[432] Caligula.
[433] It is supposed that he here alludes sarcastically to the extreme corpulence of Caligula.
[434] M. Fée, the learned editor of the botanical books in Ajasson’s translation, remarks, that this cannot have been the Platanus of the botanists, and that there is no tree of Europe, which does not lose its leaves, that at all resembles it.
[435] The tendency, namely, to lose their leaves.
[436] Grandson of Asinius Pollio. Tacitus tells us, that he was one of those whom Piso requested to undertake his defence, when charged with having poisoned Germanicus; but he declined the office.
[437] Or “ground plane-trees.” It is by no means uncommon to see dwarf varieties of the larger trees, which are thus reduced to the dimensions of mere shrubs.
[438] C. Matius Calvena, the friend of Julius and Augustus Cæsar, as also of Cicero. He is supposed to have translated the Iliad into Latin verse, and to have written a work on cookery.
[439] See B. xxiii. c. 55. Fée remarks, that the ancients confounded the citron with the orange-tree.
[440] Fée remarks, that this is not the case. The arbute is described in B. xv. c. [28].
[441] In the time of Plutarch, it had begun to be somewhat more used. It makes one of the very finest preserves.