4 HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



tliem. We are indebted to Theophrastus for the preserva- 

 tion of the works of Aristotle, who entrusted them to him 

 on his death-bed; he succeeded that philosopher in the 

 Lyceum, where he became so celebrated that his auditors 

 increased to the number of 2000. He died, according to 

 some, in his 87th, according to others in his 107th j^ear, 

 lamenting the shortness of life, and complaining of the 

 partiality of Nature, in granting longevity to the crow and 

 to the stag, but not to man. 



There is a little uncertainty as to the exact time of 

 Dioscorides. He is said by some to have been physician to 

 Antony and Cleopatra, who killed themselves b. c. 30 ; by 

 others he is reported, with perhaps more probability, to 

 have lived in the time of Nero, who killed himself A. d. 68. 

 He was a native of Cilicia, and was first a soldier, but after- 

 wards applied himself to the study of physic ; being a 

 physician, Dioscorides treats on plants in respect to their 

 medicinal uses, and his work resembles a modern ' Materia 

 Medica.' It is not confined to plants, but includes 

 mammals, fishes, and insects, with the products derived 

 from them, as milk, butter, cheese, wool, honey, &c. ; 

 minerals are also included. By far the greater part of the 

 work, however, refers to plants, and these are divided in a 

 general way, though not very strictly, into the aromatic, 

 alimentary, and medicinal. Dioscorides is the authority 

 for a great number of our old Greek names of plants, and he 

 has been much read, commented on, and quoted. His 

 ' Materia Medica ' was the first of the Greek botanical 

 works which, on the invention of printing, was introduced 

 to western Europe in a Latin translation by Barbarus, a 

 Venetian nobleman ; it was printed in 1478, but a translation 

 of Theophrastus soon followed in 1483. In 1548 another 

 translation of Dioscorides was published by Matthiolus, an 

 Italian physician : it ran through seventeen editions, though 



