Keeping the Memory Alive: The Physical Continuity of the Ficus Ruminalis

Ailsa Hunt

Pliny the Elder had a personal weakness for impressively old trees.¹ Indulging himself at the end of four books devoted to arboreal varieties, produce and cultivation, he gives us a breathless account of some of the Roman Empire's most ancient trees (Natural History 16.234-40).

Pliny normally prides himself on his comprehensivity, but there is a glaring omission from this roll call of ancient trees: the ficus Ruminalis, a fig tree famed for sheltering the infants Romulus and Remus as they were suckled by a she wolf. After all, according to Pliny's close contemporary Tacitus, this tree played a key role in an event which took place 830 years earlier (Annals 13.58). The ficus Ruminalis also boasted a link to one of the most famous of Roman mytho-historical events, and would surely have constituted a definitive marker amongst those trees jostling for the glory of being as old as the city.

The meaning of Pliny's ‘oscurissimo' (‘very obscure') depiction of the ficus Ruminalis is hotly debated.⁶ I print the Teubner text below, followed by my own translation of the passage.⁷

colitur ficus arbor in foro ipso ac comitio Romae nata sacra fulguribus ibi conditis magisque ob memoriam eius quae, nutrix Romuli ac Remi, conditores imperii in Lupercali prima protexit, ruminalis appellata quoniam sub ea inventa est lupa infantibus praebens rumin (ita vocabant mammam), miraculo ex aere iuxta dicato, tamquam in comitium sponte transisset Atto Navio augurante.

A fig tree born in the very forum and comitium of Rome is cultivated, sacred because of the lightning-struck objects buried there, and more so because of the memorial tradition of that tree which, nurse of Romulus and Remus, first sheltered the founders of the empire at the Lupercal, called Ruminalis since under it the she wolf was found offering her rumis (thus they used to call breast) to the infants, with the miracle portrayed in bronze nearby, as if the tree had of its own accord crossed into the comitium with Attus Navius as augur. Nor without some omen does it wither and get replanted by the care of the priests.⁸

As we start to unravel the lengthy first sentence we learn that a fig tree in the comitium was considered sacred, partly because of lightning-struck objects buried there, but more so because of the ‘memorial tradition' of that one which (eius quae) first sheltered Romulus and Remus at the Lupercal. (I argue for my understanding of the noun memoria as ‘memorial tradition' at the very end of the article.) This latter must be the fig tree, known as the ficus Ruminalis, which Quintus Fabius Pictor, Varro, Livy, Ovid, Plutarch and Servius all locate on the north side of the Palatine.⁹ Whilst Ovid specifically positions the tree at the Lupercal, the other authorities locate it either at the Palatine's foot, on the Germalus (the Palatine's north slope) or at the point where the river Tiber overflowed (in other words the Velabrum).¹⁰ Considering the geographical proximity of these depictions, they can all be understood as expressions of the same tradition. Tacitus, however, ruins the uniformity of this picture.¹¹ For him the ficus Ruminalis stands in the comitium, the assembly place within the Roman forum. Conon, an Augustan grammarian, also locates a fig tree in the part of Rome which he calls the ayopa (or in Roman terms, the forum), and which he describes as being enclosed by the bronze gates of the PovXevTppiov (the curia).¹² This fig tree is not specifically named Ruminalis, but it is singled out as witness to events from Romulus and Remus' lifetime, a strong indication that it was the ficus Ruminalis which Conon meant.

In order to make progress in understanding this sentence, let us start at its end, and establish the reason for the unexpected introduction of Attus Navius, a legendary augur from the reign of Tarquinius Priscus. Verrius Flaccus informs us of a fig tree in the comitium called the ficus Navia, associated with the story of how the augur Attus Navius dissuaded the Roman king Tarquinius Priscus from changing Romulus' system of tribes.¹⁵ Tarquinius had tried to shake the augur's authority with a trick, asking him to predict whether he, the king, would be able to perform a secret task which he had in mind: this was to cut through a whetstone with a razor. Navius predicted that the king would be able to perform the task, and Tarquinius, much to his amazement, found that indeed he could slice through a whetstone with a razor. Dionysius of Halicarnassus adds to Flaccus' picture: won over by the augur's prowess, Tarquinius set up a bronze statue of Navius in the forum in front of the βουλευτήριον (in other words, the curia), near a sacred fig tree and the buried whetstone and razor.

