The Greeks gave hazel nuts the name of “Pontic Nuts,” and Theophrastus calls them “Nuts of Heraclea,” because the territory of that capital of the kingdom of Pontus produced the best.[XIV-26] The Latins, at first, retained the same designation for this fruit, but afterwards, the environs of Præneste and Avellinum supplying them with a great quantity of excellent nuts, they gave them the name of those two cities.[XIV-27] They employed also a diminitive[XIV-28] to indicate those which came from the first of these localities. The French _Aveline_ (filbert), and _Noisette_ (hazel nuts), are evidently borrowed from the Roman vocabulary. The inhabitants of Præneste raised the nut tree to a sort of religious worship. This tree had preserved them from famine during the time Hannibal besieged their city,[XIV-29] and since that memorable epoch it had enriched them, for the ancients preferred hazel nuts to all other shell fruit, as possessing most wholesome and nourishing qualities.[XIV-30] It was the custom in France, some centuries ago, at the time of the summer solstice (Midsummer eve), to take all the kitchen utensils and make the most frightful clatter by knocking them one against another. The simpletons of those times imagined that there were no better means of preventing the rain, which, in their opinion, was detrimental to filberts and hazel nuts.[XIV-31] Hospinian, who relates this ridiculous custom, does not tell us what results they obtained by all their racket. PISTACHIO TREE. This tree, esteemed by the Romans,[XIV-32] is a native of India.[XIV-33] Lucius Vitellius brought some plants of it from Syria to Rome, under the reign of Tiberius; a little time subsequently, a knight, named Flaccus Pompeius, introduced it also into Spain.[XIV-34] Galen doubted whether pistachio nuts were good for the stomach.[XIV-35] Avicenna proved the contrary;[XIV-36] and several centuries before the Arabian physician, Roman epicures had courageously demonstrated that this fruit never does harm in whatever form it may be presented, whether raw or roasted, alone or accompanied with garum and salt. CHESNUT TREE. According to some writers the chesnut tree owes its name to the city of Castana, in Thessaly, where they maintained it originated. On the contrary, it comes from Sardis, in Lydia, if we are to believe the physician, Diphilus, who calls chesnuts, acorns of Sardis, and says they are nourishing, but indigestible.[XIV-37] Amaryllis was fond of this fruit;[XIV-38] but Amaryllis was only a shepherdess, and her beauty did not prevent her from having rather rustic tastes. The Roman ladies abandoned the chesnut to that low class of citizens whose palates, incapable of improvement, remain always stationary in the midst of the incessant progress of cookery; sad example of invincible frugality, which the most exciting _fumets_ fail to arouse.