to the fruits and the various juices: the sweet, the luscious, the unctuous, the bitter, the rough, the acrid, the pungent, the sharp, the sour, and the salt; in addition to which, there are three other kinds of flavours of a nature that is truly singular. The first of these last kinds is that flavour in which several other flavours are united, as in wine, for instance; for in it we are sensible of the rough, the pungent, and the luscious, all at the same moment, and all of them flavours that belong to other substances. The second of these flavours is that in which we are sensible at the same instant of a flavour that belongs to another substance, and yet of one that is peculiar to the individual object of which we are tasting, such as that of milk, for instance: indeed, in milk we cannot correctly say that there is any pronounced flavour that is either sweet, or unctuous, or luscious, a sort of smooth taste in the mouth being predominant, which holds the place of a more decided flavour. The third instance is that of water, which has no flavour whatever, nor, indeed, any flavouring principle; but still, this very absence of flavour is considered as constituting one of them, and forming a peculiar class of itself; so much so, indeed, that if in water any taste or flavouring principle is detected, it is looked upon as impure.

  In the perception of all these various flavours the smell plays a very considerable part, there being a very great affinity between them. Water, however, is properly quite inodorous: and if the least smell is to be perceived, it is not pure water. It is a singular thing that three of the principal elements of Nature — water, air, and fire — should have neither taste nor smell, nor, indeed, any flavouring principle whatever.

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  CHAP. 33. (28.)

  THE COLOUR AND SMELL OF JUICES.

  Among the juices, those of a vinous flavour belong to the pear, the mulberry, and the myrtle, and not to the grape, a very singular fact. An unctuous taste is detected in the olive, the laurel, the walnut, and the almond; sweetness exists in the grape, the fig, and the date; while in the plum class we find a watery juice. There is a considerable difference, too, in the colours assumed by the various juices. That of the mulberry, the cherry, the cornel, and the black grape resembles the colour of blood, while in the white grape the juice is white. The humour found in the summit of the fig is of a milky nature, but not so with the juice found in the body of the fruit. In the apple it is the colour of foam, while in the peach it is perfectly colourless, and this is the case, too, with the duracinus, which abounds in juice; for who can say that he has ever detected any colour in it?

  Smell, too, presents its own peculiar marvels; in the apple it is pungent, and it is weak in the peach, while in the sweet fruits we perceive none at all: so, too, the sweet wines are inodorous, while the thinner ones have more aroma, and are much sooner fit for use than those of a thicker nature. The odoriferous fruits are not pleasing to the palate in the same degree, seeing that the flavour of them does not come up to their smell: hence it is that in the citron we find the smell so extremely penetrating, and the taste sour in the highest degree. Sometimes the smell is of a more delicate nature, as in the quince, for instance; while the fig has no odour whatever.

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  CHAP. 34.

  THE VARIOUS NATURES OF FRUIT.

  Thus much, then, for the various classes and kinds of fruit: it will be as well now to classify their various natures within a more limited scope. Some fruits grow in a pod which is sweet itself, and contains a bitter seed: whereas in most kinds of fruit the seed is agreeable to the palate, those which grow in a pod are condemned. Other fruits are berries, with the stone within and the flesh without, as in the olive and the cherry: others, again, have the berry within and the stone without, the case, as we have already stated, with the berries that grow in Egypt.

  Those fruits, known as “pomes,” have the same characteristics as the berry fruits; in some of them we find the body of the fruit within and the shell without, as in the nut, for example; others, again, have the meat of the fruit without and the shell within, the peach and the plum, for instance: the refuse part being thus surrounded with the flesh, while in other fruits the flesh is surrounded by the refuse part. nuts are enclosed in a shell, chesnuts in a skin; in chesnuts the skin is taken off, but in medlars it is eaten with the rest. Acorns are covered with a crust, grapes with a husk, and pomegranates with a skin and an inner membrane. The mulberry is composed of flesh and juice, while the cherry consists of juice and skin. In some fruits the flesh separates easily from the woody part, the walnut and the date, for instance; in others it adheres, as in the case of the olive and the laurel berry: some kinds, again, partake of both natures, the peach, for example; for in the duracinus kind the flesh adheres to the stone, and cannot be torn away from it, while in the other sorts they are easily separated. In some fruits there is no stone or shell either within or without, one variety of the date, for instance. In some kinds, again, the shell is eaten, just the same as the fruit; this we have already mentioned as being the case with a variety of the almond found in Egypt. Some fruits have on the outside a twofold refuse covering, the chesnut, the almond, and the walnut, for example. Some, again, are composed of three separate parts — the body of the fruit, then a woody shell, and inside of that a kernel, as in the peach.

