Pliny: Natural History, Vol. IV

9 V. Celebratae sunt: primum in ambulatione Academiae Athenis cubitorum xxxiii radice ramos antecedente; nunc est clara in Lycia fontis gelidi socia amoenitate, itineri adposita domicilii modo, cava octoginta atque unius pedum specu, nemorosa vertice et se vastis protegens ramis arborum instar, agros longis obtinens umbris, ac ne quid desit speluncae imagini, saxea intus crepidinis corona muscosos complexa pumices, tam digna miraculo ut Licinius Mucianus ter consul et nuper provinciae eius legatus prodendum etiam posteris putaverit epulatum intra eam se cum duodevicensimo comite, large ipsa toros praebente frondis, ab omni afflatu securum, oblectante imbrium per folia crepitu laetiorem quam marmorum nitore, picturae varietate, laquearium auro, cubuisse
10 in eadem. aliud exemplum Gai principis in Veliterno rure mirati unius tabulata laxeque ramorum trabibus scamna patula, et in ea epulati, cum ipse pars esset umbrae, quindecim convivarum ac ministerii capace
11 triclinio, quam cenam appellavit ille nidum. est Gortynae in insula Creta iuxta fontem platanus una

Famous plane-trees.

V. Famous plane-trees are: (1) one that grew in the walks of the Academy at Athens, the roots of which were 33 cubits long and spread wider than the branches; (2) at the present day there is a celebrated plane in Lycia, allied with the amenity of a cool spring; it stands by the roadside like a dwelling-house, with a hollow cavity inside it 81 feet across, forming with its summit a shady grove, and shielding itself with vast branches as big as trees and covering the fields with its long shadows, and so as to complete its resemblance to a grotto, embracing inside it mossy pumice-stones in a circular rim of rock—a tree so worthy to be deemed a marvel that Licinius Mucianus, who was three times consul and recently lieutenant-governor of the province, thought it worth handing down to posterity also that he had held a banquet with eighteen members of his retinue inside the tree, which itself provided couches of leafage on a bounteous scale, and that he had then gone to bed in the same tree, shielded from every breath of wind, and receiving more delight from the agreeable sound of the rain dropping through the foliage than gleaming marble, painted decorations, or gilded panelling could have afforded. (3) Another instance is connected with the Emperor Caligula original: "Gai principis", who on an estate at Velletri was impressed by the flooring of a single plane-tree, and benches laid loosely on beams consisting of its branches, and held a banquet in the tree—himself constituting a considerable portion of the shadow—in a dining-room large enough to hold fifteen guests and the servants: this dining-room the emperor called his 'nest.' (4) There is a single plane-tree at the side of a spring at Gortyn in the island of Crete which is celebrated in records written...