Book 24
3.13
It is also said that the female trees conceive when smeared with the seeds of the male, and they assert that the trees take pleasure in mutual love, and that this is evident from the fact that they lean towards each other, and cannot be parted even by gales of wind. And if the female tree is not smeared in the usual way with the seed of the male, it suffers abortion and loses its fruit before it is ripe. And if it is not known with what male any female tree is in love, her trunk is smeared with her own perfume,That is, the blossoms of the female tree. and the other tree by a law of nature is attracted by the sweet odour.The tree to which the female tree is attracted is drawn to her by the perfume of her blossoms. The perfume was carried by insects; cf. Hdt. i. 193. It is from these signs that the belief in a kind of copulation is created.
3.14
Abundantly supplied with food of that kind, our army passed by several islands, and where formerly there was dread of scarcity there was now serious danger of over-eating. Finally, they were assailed by a hidden attack of the enemy’s archers, but not unavenged; and came to a place where the main body of the Euphrates is divided into many small streams.
4.1
In this tract a city which, because of its low walls, had been abandoned by its Jewish inhabitants, was burned by the hands of the angry soldiers. This done, the emperor went on farther, still more hopeful because of the gracious aid of the deity, as he interpreted it.
