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In the Forum, the busy centre of Roman life, the sacred fig-tree of Romulus was worshipped down to the days of the empire, and the withering of its trunk was enough to spread consternation through the city. Again, on the slope of the Palatine Hill grew a cornel-tree which was esteemed one of the most sacred objects in Rome.
Then he subdued the Pisidians who made head against him, and conquered the Phrygians, at whose chief city Gordium, which is said to be the seat of the ancient Midas, he saw the famous chariot fastened with cords made of the rind of the cornel-tree, about which the inhabitants had a tradition, that for him who should untie it, was reserved the empire of the world.
At the same time the beautiful Cornel-tree is in perfection; startling as a tree of the tropics, it flaunts its great flowers high up among the forest-branches, intermingling its long slender twigs with theirs, and garnishing them with alien blooms.
Here they say the sacred cornel-tree grew, the legend being that Romulus, to try his strength, threw a spear, with cornel-wood shaft, from Mount Aventine, and when the spear-head sunk into the ground, though many tried, no one was able to pull it out. The soil, which was fertile, suited the wood, and it budded, and became the stem of a good-sized cornel-tree.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina there are some local differences in the mode of kindling the need-fire, or "living fire," as it is called. Thus at Jablanica both the uprights and the roller or cross-piece, which by its revolution kindles the fire, are made of cornel-tree wood; whereas at Dolac, near Sarajevo, the uprights and the cross-piece or roller are all made of lime wood.
The infusion in warm water had a brown colour and an astringent taste. It contained a mixture of extractive matter and tannin. The rhizophora, the mistletoe, the cornel-tree, in short, all the plants which belong to the natural families of the lorantheous and the caprifoliaceous plants, have the same properties.
XVIII. After this he put down a revolt among the Pisidians, and conquered the whole of Phrygia. On his arrival at Gordium, which is said to have been the capital of King Midas of old, he was shown the celebrated chariot there, tied up with a knot of cornel-tree bark.
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