ινα μνήμης α’ιωνίου τυγχάνη παρά των έπιγινομένων ε’ικόνα κατασκευάσας αυτού χαλκην άνέστησεν έν αγορά, η και ε’ις έμε ήν ετι προ τού βουλευτηρίου κειμένη πλησίον της Ιεράς συκης έλάττων άνδρος μετρίου τήν περιβολήν εχουσα κατά της κεφαλής. ολίγον δε άπωθεν αυτης η τε άκόνη κεκρύφθαι λέγεται κατά γης και το ξυρον ύπο βωμω τινι· καλείται δε Φρέαρ ό τόπος ύπο 'Ρωμαίων. (Roman Antiquities 3.71.5)

In order that he might have eternal renown among posterity, he had cast and set up a bronze statue of him in the agora which still survived in my time, standing in front of the bouleuterion near the sacred fig tree, smaller than a man of average height and with a mantle on his head.

The buried container which held the whetstone and razor is labelled a φρέαρ by Dionysius. In Latin it is called a puteal, as in Cicero's confirmation of Dionysius' picture:

cotem autem illam et novaculam defossam in comitio supraque impositum puteal accepimus. (De Divinatione 1.33)

However, we have heard that that whetstone and razor were buried in the comitium and a puteal placed on top.

The puteal is a very sparsely documented structure: here let it suffice to say that it may sometimes have functioned as a receptacle for lightning-struck objects, as suggested by the phrase fulgur conditum (‘buried lightning-struck object') in a fragmentary reference of Festus to the puteal Scribonianum (Festus L 450-2). To return to Attus Navius, Livy provides further support of the position of the cluster of objects which commemorate his augury, locating a statue of Navius and the whetstone by the steps to the left of the curia:

statua Atti capite velato, quo in loco res acta est, in comitio in gradibus ipsis ad laevam curiae fuit; cotem quoque eodem loco sitam fuisse memorant... (Ab Urbe Condita 1.36.5)

A statue of Attus with veiled head stood in the place where his deed was performed, in the comitium on the very steps to the left of the curia; they say the whetstone also was deposited in the same place..

Finally, in a passing reference, Pliny also locates a statue of Navius in front of the curia (Natural History 34.21).

In short, the ficus Navia, along with its associated statue of Navius and the buried whetstone and razor, are located very close to the curia, in a spot which is disconcertingly close to that of the ficus Ruminalis depicted by Tacitus and Conon. Are we to imagine two fig trees crowding in on each other by the curia? Pliny makes it clear that we are not: there were never two separate fig trees at that spot, but rather one fig tree which underwent an identity shift. Pliny's comitium fig tree and the ficus Navia can be identified as one and the same tree through the combined force of four pieces of evidence.¹⁶ First, there is the coincidence of location. Second, there is the comitium fig tree's association with buried lightning-struck objects. Pliny's fulguribus ibi conditis (‘lightning-struck objects buried there') sounds very much like a muffled reference to the whetstone and razor buried at the ficus Navia, the identity of these objects by now less securely known, and the puteal which most accounts place over them encouraging later generations to presume that they were the victims of lightning. The third piece of evidence is provided by a survey of fig trees around the forum into which Pliny's depiction of the comitium fig tree develops: besides the comitium fig there is also one at the lacus Curtius and one before the temple of Saturn, but Pliny makes no mention of a ficus Navia (Natural History 15.77-8). This is despite the fact that Pliny is aware of the existence and location of the statue of Navius (Natural History 34.21). Admittedly, Pliny's reference to this statue is both extremely brief and made within a section focused on statues, not trees: the absence of the ficus Navia here is not in itself overwhelming proof that Pliny did not know a ficus Navia standing in the comitium. Nevertheless, Pliny's overall picture does suggest that in his mental landscape of Rome the statue of Attus Navius was still standing, but the previously associated ficus Navia was no longer on the map.

