lotos.[1067] Expensive bedsteads were sometimes made of oxya and citron-wood, the feet of which, among the Persians, were often turned from the wood of the doom-palm,[1068] as they were formed among the Greeks from amber.[1069] Statues,[1070] which ought in truth to be regarded as articles of furniture, were carved from cedar, cypress,[1071] lotos, box, and of a smaller size from the roots of olive-trees, because they did not crack.[1072] Besides these which were perhaps the more common, we find mention in ancient writers of images of ebony, oak, yew, maple, beech, palm,[1073] myrtle, pear, linden, and vine, to which may be added the fig-tree which was frequently preferred on account of its soft texture, lightness, shining whiteness, and close-grain. Occasionally statues of horses were carved of ebony and ivory. As during the prevalence of certain winds several of these kinds of woods were liable to sweat,[1074] the vulgar, who understood nothing of the cause, regarded the circumstance as a prodigy.[1075] ----- Footnote 1058: This tree, which bore fruit in Egypt, only flowered in Rhodes. iii. 3. 5. Footnote 1059: Ælian. De Natur. Animal. ap. Schneid. ad Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 2. 5. t. iii. p. 284. The account of this tree given by Dioscorides contains a brief allusion to the fact related at length by Ælian, that it was poisonous in its original country, together with some other particulars nowhere else I believe stated. Περσέα δένδρον ἐστὶν ἐν Ἀιγύπτῳ, καρπὸν φέρον ἐδώδιμον, εὐστόμαχον· ἐφ᾽ οὗ καὶ τὰ λεγόμενα κρανοκόλαπτα φαλάγγια εὑρίσκεται, μάλιστα δὲ ἐν Θηβαΐδι. Δύναμιν δὲ ἔχει τὰ φύλλα λεία ἐπιπλαττόμενα ξηρὰ, αἱμοῤῥαγίαν ἱστᾷν, τοῦτο δὲ ἱστόρησαν τινες ἐν Περσίδι ἀναιρετικὸν εἶναι, μετατεθὲν δὲ εἰς Ἀιγύπτον, ἀλλοιωθῆναι καὶ ἐδώδιμον γενέσθαι. i. 187. Footnote 1060: Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 2. 5. Cf. Clusii. Hist. Rar. Plant. i. 2. Footnote 1061: Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 3. 3. Cf. Gitone, Il Costume Antico e Moderno di tutti i Popoli. t. i. p. 94, tav. 15. Footnote 1062: Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 11. 12, seq. Footnote 1063: Id. v. 3. 3. Footnote 1064: This tree was supposed particularly to delight in the perpetual snows of the Cretan Ida. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 1. 3. Footnote 1065: Hist. Plant. v. 4. 2. Footnote 1066: Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 37, seq. Cf. Plin. Hist. Nat. 30. Diod. Sicul. v. 46. This wood, on account of its extraordinary durability, was much used in the roofing of ancient temples. Many suppose it to be the Arbor Vitæ. Clus. Hist. Rar. Plant. i. 24. p. 36, seq. Footnote 1067: Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 4. 3. Footnote 1068: Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 2. 7. Footnote 1069: Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 530. Footnote 1070: Plat. De Rep. t. vi. 86. Plin. viii. 39. xxxv. 36. xxxiii. 54. Poll. i. 7. See the note of the Milanese editor of Winkelmann, Hist. de l’Art, t. i. p. 31, seq. Footnote 1071: