T hree years ago I remember turning aside with my father to the estate of Pompeius Falco1 when on our way home from the vintage; and that I saw there a tree with many branches, which he called by its proper name of catachanna.2 But it seemed to me a new and extraordinary tree, bearing as it did upon its single stem off-shoots of almost every kind of tree . . . .3
Naples, 143 A.D.
M. Aurelius Caesar to his own consul and master, greeting.