Pliny Natural History, Vol. IV (Loeb Latin-English)

9

V.

They were famous: first, in the walkway of the Academy at Athens, with roots spreading out thirty-three cubits before the branches. Now, there is a famous one in Lycia, lovely in the company of a cool spring, placed by the road like a house, with a hollow cavity of eighty-one feet. It is leafy on top and protects itself with vast branches like a forest, occupying the fields with long shadows. And so that nothing is missing from the likeness of a cave, there is a rocky crown of limestone inside, intertwined with mossy pumice. It is so worthy of wonder that Licinius Mucianus, a three-time consul and recently the governor of that province, thought it worth recording for posterity that he had dined inside it with eighteen companions. It provided plenty of room on the bedding of foliage, protected from every breeze, and the patter of rain on the leaves was more pleasant than the glitter of marble, the variety of paintings, or the gold of ceilings.
10 Another example is that of Gaius Referring to the Emperor Caligula., who marveled at a plane tree on his estate at Velitrae. He had platforms and open benches built on the timbers of the branches, and dined there.
11 He called this feast a "nest." There is a plane tree in Gortyna on the island of Crete, near a spring...