  Some fruits grow closely packed together, such as grapes and sorbs: these last, just like so many grapes in a cluster, cling round the branch and bend it downwards with their weight. On the other hand, some fruits grow separately, at a distance from one another; this is the case with the peach. Some fruits are enclosed in a sort of matrix, as with the grains of the pomegranate: some hang down from a stalk, such as the pear, for instance: others hang in clusters, grapes and dates, for example. Others, again, grow upon stalks and bunches united: this we find the case with the berries of the ivy and the elder. Some adhere close to the branches, like the laurel berry, while other varieties lie close to the branch or hang from it, as the case may be: thus we find in the olive some fruit with short stalks, and others with long. Some fruits grow with a little calyx at the top, the pomegranate, for example, the medlar, and the lotus of Egypt and the Euphrates.

  Then, too, as to the various parts of fruit, they are held in different degrees of esteem according to their respective recommendations. In the date it is the flesh that is usually liked, in those of Thebais it is the crust; the grape and the caryota date are esteemed for their juice, the pear and the apple for their firmness, the melimelum for its soft meat, the mulberry for its cartilaginous consistency, and nuts for their kernels. Some fruits in Egypt are esteemed for their skin; the carica, for instance. This skin, which in the green fig is thrown away as so much refuse peeling, when the fig is dried is very highly esteemed. In the papyrus, the ferula, and the white thorn the stalk itself constitutes the fruit, and the shoots of the fig-tree are similarly employed.

  Among the shrubs, the fruit of the caper is eaten along with the stalk; and in the carob, what is the part that is eaten but so much wood? Nor ought we to omit one peculiarity that exists in the seed of this fruit — it can be called neither flesh, wood, nor cartilage, and yet no other name has been found for it.

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  CHAP. 35. (29).

  THE MYRTLE.

  The nature of the juices that are found in the myrtle are pa
rticularly remarkable, for it is the only one of all the trees, the berries of which produce two kinds of oil as well as of wine, besides myrtidanum, of which we have already spoken. The berry of this was also put to another use in ancient times, for before pepper was known it was employed in place of it as a seasoning; so much so, indeed, that a name has been derived from it for the highly-seasoned dish which to this day is known by the name of “myrtatum.” It is by the aid of these berries, too, that the flavour of the flesh of the wild boar is improved, and they generally form one of the ingredients in the flavouring of our sauces.

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  CHAP. 36.

  HISTORICAL ANECDOTES RELATIVE TO THE MYRTLE.

  This tree was seen for the first time in the regions of Europe, which commence on this side of the Ceraunian mountains, growing at Circeii, near the tomb of Elpenor there: it still retains its Greek name, which clearly proves it to be an exotic. There were myrtles growing on the site now occupied by Rome, at the time of its foundation; for a tradition exists to the effect that the Romans and the Sabines, after they had intended fighting, on account of the virgins who had been ravished by the former, purified themselves, first laying down their arms, with sprigs of myrtle, on the very same spot which is now occupied by the statues of Venus Cluacina; for in the ancient language “cluere” means to purify.

  This tree is employed, too, for a species of fumigation; being selected for that purpose, because Venus, who presides over all unions, is the tutelary divinity of the tree. I am not quite sure, too, whether this tree was not the very first that was planted in the public places of Rome, the result of some ominous presage by the augurs of wondrous import. For at the Temple of Quirinus, or, in other words, of Romulus himself, one of the most ancient in Rome, there were formerly two myrtle-trees, which grew for a long period just in front of the temple; one of these was called the Patrician tree, the other the Plebeian. The Patrician myrtle was for many years the superior tree, full of sap and vigour; indeed, so long as the Senate maintained its superiority, so did the tree, being of large growth, while the Plebeian tree presented a meagre, shrivelled appearance. In later times, however, the latter tree gained the superiority, and the Patrician myrtle began to fail just at the period of the Marsic War, when the power of the Senate was so greatly weakened: and little by little did this once majestic tree sink into a state of utter exhaustion and sterility. There was an ancient altar also, consecrated’ to Venus Myrtea, known at the present day by the name of Murcia.