Note 1637 — Chapter IX · COMMERCE OF ATTICA.

Cf. Strab. vii. 4. t. ii. p. 95. Dem. adv. Lept. § 9. Herod. vii. 147. The climate of this country was regarded as extremely severe by the ancients, so that at Panticapæum, a city lying between the modern Kertsh and Yenikale, neither the myrtle nor the laurel would grow on account of the cold, though many attempts had been made to rear them for sacred purposes. And yet the laurel was found to brave the inclemencies of the season on Mount Olympos. Most fruit-trees, however, as apples, pears, figs, and pomegranates flourished in the Crimea abundantly, though the pomegranate required to be covered in winter, and all fruits ripened later. The usual timber trees of the country were the oak, the elm, and the ash; the pine, the silver-fir, and the pitch-tree, finding the climate uncongenial. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 5. 3. The nitrous plains around Panticapæum are still bare of wood, though covered thickly by the harmala, a plant which grows spontaneously upon saltpetre grounds. Pallas, Travels in Southern Russia, iii. 356.