Delphi Complete Works of Pliny the Elder

by Pliny the Elder

  There are also considerable differences in the qualities of these trees according to the country of their growth: the most esteemed are those of the Alps and the Apennines; in Gaul, those of Jura and Mount Vogesus; those also of Corsica, Bithynia, Pontus, and Macedonia; while the firs of Ænea and Arcadia are of inferior quality. Those, however, of Parnassus and Eubœa are the worst of all, the trees being branchy and knotted, and the wood very apt to rot. As for the cedar, those of Crete, Africa, and Syria are the most esteemed. Wood, if well rubbed with oil of cedar, is proof against wood-worm and decay. The juniper, too, has the same virtues as the cedar; in Spain it grows to a very considerable size, in the territory of the Vacæi more particularly: the heart of this tree, too, is universally more firm and solid than cedar even. A general fault in all wood is that known as cross-grain, which is formed by contortions of the knots and veins. In the wood of some trees there are to be found knurs, like those in marble; these knurs are remarkably hard, and offer a resistance like that of a nail, to the great injury of the saw: in some cases, also, they are formed accidentally, from either a stone, or the branch of another tree lodging there, and being absorbed in the body of the tree.

  In the Forum at Megara there long stood a wild olive upon which warriors who had distinguished themselves by their martial powers had been in the habit of suspending their arms. In the lapse of time the bark of this tree had closed, and quite concealed these arms from view. Upon it, however, depended the fate of the city; for it had been announced by an oracle, that when a tree there should bring forth arms, the fall of the city would be close at hand: and such, in fact, was the result, when the tree was cut down and greaves and helmets were found within the wood. It is said that stones found under these circumstances have the property of preventing abortion.

  (40.) It is generally thought that the largest tree that has ever been seen, was the one that was exhibited at Rome, by Tiberius Cæsar, as an object of curiosity, upon the bridge of the Naumachia previously mentioned. It had been brought thither along with other timber, and was preserved till the construction of the amphitheatre of the Emperor Nero: it was a log of larch, one hundred and twenty feet long, and of an uniform thickness of a couple of feet. From this fact we can form an estimate of the original height of the tree; indeed, measured from top to bottom it must have been originally of a length that is almost incredible. In our own time, too, in the porticos of the Septa, there was a log which had been left there by M. Agrippa, as being equally an object of curiosity, having been found too large to be used in the building of the vote office there: it was twenty feet shorter than the one previously mentioned, and a foot-and-a-half in thickness. There was a fir, too, that was particularly admired, when it formed the mast of the ship, which brought from Egypt, by order of the Emperor Caius, the obelisk that was erected in the Vaticanian Circus, with the four blocks of stone intended for its base. It is beyond all doubt that there has been seen nothing on the sea more wonderful than this ship: one hundred and twenty thousand modii of lentils formed its ballast; and the length of it took up the greater part of the left side of the harbour at Ostia. It was sunk at that spot by order of the Emperor Claudius, three moles, each as high as a tower, being built upon it; they were constructed with cement which the same vessel had conveyed from Puteoli. It took the arms of four men to span the girth of this tree, and we not unfrequently hear of the price of masts for such purposes, as being eighty thousand sesterces or more: rafts, too, of this wood are sometimes put together, the value of which is forty thousand. In Egypt and Syria, it is said, the kings, for want of fir, used to employ cedar for building their ships: the largest cedar that we find mentioned is said to have come from Cyprus, where it was cut to form the mast of a galley of eleven tiers of oars that belonged to Demetrius: it was one hundred and thirty feet in length, and took three men to span its girth. The pirates of Germany navigate their seas in vessels formed of a single tree hollowed out: some of these will hold as many as thirty men.

  Of all woods, the most compact, and consequently the hea- viest, are the ebony and the box, both of them of a slender make. Neither of these woods will float in water, nor, indeed, will that of the cork tree, if the bark is removed; the same is the case, too, with the wood of the larch. Of the other woods, the driest is that of the tree known at Rome as the lotus, and next, that of the robur, when the white sap has been removed. The wood of the robur is dark, and that of the cytisus still more so, approaching, in fact, the nearest of all to the colour of ebony; though there are not wanting writers who assert that the wood of the Syrian terebinth is darker. An artist of the name of Thericles is highly spoken of for his skill in turning goblets from the wood of the terebinth: and, indeed, that fact is a proof of the goodness of the wood. Terebinth is the only wood that requires to be rubbed with oil, and is im- proved thereby. Its colour is imitated remarkably well with the walnut and the wild pear, which have its peculiar tint imparted to them by being boiled in colouring liquid. The wood of all the trees of which we have here made mention is firm and compact. Next after them comes the cornel, although it can hardly be looked upon as timber, in consequence of its remarkable slimness; the wood of it, in fact, is used for hardly any other purpose than the spokes of wheels, or else for making wedges for splitting wood, and pins or bolts, which have all the hardness of those of iron. Besides these, there are the holm-oak, the wild and the cultivated olive, the chesnut, the yoke-elm, and the poplar. This last is mottled similarly to the maple, and would be used for joiners’ work if wood could be good for anything when the branches are so often lopped: that acting upon the tree as a sort of castration, and depriving it of its strength. In addition to these facts, most of these trees, but the robur more particularly, are so extremely hard, that it is quite impossible to bore the wood till it has been soaked in water; and even then, a nail once driven home cannot be drawn out again. On the other hand, a nail has no hold in cedar. The wood of the lime is the softest of all, and, as it would appear, the hottest by nature; a proof of this, they say, is the fact that it will turn the edge of the adze sooner than any other wood. In the number, also, of the trees that are hot by nature, are the mulberry, the laurel, the ivy, and all those woods from which fire is kindled by attrition.