The fourth and crucial proof of Pliny's understanding of the comitium fig tree's history lies in the phrase tamquam in comitium sponte transisset Atto Navio augurante (‘as if X had of its own accord crossed into the comitium with Attus Navius as augur'), but this phrase demands much elucidation before the proof can be extracted. The challenge is to understand how Pliny saw this phrase as a fitting conclusion to his monumental sentence. Its baffling nature stems chiefly from its lack of an obvious subject, for which it might seem reasonable to look to the closest preceding noun. This is the bronze statue of the miracle, regarding which I follow majority opinion in believing the miracle to be that of the suckling of Romulus and Remus, as just described in the preceding phrase.¹⁷ If this bronze statue group were the subject of the tamquam clause, Pliny would then be left making the claim that a fig tree was called Ruminalis, with a bronze statue of the suckling twins nearby, as if this statue had of its own accord crossed into the comitium. Given no information with which to begin to understand how the proximity of a bronze statue to a tree created the impression that the statue had spontaneously migrated, we must reject this interpretation as nonsensical and delve further back into the sentence for the tamquam clause's subject. The next available noun is lupa. With the she wolf as the subject of the tamquam clause, Pliny would be claiming that a fig tree was called Ruminalis, with a bronze statue of the suckling twins nearby, as if the wolf had of her own accord crossed into the comitium. It is by no means obvious what the pertinence of such a claim would be. Moreover, it would be very surprising that a wolf moving of her own accord would have occasioned enough surprise from Pliny to warrant the sceptical tone of tamquam (‘as if').¹⁸

Taking another step backwards in the sentence, the next available noun is rather elusive: a noun is implied within the phrase Ruminalis appellata (‘called Ruminalis’), either the fig tree at the Lupercal or the fig tree in the comitium. If we understand the Lupercal fig tree to be qualified by Ruminalis appellata, and by extension to be the subject of the tamquam clause, then Pliny would be claiming that the fig tree at the Lupercal was called Ruminalis, with a bronze statue of the suckling twins nearby, as if the Lupercal fig tree had of its own accord crossed into the comitium. Precious little sense can be extracted from this: what could make the fig tree at the Lupercal look like it was in the comitium? If, however, the noun described by Ruminalis appellata were the comitium fig tree, then Pliny would be saying that the comitium fig tree was called Ruminalis, with a bronze statue of the suckling twins nearby, as if the comitium fig tree had of its own accord crossed into the comitium. Here, finally, is a coherent reading. We already knew that the fig tree in the comitium was considered sacred because of the ‘memorial tradition' of the Lupercal fig tree; now we learn that the comitium fig tree also poses under the name of Ruminalis, thereby giving the impression that it was in fact the Lupercal fig tree and had spontaneously migrated into the comitium.

Pliny, however, has not been duped as to the comitium fig tree's identity. The ablative absolute which concludes the tamquam clause, Atto Navio augurante, constitutes the fourth and final confirmation of Pliny's awareness that the comitium fig tree had a former life as the ficus Navia. Some understand this ablative absolute temporally, meaning ‘while Attus Navius was augur', but in the context of my interpretation of the sentence, a temporal meaning would entail that Pliny was dating the identity change of the ficus Navia to the exact point when it first became the ficus Navia; this would render the sentence meaningless.¹⁹ Rather, the ablative absolute is a dry comment by which Pliny undermines the impression of arboreal migration; in one concise phrase he suggests that such an event would have needed a supporter as miraculous as Navius and slyly drops in his awareness that, far from having migrated, the comitium fig tree was the one time ficus Navia. For when the supposed miracle covers up the metamorphosis of the ficus Navia into the ficus Ruminalis, then what more obvious miraculous overseer to evoke in exposing this miracle than Attus Navius himself?²⁰ Nor should this parting note of scepticism surprise us, for from the very beginning Pliny had emphasized that the comitium fig tree was born in the comitium, leaving migration out of the question. De Sanctis understands this emphasis on the fig tree's birthplace as a rational­izing rejection of ‘la leggenda del meraviglioso trasferimento' (‘the legend of the miraculous transfer'), but I see no reason to suppose the existence of such a ‘legend', for which we have no other evidence: Pliny's tamquam phrase is a tongue in cheek witticism.²¹ Indeed the weighting of the whole sentence and the ‘throw away' nature of the tamquam clause indicate that Pliny's focus is on the deceptive nature of the comitium fig tree's identity shift and that the tamquam clause functions as a coda to that, rather than as an expose of an urban myth.

