Note 814 — Chapter XVI · FATHER JOVE AND MOTHER VESTA

Homer, Hymn to Mercury, 108-111 (where a line has been lost; see the note of Messrs. Allen and Sikes); Theophrastus, Histor. plant. v. 9. 6; id., De igne, ix. 64; Hesychius, s.v. στορεύς; Schol. on Apollonius Rhodius, Argon. i. 1184; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvi. 208; Seneca, Nat. Quaest. ii. 22; A. Kuhn, Herabkunft des Feuers, 2nd Ed., pp. 35-41; H. Blumner, Technologie und Terminologie der Gewerbe und Künste, ii. 354-356. Theophrastus gives the name of athragene to the plant which, next to or equally with ivy, makes the best board; he compares it to a vine. Pliny (l.c.) seems to have identified it with a species of wild vine. According to Sprengel, the athragene is the Clematis cirrhosa of Linnaeus, the French clématite à vrilles. See Dioscorides, ed. C. Sprengel, vol. ii. p. 641. As to the kinds of wood employed by the Romans in kindling fire we have no certain evidence, as Pliny and Seneca may have merely copied from Theophrastus.