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  CHAP. 77.

  METHODS OF OBTAINING FIRE FROM WOOD.

  This is a method which has been employed by the outposts of armies, and by shepherds, on occasions when there has not been a stone at hand to strike fire with. Two pieces of wood are rubbed briskly together, and the friction soon sets them on fire; which is caught on dry and inflammable substances, fun- guses and leaves being found to ignite the most readily. There is nothing superior to the wood of the ivy for rubbing against, or to that of the laurel for rubbing with. A species of wild vine, too — not the same as the labrusca — which climbs up other trees like the ivy, is highly approved of. The coldest woods of all are those of the aquatic trees; but they are the most flexible also, and for that reason the best adapted for the construction of bucklers. On an incision being made in them, they will contract immediately, and so close up their wounds, at the same time rendering it more difficult for the iron to penetrate: in the number of these woods are the fig, the willow, the lime, the birch, the elder, and both varieties of the poplar.

  The lightest of all these woods, and consequently the most useful, are the fig and the willow. They are all of them employed, however, in the manufacture of baskets and other utensils of wicker-work; while, at the same time, they possess a degree of whiteness and hardness which render them very well adapted for carving. The plane has considerable flexibility, but it is moist and slimy like the alder. The elm, too, the ash, the mulberry, and the cherry, are flexible, but of a drier nature; the wood, however, is more weighty. The elm is the best of all for retaining its natural toughness, and hence it is more particularly employed for socket beams for hinges, and cases for the pannelling of doors, being proof against warping. It is requisite, however
, that the beam to receive the hinge should be inverted when set up, the top of the tree answering to the lower hinge, the root to the upper. The wood of the palm and the cork-tree is soft, while that of the apple and the pear is compact. Such, however, is not the case with the maple, its wood being brittle, as, in fact, all veined woods are. In every kind of tree, the varieties in the wood are still more augmented by the wild trees and the males. The wood, too, of the barren tree is more solid than that of the fruit-bearing ones, except in those species in which the male trees bear fruit, the cypress and the cornel, for instance.

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  CHAP. 78.

  TREES WHICH ARE PROOF AGAINST DECAY: TREES WHICH NEVER SPLIT.

  The following trees are proof against decay and the other- wise injurious effects of age — the cypress, the cedar, the ebony, the lotus, the box, the yew, the juniper, and both the wild and cultivated olive. Among the others, the larch, the robur, the cork-tree, the chesnut, and the walnut are also remarkably durable. The cedar, cypress, olive, and box are never known to split or crack spontaneously.

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  CHAP. 79.

  HISTORICAL FACTS CONNECTED WITH THE DURABILITY OF WOOD.

  Of all the woods, the ebony, the cypress, and the cedar are considered to be the most durable, a good proof of which is to be seen in the timber of which the Temple of Diana at Ephesus is built: it being now four hundred years since it was erected, at the joint expense of the whole of Asia; and, what is a well-known fact, the roof is wholly constructed of planks of cedar. As to the statue of the goddess, there is some doubt of what wood it is made; all the writers say that it is ebony, with the exception of Mucianus, who was three times consul, one of the very latest among the writers that have seen it; he declares that it is made of the wood of the vine, and that it has never been changed all the seven times that the temple has been rebuilt. He says, too, that it was Endæus who made choice of this wood, and even goes so far as to mention the artist’s name, a thing that really surprises me very much, seeing that he attributes to it an antiquity that dates before the times of Father Liber, and of Minerva even. He states, also, that, by the aid of numerous apertures, it is soaked with nard, in order that the moist nature of that drug may preserve the wood and keep the seams close together: I am rather surprised, however, that there should be any seams in the statue, considering the very moderate size it is. He informs us, also, that the doors are made of cypress, and that the wood, which has now lasted very nearly four hundred years, has all the appearance of new. It is worthy of remark, too, that the wood of these doors, after the pieces had been glued together, was left to season four years before they were put up: cypress was made choice of from the circumstance that it is the only kind of wood that maintains its polish to all future time.

  And have we not the statue of Vejovis, also, made of cypress, still preserved in the Capitol, where it was consecrated in the year of the City 661? The Temple of Apollo, too, at Utica, is equally celebrated: there we may see beams of cedar still in existence, and in just the same condition in which they were when erected at the first building of that city, eleven hundred and seventy-eight years ago. At Saguntum, too, in Spain, there is a temple of Diana, which was brought thither by the original founders of the place, from the island of Zacynthus, in the year 200 before the taking of Troy, Bocchus says — It is preserved beneath the town, they say. Hannibal, being induced thereto by feelings of religious veneration, spared this temple, and its beams, made of juniper, are still in existence at this very day. But the most memorable instance of all is that of the temple which was dedicated to the same goddess at Aulis, several ages before the Trojan War: of what wood, however, it was originally built is a fact that has been long lost in oblivion. Speaking in general terms, we may say that those woods are of the greatest durability which are the most odoriferous.

  Next to those woods of which we have just spoken, that of the mulberry is held in the highest degree of esteem, and it will even turn black when old. There are some trees, again, that are more durable than others, when employed for certain purposes. The wood of the elm lasts the best in the open air, that of the robur when buried in the ground, and that of the quercus when exposed to the action of water: indeed, the wood of this last, if employed in works above ground, is apt to split and warp. The wood of the larch thrives best in the midst of moisture; the same is the case, too, with that of the black alder. The wood of the robur spoils by exposure to the action of sea-water. The beech and the walnut are far from disapproved of for constructions under water, and, in fact, these are the principal woods, too, that are used for works under ground: the same is the case, also, with the juniper; which is equally serviceable when exposed to the atmosphere. The woods of the beech and the cirrus very quickly deteriorate, and that of the æsculus will not withstand the action of water. On the other hand, the alder, when driven into the ground in marshy localities, is of everlasting duration, and able to support the very heaviest weights. The wood of the cherry is strong, while those of the elm and the ash are pliable, though apt to warp: these last will still retain their flexibility, and be less liable to warp, if the wood is left to stand and dry upon the trunk after the pith has been cut around. It is said that the larch, when used for sea-going ships, is liable to the attacks of the teredo, as, in fact, all the woods are, with the exception of the wild and cultivated olive. It is a fact, too, that there are some woods that are more liable to spoil in the sea, and others in the ground.

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  CHAP. 80. (41.)

  VARIETIES OF THE TEREDO.

  There are four kinds of insects that attack wood. The teredo has a head remarkably large in proportion to the other part of the body, and gnaws away the wood with its teeth: its attacks, however, are confined solely to the sea, and it is generally thought that this is the only insect that is properly so called. The wood-worm that prevails on the land is known as the “ tinea,” while those which resemble a gnat in appearance are called “thripes.” The fourth kind of wood-worm belongs to the maggot class; some of them being engendered by the corruption of the juices of the wood itself, and others being produced, just as in the trees, by the worm known as the cerastes. When this worm has eaten away enough of the wood to enable it to turn round, it gives birth to another. The generation of these insects is prevented, however, by the bitterness that exists in some woods, the cypress, and the hardness of others, the box, for instance.

  It is said, too, that the fir, if barked about the time of budding, and at the period of the moon already mentioned, will never spoil in water. The followers of Alexander the Great have left a statement that, at Tylos, an island in the Red Sea, there are trees, of which ships are built, the wood of which has been found uninjured at the end of two hundred years, even if it has been under water all that time. They say, also, that in the same island there is a certain shrub, about the thickness of a walking-stick only, and spotted like a tiger’s skin: it is very heavy, and will break like glass if it happens to fall upon a hard substance.

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  CHAP. 81. (42.)

  THE WOODS USED IN BUILDING.

  We have in Italy some woods that are apt to split of themselves: to prevent this, architects recommend that they should be first seasoned in manure and then dried, in order to render them proof against the action of the atmosphere. The woods of the fir and larch are well adapted, even when used transversely, for the support of heavy burdens; while the robur and the olive are apt to bend and give way under a weight. The wood of the poplar and the palm are also strong, but this last will bend, though in a manner different from the others; for, while in all other instances the wood bends downwards, in the palm it bends in the contrary direction, and forms an arch. The woods of the pine and the cypress are proof against decay and all attacks of wood-worm. The walnut is easily warped, but we sometimes see beams even made of it. It gives warning, however, before it breaks, by a loud cracking nois
e; such was the case at Antandros, at the public baths there — the bathers took the alarm upon hearing the beams crack, and made their escape. The pine, the pitch-tree, and the alder are employed for making hollow pipes for the conveyance, of water, and when buried in the earth will last for many years. If, however, they are not well covered over, they will very soon rot; and the resistance they offer to decay will increase in a most surprising degree if the outer surface as well is left in contact with the water.