Pliny explains how the deceptive impression of arboreal migration was created in the two phrases which precede his tamquam clause. First, there was the simple fact that the tree was called Ruminalis. To this statement is added the explanation of the tree's epithet, that underneath it the she wolf offered Romulus and Remus her rumis (‘breast'). To those whom Pliny has just reminded of the existence of the Lupercal fig tree, the statement that the twins were suckled under a fig tree in the comitium is rather jarring: after all, the Lupercal was a far more probable site, in a one-time flood plain, for the suckling of infants washed ashore by the River Tiber. I will return to this problem shortly. The second factor which contributed to the impression of arboreal migration was the proximity of a statue group of the suckling twins to the fig tree in the comitium.²² This must have created a visually evocative whole, a tableau, as it were, of the original suckling scene, which thus gave the impression that the ficus Ruminalis in the Lupercal had upped sticks and gone to the comitium.²³ Besides evoking the suckling scene, the statue group by the comitium tree would have mirrored the Lupercal fig tree which was also accompanied, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, by a bronze statue group of the suckling.²⁴ There is no knowing whether all this was intended by whoever placed this statue near the comitium fig tree: the comitium was after all a common home for commemorative monuments. However, we do know that by Ovid's day the fig tree at the Lupercal was in a state of decline, so much so that no more than a vestigium (‘remnant') was left of it (Fasti 2.405-6), and this likely contributed to the comitium fig tree's rise to prominence.²⁵ By no means am I about to suggest that as the Lupercal fig tree deteriorated an executive decision was made to transfer the memories of the Lupercal ficus Ruminalis to a convenient tree in the comitium: it would surely have been conceptually simpler to plant a new fig tree at the Lupercal.²⁶ However, I do propose that the fig tree and statue group in the comitium were, whilst the Lupercal fig tree was in decline, providing an alternative focus of attention as a visual instantiation of the suckling. As the fortunes of the Lupercal fig tree waned, so the story of Romulus and Remus' suckling was increasingly related to the visually convincing comitium fig tree.²⁷ From here it was an easy step, if no doubt a fairly slow one, for the tree to become known as Ruminalis.

I now wish to tackle the troublesome statement that the comitium fig tree was called Ruminalis because under it (sub ea) the wolf offered the twins her rumis. Since Pliny demonstrates his awareness that the comitium tree was not the one and only nor indeed the first ficus Ruminalis, how could he make such a claim? As the verb of the causal clause is indicative, we cannot simply dismiss the phrase as a conjectured reason ascribed to those who call the tree Ruminalis. It may be tempting to understand sub ea as referring back to the tree already described by that demonstrative pronoun, namely the Lupercal fig tree (eius quae): thus we would have Pliny saying that the comitium fig tree is called Ruminalis, because of the tradition, as it were, that under the Lupercal tree the wolf offered the twins her rumis. This rather forced inter­pretation seems to prioritize making concessions to our own conceptual difficulties over following the logic of Pliny's Latin. The disorientating nature of the sub ea phrase is in fact Pliny's way of making us experience the arboreal identity shift which he is describing. Whilst the first instance of the demonstrative pronoun, ob memoriam eius quae, must refer to the Lupercal fig tree, the second instance, sub ea, may refer to the Lupercal tree and may refer to the comitium fig tree. That we can only recognize this in retrospect, once we have absorbed the full implications of the tamquam clause, brings home the unexpected identity shift all the more strongly. From this vantage point we can see that the phrase sub ea has a double referent, indicating the Lupercal fig tree and the comitium fig tree at the same time: since both trees are now blurred in their shared identity as the ficus Ruminalis, attempts at distinguishing them grammatically would have no conceptual force. Whilst highlighting and explaining the visual and verbal deception which takes place in the shift of memorial associations from the fig tree at the Lupercal to the fig tree at the comitium, Pliny still presents a conception of the new comitium ficus Ruminalis as the genuine ficus Ruminalis.

