The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 3 · the Elder Pliny
CHAP. 8. (4.)—THE TREES OF INDIA.
In describing the country of the Seres, we have already made mention[444] of the wool-bearing trees which it produces; and we have, likewise, touched[445] upon the extraordinary magnitude of the trees of India. Virgil[446] has spoken in glowing terms of the ebony-tree, one of those which are peculiar to India, and he further informs us, that it will grow in no other country. Herodotus, however, has preferred to ascribe[447] it to Æthiopia; and states that the people of that country were in the habit of paying to the kings of Persia, every third year, by way of tribute,[448] one hundred billets of ebony-wood, together with a certain quantity of gold and ivory. Nor ought we here to omit the fact, inasmuch as the same author has stated to that effect, that the Æthiopians were also in the habit of paying, by way of tribute, twenty large elephants’ teeth. So high was the esteem in which ivory was held in the year from the building of our city, 310: for it was at that period[449] that this author was compiling his History at Thurii, in Italy; which is all the more remarkable, from the implicit confidence we place in him, when he says[450] that up to that time, no native of Asia or Greece, to his knowledge at least, had ever beheld the river Padus. The plan of Æthiopia, which, as we have already mentioned,[451] was recently laid before the Emperor Nero, informs us, that this tree is very uncommon in the country that lies between Syene, the extreme boundary of the empire, and Meroë, a distance of eight hundred and ninety-six miles; and that, in fact, the only kind of tree that is to be found there, is the palm. It was, probably, for this reason, that ebony held the third place in the tribute that was thus imposed.
CHAP. 9.—WHEN EBONY WAS FIRST SEEN AT ROME. THE VARIOUS KINDS OF EBONY. Pompeius Magnus displayed ebony on the occasion of his triumph over Mithridates. Fabianus declares, that this wood will give out no flame; it burns, however, with a very agreeable smell. There are two kinds[452] of ebony; the rarest kind is the best, and is produced from a tree that is singularly free from knots. The wood is black and shining, and pleasing to the eye, without any adventitious aid from art. The other kind of ebony is the produce of a shrub which resembles the cytisus, and is to be found scattered over the whole of India. There is in India, also, a kind of thorn[453] very similar to ebony, though it may be distinguished from it, by the aid of a lantern even; for, on the application of flame, it will instantly run across the tree. We will now proceed to describe those trees which were the admiration of Alexander the Great in his victorious career, when that part of the world was first revealed by his arms.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.