“... arborum autem consectione omnique materia et culta et silvestri partiam ad calficiendum corpus igni adhibito et ad mitigandum cibum utimur, partim ad aedificandum ut tectis saepti frigora caloresque pellamus. magnos vero usus adfert ad navigia facienda, quorum cursibus subpeditantur omnes undique ad vitam copiae … Terrenorum item commodorum omnis est in homine dominatus.”1
“We cut down trees, and use every kind of wild and cultivated timber, not only to make fire to warm us and dress our meat, but also for building, and that we may have houses to defend us from the heat and cold. With timber likewise we build ships, which bring us from all parts every commodity of life. ... We are the absolute masters of what the earth produces.”2
Cicero, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), (45 CE).
The heavy ax balanced by the trunk of the maple tree. The craggy branches stretched out in all directions like the veins in the wood cutter's sweat-drenched hands. The cool spring air had given way to the hot Mediterranean summer; the ocean breeze and the shade of the tree the only respite from the mid-day sun. It was a shame that by the evening, one of those things would be gone, but this was the last of Appius' work for now.