Recognizing this conceptual flexibility on Pliny's part is hindered by the fact that modern scholars invariably privilege the idea of ‘the original tree' when engaging with the ficus Ruminalis. Critics have argued over whether the Lupercal or the comitium fig tree is ‘le seul et vrai figuier' (‘the one and only fig tree') or ‘la vera Ruminale' (‘the genuine Ruminal tree'), and those who think about the identity of the ficus Ruminalis in a more fluid way may well find themselves reprimanded, Evans scorning those who ‘call the tree in the Comitium the ficus Ruminalis even while admitting the tree was not the original'.²⁸ Hadzsits adds to the vocabulary of originality with labels for first and second tree: ‘the second - almost equally famous - Ruminal fig tree in the Comitium was closely associated in the Roman mind with the first fig tree on the Palatine... the second tree was in some way thought to be derived from the first tree'.²⁹ We should not presume that any Roman ever approached the ficus Ruminalis in the same mental framework. Pliny's dual function sub ea reveals a Roman capacity to engage with the comitium fig tree as, to all intents and purposes, the genuine article, and not in any way ‘secondary' to some ‘original' tree. Even a hardened sceptic such as Tacitus can likewise ascribe to the comitium fig tree the role of the ‘original' tree, and without any of the dry reserve of Pliny's tamquam clause:

eodem anno Ruminalem arborem in comitio, quae octingentos et triginta ante annos Remi Romulique infantiam texerat, mortuis ramalibus et arescente trunco deminutam prodigii loco habitum est, donec in novos fetus revivesceret (Annals 13.58).

In the same year it was considered a portent that the Ruminal tree in the comitium, which eight hundred and thirty years ago had protected Romulus and Remus in their infancy, had deteriorated with dead branches and a withering trunk, until it revived in new foliage.

Rounding off his depiction of the comitium ficus Ruminalis, Pliny reconfirms the lack of distinction Romans posited between what we are tempted to call the original tree and derivative trees: nec sine praesagio aliquo arescit rursusque cura sacerdotum seritur. (Natural History 15.77)

Nor without some omen does it wither and get replanted by the care of the priests.

The verb arescere depicts a state of arboreal crisis which at its least serious indicates withering, and at its most drastic death; none of the physical states on this spectrum hold out much hope for the successful replanting of the tree. Yet Pliny's seemingly bizarre statement that when the ficus Ruminalis withers, or perhaps even dies, it is then replanted does not provide evidence that the ficus Ruminalis was blessed with very arboriculturally talented priests. Rather, it is an insight into the way that Pliny understood each replacement tree as the genuine ficus Ruminalis itself. The ficus Ruminalis can be replanted even when it has died because there is no difference between the previous fig tree and the current one as long as they are both known as the ficus Ruminalis.

Indeed, when it is simply a case of planting a new tree in the same spot, rather than changing its location, Pliny registers no conceptual difficulties at all in perceiving the new tree as the same tree, despite a hiatus in its physical continuity. This is not to say that the hiatus was not taken seriously: such a gap in physical continuity cannot be less serious than a praesagium (‘portent'), a crisis situation confirmed by Tacitus' testimony that the decline of the Ruminal tree was felt to be a prodigium (‘portent'). Likewise, whilst lack of physical continuity may not have affected Roman responses to the memorial authority of the replacement trees, this does not mean that they were blase about preserving whichever ficus Ruminalis they happened to have at the time: Pliny describes Roman responses to the fig using the verb colere which means both ‘to cultivate / care for' and ‘to worship', thereby combining practical arboricultural care and a sense of religious duty.³⁰ Pliny's depiction of the comitium ficus Ruminalis also provides a counter-example to location-centric ways of thinking about Roman public memorializing. The concept of lieux de memoire has proved insightful for the latter, with quotations such as Cicero's tanta vis admonitionis inest in locis (‘so great is the memorial power inherent in places') placed on a pedestal.³¹ It therefore goes against all our expectations to come across an object which boasts the memories of an event which took place beneath it, but which can also change location without apparent damage to its memorial authority. Evidently, ensuring the continuity of a series of ficus Ruminales was vitally important, but each new fig tree's inevitable lack of physical continuity, and for the later ones locational continuity, with the tree actually present at the suckling was not perceived as problematic.

As a flipside to this picture of a series of trees sharing one identity over time, Pliny's potted history of the comitium fig tree also showcases an individual tree which can support more than one identity at a given time. The shifting of a tree's identity (in our case from ficus Navia to ficus Ruminalis) was no doubt a gradual process, and one entirely dependent on stories told by members of the community in relation to their public trees. It is informative here that Conon describes how the fig tree in the ayopa which was witness to events from Romulus and Remus' lifetime is pointed out (SeiKwrai) by the Romans; it is just the kind of memorial you show to your children or visitors, repeating its associated story. The slow nature of the transfer process could have allowed not only for a point when both the Lupercal and the comitium fig trees were known as the ficus Ruminalis, but also a point when the comitium fig tree was known both as the ficus Navia and as the ficus Ruminalis³ Pliny gives us a glimpse of just such a dual identity for the comitium fig tree in his assigning of two levels of sanctity to the tree: sacred because of the lightning-struck objects buried there, but more sacred because of the memorial tradition of the Lupercal fig tree.³³ Here Pliny seems to show us a tree in a state of flux. Its identity as the ficus Ruminalis is starting to override its renown as the ficus Navia, the whetstone and razor just anonymous objects now that the tree no longer has overt Navian associations. The tree's previous identity as the ficus Navia may be slyly evoked by the pedantic Pliny, but how many others remember its former days?

The appropriation of the ficus Navia by the memorial associations of the ficus Ruminalis reminds us of the vulnerability of memories kept alive through a monument as organic as a tree. It is hardly surprising then that keeping a specific ficus Ruminalis alive was subordinated to the priority of keeping alive a fig tree which could, in its turn, keep alive the memoria of Romulus and Remus' suckling. Its memorial associations, not the history of the physical tree, made the ficus Ruminalis what it was; in Pliny's words, it was sacra... ob memoriam (‘sacred because of the memorial tradition'). Now it may be objected that I have misrepresented Pliny in citing only three words of his

sentence. The objector might then put forward that Pliny ascribes sacred status to the comitium fig tree not because of the memory of the suckling of Romulus and Remus, but because of the ‘memory of' the Lupercal fig tree: it was sacra... ob memoriam eius quae, nutrix Romuli ac Remi... (‘sacred because it reminded people of that tree which, the nurse of Romulus and Remus...’). Such an interpretation would undermine my earlier claims that Roman engagement with the ficus Ruminalis did not privilege the idea of an original tree, and quickly leads to the comitium fig tree being understood as a ‘memorial’ to the Lupercal fig tree.³⁴ I hold that such an interpretation is to misunderstand Pliny’s Latin. The phrase ob memoriam eius quae features a subjective genitive, not an objective genitive; it refers to the memoria which once belonged to the Lupercal fig tree (which must be the tradition of the suckling of Romulus and Remus), and not to the remembrance of that tree.³⁵ So when Pliny states that the comitium ficus Ruminalis is sacra... ob memoriam eius quae... he attributes the tree’s sanctity to its role not as a memorial to the Lupercal tree, but as a new catalyst for the community’s memories of the suckling of Romulus and Remus. Indeed, only reading the phrase ob memoriam eius quae as a subjective genitive, as I have outlined, could complement the full force of Pliny’s claim that the comitium fig is called Ruminalis as if it were the Lupercal fig migrated to the comitium. Identifying the comitium tree as the Ruminal fig requires too strong an appropriation of the Lupercal fig’s identity for it simply to stand as a reminder of the Lupercal tree. The physical continuity of the ficus Ruminalis may have been constantly threatened, but of what great concern was this for a tree whose identity and sanctity was dependent on its memorial power but independent of its matter?

Notes

1 For brevity’s sake, from now on I will refer to Pliny the Elder simply as Pliny. This article is an extended version of a paper given at the colloquium: I thank Professor Peter Wiseman and Professor Ken Dowden for their comments on the paper, and also Professor John Henderson for later invaluable discussion of Pliny Natural History 15.77.

2 This penchant for trees with mytho-historical connections was by no means restricted to Pliny. For example, Pausanias also notes a plane tree planted by Menelaus as worthy of attention (8.23.4).

