in the drier regions and on the drier limestone soils, the forest was perhaps open, as is usual under such conditions, and truly arid, forestless regions were also found where they exist now. Although it has been customary to point out some of the Mediterranean and Eastern countries as having become deserts and depopulated through deforestation, and although this is undoubtedly true for some parts, as Mount Lebanon and Syria, generalization in this respect is dangerous.
We know, however, that by the 11th century before Christ, in Palestine, Asia Minor and Greece, especially in the neighborhood of thriving cities, the forest cover had vanished to a large extent and building timber for the temples at Tyre and Sidon had to be brought long distances from Mount Lebanon, whose wealth of cedar was also freely drawn upon for ship timber and other structures. Although about 465 B.C. Artaxerxes I, having recognized the pending exhaustion of this mountain forest, had attempted to regulate the cutting of timber, the exploitation had by 333 B.C. progressed to such an extent that Alexander the Great found at least the south slope exhausted and almost woodless.
The destruction by axe and fire of the celebrated forests of Sharon, Carmel and Bashan is the theme of the prophet Isaiah writing about 590 B.C.; and the widespread devastation of large forest areas during the Jewish wars is depicted by Josephus. In Greece, the Persian wars are on record as causes of widespread forest destruction. Yet in other parts, as on the island of Cyprus, which, originally densely wooded, had rapidly lost its forest wealth during Cleopatra’s time through the development of mining and metallurgical works, ship building and clearing for farms, the kings seemed to have been able to protect the remnants for a long time, so that respectable forest cover exists even to date.
The Romans seem to have had still a surplus of ship timber at their command in the third and second centuries before Christ, when they did not hesitate to burn the warships of the Carthaginians (203 B.C.) and of the Syrians (189 B.C.), although it may be that other considerations forced these actions. Denuded hills and scarcity of building timber in certain parts are mentioned at the end of the third century before Christ, and that the need for conservative use of timber resources had arrived also appears from the fact that when (167 B.C.) the Romans had brought Macedonia under their sway, the cutting of ship timber in the extensive forests of that country was prohibited. Although at that time the Roman State forests were still quite extensive, it is evident that under the system of renting these for the mast and pasture and for the exploitation of their timber to companies of contractors, their devastation must have progressed rapidly. Yet, on the whole, with local exceptions, Italy remained well wooded until the Christian era.
In Spain, according to Diodorus Siculus (about 100 B.C.), the Southern provinces were densely wooded when about 200 B.C. the Romans first took possession; but soon after a great forest fire starting from the Pyrenees ran over the country, exposing deposits of silver ore, which invited a large influx of miners, the cause of reckless deforestation of the country. The interior of this peninsula, however, was probably always forestless or at least scantily wooded.
While through colonization, exploitation, fire and other abuse, the useful forest area was decimated in many parts, the location of the Mediterranean peninsular countries was such that wood supplies could be readily secured by water from distant parts, and the lignarii or wood merchants of Italy drew their supplies even from India by way of Alexandria; they went for Ash to Asia Minor; for Cedar to Cilicia; Paphlagonia, Liguria and Mauritania became the great wood export countries. It is interesting to note that a regular wood market existed in Rome, as in Jerusalem, and at the former place firewood was sold by the pound (75c per 200 lbs., in Cicero’s time). At the same time that the causes of devastation were at work the forest area also increased in some parts, recovering ground lost during wars and through the neglect of farms by natural seeding; much less by active effort, although planting of trees in parks, vineyards and groves was early practiced to a limited extent.
2. Development of Property
As to development of forest property we have also only fragmentary information. Nomads do not know soil as property. When they become settled farmers the plowland, the vineyard or olive grove and orchard are recognized as private property, but all the rest remains common property or nobody’s in particular; and even the private property was not at first entirely exclusive. Hence for a long time (and in some parts even to date) the exclusive property right in forests is not fully established. At least the right to hunt over all territory without restriction was possessed by everybody, although an owner might prevent undesirable hunters from entering his property if it was enclosed. The setting aside of hunting grounds for private use came into existence only in later Roman times. But woodland parks, planted or otherwise, like the “paradises” of the Persian kings and the nemora of the Romans and Carthaginians were early a part of the private property of princes and grandees from which others were excluded.
Forests formed a barrier and defense against outsiders, or a hiding place in case of need, hence we find in early times frontier forests, or as the Germans called them “Grenzmarken,” set aside or designated for such purposes and withdrawn from use, and sometimes additionally fortified by ditches and other artificial barriers. Even before the “Grenzmarken” of the Germans the forest was used by Greeks, Romans and still earlier among Asiatic tribes to designate the limit of peoples as well as to serve as a bulwark against attacks from invaders.
Again, the pantheistic ideas of the ancients led to consecrating not only trees but groves to certain gods: holy groves were frequent among the Greeks and Romans, and also among other pagans; the Jews, however, were enjoined to eradicate these emblems of paganism in the promised land with axe and fire, and they did so more or less, removal and re-establishment of holy groves varying according to the religious sentiment of their rulers. Altogether, in Palestine the forests were left to the free and unrestricted use of the Israelites.
Out of religious conceptions and priestly shrewdness arose church property in farms and forests among the Indian Brahmans, the Ethiopians and Egyptians, as also among Greeks and Romans.
It appears that the oriental kings were exclusive owners of all unappropriated or public forests. This was certainly the case with the princes of India and of Persia, and such ownership can be proved definitely in many other parts, as in the case of the forests of Lebanon, of Cyprus, and of various forest areas in Asia Minor.
That in the Greek republics the forests were mainly public property seems to be likely; for Attica, at least, this is true without doubt.
While the first Roman kings seem to have owned royal domains, which were distributed among the people after the expulsion of the kings, the public property which came to the republic as a result of conquest was in most cases at once transferred to private hands, either for homesteads of colonists, or in recognition of services of soldiers and other public officers, or to mollify the conquered, or by sale, or for rent, not to mention the rights acquired by squatters. The rents were usually farmed out to collectors (publicani) or to corporations formed of these. Livy, however, mentions also State forests in which the cutting was regulated, probably by merely reserving the ship timber.
That occasionally single cities and other smaller municipal units owned forest properties in common seems also established.
Private forest properties connected with farm estates existed in Ethiopia, in Arabia, among the Greeks and among the Romans at home as well as in their colonies. Especially pasture woods (saltus) connected with small and large estates (latifundia) into which probably most forest areas near settlements were turned, are frequently mentioned as in private ownership; but also other private forests existed.
The institution of servitudes or rights of user (usus and usus-fructus) and a considerable amount of law regarding the conditions under which they were exercised and regarding their extinguishment were in existence among the Romans in the first centuries of the Christian era.
3. Forest Use
Restrictions in the use of woods were not entirely absent, but with the exception of reserving ship timber in the State forests, they refer only to special classes of forest.
In the frontier forests reserved for defensive purposes, timber cutting was forbidden. And in the holy groves set aside by private or public declaration no wood could be cut thereafter, being