At Gortyna, in the Isle of Crete, there is, in the vicinity of a fountain there, a single plane-tree, which has been long celebrated in the records of both the Greek and the Latin language: it never loses[434] its leaves, and from an early period one of the fabulous legends of Greece has been attached to it, to the effect that it was beneath this tree that Jupiter lay with Europa; just as if there had not been another tree of a similar nature in the island of Cyprus. Slips of the tree at Gortyna—so fond is man by nature of novelty—were at an early period planted at different places in Crete, and reproduced the natural imperfections of the tree;[435] though, indeed, there is no higher recommendation in the plane than the fact that in summer it protects us from the rays of the sun, while in winter it admits them. In later times, during the reign of the Emperor Claudius, a Thessalian eunuch, the freedman of Marcellus Æserninus,[436] who, however, from motives of ambition had enrolled himself in the number of the freedmen of the emperor, and had acquired very considerable wealth, introduced this plane into Italy, in order to beautify his country-seat: so that he may not inappropriately be styled a second Dionysius. These monstrosities of other lands are still to be seen in Italy, independently of those which that country has herself devised. CHAP. 6. (2.)—THE CHAMÆPLATANUS. WHO WAS THE FIRST TO CLIP GREEN SHRUBS. For we find in Italy some plane-trees, which are known as chamæplatani,[437] in consequence of their stunted growth; for we have discovered the art of causing abortion in trees even, and hence, even in the vegetable world we shall have occasion to make mention of dwarfs, an unprepossessing subject in every case. This result is obtained in trees, by a peculiar method adopted in planting and lopping them. C. Matius,[438] a member of the Equestrian order, and a friend of the late Emperor Augustus, invented the art of clipping arbours, within the last eighty years. CHAP. 7. (3.)—HOW THE CITRON IS PLANTED.