3 Here Pliny's arboreal knowledge seems to have overridden the tendency he shows elsewhere to romanticize about the age of trees: witness his statement that in remote regions some trees may have an immeasurable span of life (Natural History 16.234).

4 Indeed, believing the ficus Ruminalis of his day to be the original tree would have taken a degree of willing suspension of disbelief which Cicero, for one, would have classed as sheer gullibility. Illustrating an argument that objects are remembered far longer than nature can keep them alive, Cicero points out that it is for fools to think that Athens has preserved an everlasting olive tree on its citadel or that the palm tree which Homer's Odysseus said he saw at Delos is the same as the one shown there today (De Legibus 1.1-2).

5 Pliny is currently enjoying something of an academic renaissance, with several recent books developing appreciation of his insights as a cultural historian, e.g. Beagon (1992) and Carey (2003). Published since the colloquium, Gibson and Morello (2011) also works to redeem Pliny's Natural History from ‘a long career in the footnotes' (vii). Such work is welcome indeed, for the Natural History constitutes a little-plumbed treasure trove of insights into the cultural and intellectual imagination of imperial Rome: my focused study of Pliny's conceptions of the ficus Ruminalis makes one foray into this trove.

6 De Sanctis (1910: 79). Torelli (1982: 99) is alone in thinking that ‘the passage is clear enough'.

7 Rackham (1945) prints qua in place of quae, which would force us to understand the nutrix as the she wolf rather than the fig tree. The verb protexit, however, is more suited to the sheltering role of the tree than the actions of the fabled wolf. Moreover, the wolf's overt introduction a few words later (quoniam sub ea inventa est lupa) would have been superfluous if she had already been introduced by means of nutrix. Whilst some may find it difficult to view a tree as a ‘nurse', Latin usage does not restrict the title of nutrix to human or animal agents, and indeed only a few chapters later Pliny refers to acorn-bearing trees as the first nutrices of humankind (Natural History 16.1). Rackham also omits in before comitium, but for a clause describing

the putative actions of a tree which is standing in the comitium, crossing into rather than crossing over the comitium is far more pointed. I am grateful to Professor Peter Wiseman for his comments championing this reading. My understanding of the subject of the tamquam clause will soon be argued in detail.

To cultivate is the closest English can get to rendering the double meaning of the verb colere, which encompasses both practical care and actions of worship.

Quintus Fabius Pictor as paraphrased in Origo Gentis Romanae 20.3, Varro Lingua Latina 5.54, Ovid Fasti 2.405-6 and 421-2, Livy Ab Urbe Condita 1.4.4-6, Plutarch De Fortuna Romanorum 320 C, Plutarch Romulus 3.5-4.2, Servius ad Aeneidum 8.90.

Roman narratives of their city's history held that the River Tiber frequently used to flood the area later known as the Velabrum, before its draining by the Cloaca Maxima (e.g. Propertius 4.9.3-6).

Tacitus Annals 13.58.

Conon Narrationes 48, as paraphrased in Photius Bibliotheca 186.48.

Such differing traditions are not unusual when it comes to myths about Romulus and Remus, which were particularly susceptible to variation. See Wiseman (1995: 14) for a diagram of variant features of the foundation myth.

See Duliere (1979: 60) on the convoluted nature of Pliny's prose at this point. The details of this story we extract from the accounts of Verrius Flaccus as preserved in Festus L 168-70, Livy Ab Urbe Condita 1.36, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities 3.71.5.

Over a century ago Baddeley (1905: 107) recognized that the comitium fig tree ‘was at one time called “Navia” but later “Ruminalis” ': remarkably little fuss has been made about such a striking observation.

Evans (1992: 79) sees the miracle depicted as that of the transfer of the tree, with the ablative absolute retrospectively dependent on the tamquam clause for the identification of its miraculum. She does not suggest how she imagines this would have been achieved artistically.

Rackham (1945: 341) does take the wolf as the subject, perhaps facilitated by his earlier emendation of quae to qua which elevates the role of the wolf within the sentence, as explained in n.7.

For example, Torelli (1982: 99), who dates the ‘ominous appearance' of the fig tree in the comitium to the reign of Tarquinius Superbus.

