[422] Reckoning the promulsis, antecæna, or gustatio, not as a course, but only a prelude, the bellaria, or dessert, at the Roman banquets, formed the second course, or mensa. It consisted of fruits uncooked, sweetmeats, and pastry.
[423] He alludes to the pursuit of the elephant, for the purpose of obtaining ivory, which was extensively used in his day, in making the statues of the divinities.
[424] A sarcastic antithesis. And yet Dalechamps would read “hominum” instead of “numinum”!
[425] Præmissa. The exact meaning of this word does not appear. Though all the MSS. agree in it, it is probably a corrupt reading. Plutarch, in his Life of Camillus, says that the wine of Italy was first introduced in Gaul by Aruns, the Etruscan.
[426] The Platanus orientalis of Linnæus. It received its name from the Greek πλάτος, “breadth,” by reason of its wide-spreading branches.
[427] For further mention of this island, now Tremiti, see B. iii. c. 30.
[428] He alludes, probably, to the “vectigal solarium,” a sort of ground-rent which the tributary nations paid to the Roman treasury. Virgil and Homer speak of the shade of the plane-tree, as a pleasant resort for festive parties.
[429] It is not improbable that Pliny, in copying from Theophrastus, has here committed an error. That author, B. ix. c. 7, says: ἐν μὲν γὰρ τῷ Ἀδρίᾳ πλάτανον οὔ φασιν εἶναι, πλὴν περὶ τὸ Διομήδους ἱερόν· σπανίαν δὲ καὶ ἐν Ἰταλίᾳ πάσῃ. “They say that in Adria there are no plane-trees, except about the temple of Diomedes: and that they are extremely rare in Italy.” Pliny, probably, when his secretary was reading to him, mistook the word σπανίαν, “rare,” for Ἱσπανίᾳ “in Spain.”
[430] It has been remarked that, in reality, this process would only tend to impede its growth. Macrobius tells us, that Hortensius was guilty of this singular folly.
[431] Situate near the sea-shore. It was here that Plato taught. See B. xxxi. c. 3.