The ablative absolute also reconfirms that the subject of the tamquam clause must be the comitium fig tree, for the introduction of Attus Navius at this point would be of no relevance to any of the other potential subjects discussed.

De Sanctis (1910: 80). Professor Dowden helpfully noted during the colloquium that tamquam followed by a subjunctive can serve as an equivalent to the Greek usage of wq plus optative to express an alleged reason. If we were to understand Pliny's tamquam clause as allotting reasoning to the anonymous group who call the tree Ruminalis, then the patently absurd nature of the explanation (spontaneous arboreal migration) can only enhance his snide tone.

22 My understanding of Pliny's sentence incidentally avoids uncertainty (as felt by Duliere 1979: 60) as to whether iuxta locates the bronze statue group near the comitium fig tree or the Lupercal fig tree. Sandwiched between two phrases now recognized as describing the comitium fig tree, iuxta must locate the statue near the comitium tree.

23 The nearby statue group would have endowed the ficus Navia with a new identity by association, just as once before its proximity to a statue of Navius must have encouraged its reputation as the ficus Navia.

24 Roman Antiquities 1.79. Controversies rage as to the appearance, location and number of Rome's statue groups of the suckling Romulus and Remus, for an overview of which see Evans (1992: 78-83).

25 It is unclear how much or what part of a tree is indicated by vestigium, but the fig tree is certainly not thriving nor all intact (‘remnant' is a common meaning of vestigium, Oxford Latin Dictionary §7). When Tacitus describes a cypress which collapsed and then revived the next day eodem vestigio he may be using the phrase idiomatically to mean ‘in exactly the same place' (Oxford Latin Dictionary §2b), but he may also offer us a glimpse of evidence that an arboreal vestigium is no more than the hole left by an uprooted tree (Histories 2.78.6). Could this be an arboreal parallel to another meaning of vestigium, that of a human footprint (Oxford Latin Dictionary §1)?

26 Who is to know how many replantings of the Lupercal tree have simply escaped record?

27 After all, this tree had always had a pro-Romulan stance, ever since its association with Navius opposing Tarquinius' proposed changes to Romulus' tribe divisions.

28 Duliere (1979: 59). De Sanctis (1910: 80). Evans (1992: 76).

29 Hadzsits (1936: 308).

30 Plutarch describes a similar Roman response to another Romulean memorial tree, a cornel into which Romulus' spear is said to have metamorphosed (Life of Romulus 20.5-6): ώς εν τι των άγιωτάτων Ιερών φυλάττοντες και σεβόμενοι περιετείχισαν (‘they walled it in, protecting and honouring it as one of their most holy sacred objects'). The conjunction of verbs indicating protection and worship in a response which marks out a tree as sacred reads almost like a gloss on colitur ficus arbor (‘a fig tree is tended I honoured'), a long-hand spelling out of the Latin verb's resonances. This cornel tree is also the recipient of rather melodramatic public attention, in that whenever someone notices it to be under the weather he cries for water and people come running with buckets from all sides, as if saving a burning building. This sense of crisis mirrors Pliny and Tacitus' presentation of the ficus Ruminalis’ demise as portentous.

31 Cicero, De Finibus 5.2.

32 De Sanctis (1910: 82) recognizes the former possibility.

33 References in Ovid (Fasti 2.405-6) and Livy (Ab Urbe Condita 1.4.4-6) to the Lupercal ficus Ruminalis once being called Romularis or Romula also hint at a similar story of conflation of associations within a single tree. A possible explanation of these references runs as follows. At one time there was a fig tree at the shrine of Rumina, the goddess of breastfeeding, as depicted by Varro (De Re Rustica 2.11.5). There was also a fig tree at the Lupercal, called Romularis or Romula and associated with the suckling of Romulus and Remus. The natural affinity of these trees entailed that over time their identities were conflated, whether the trigger of this was their close proximity (the location of the shrine of Rumina is unknown) or the decline of one of the trees. This hypothesis would explain the tradition of the tree's change of name from Romularis or Romula to Ruminalis, which has puzzled many, as stemming from the point of conflation.

34 Evans (1992: 78).

35 See the Oxford Latin Dictionary §7 for examples of memoria used to mean collective memory or tradition.

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