HISTORY OF BOTANY. O 



a bulky work, and it is said that 32,000 copies were sold 

 before the year 1561. Another and much esteemed edition 

 of Dioscorides, by Caspar Bauhin, was published in 1598. 



These three Greek writers, Hippocrates, Theophrastus, 

 and Dioscorides, are the authorities for all the Greek names 

 of plants up to the Christian Era.* 



§ 3. Latin Writers before the Christian Era. 



There were a number of Latin authors who took great 

 interest in plants, and wrote of them incidentally, and some 

 of them wrote treatises on husbandry. Horticulture was 

 also a favourite amusement of several of the Latin poets ; 

 hence it frequently happens, that though these wi'iters can 

 scarcely be quoted as botanical authorities, names of plants 

 which are still in use are to be found first in their works. 



Among these the following may be named : — Plautus, a 

 writer of comedy, who died b.c. 184. Cato, an orator and 

 historian, who died b.c. 150. He wrote a treatise on hus- 

 bandry, and it is of him that the well-known story is told, 

 that he repented of only three things in his life : — to have 

 gone by sea, when he could have gone by land; to have 

 passed a day inactive ; and to have told a secret to his wife. 

 Varro, died b.c. 26 ; he was a learned writer of 500 different 

 works, all of which are lost excepting one on agTiculture. 

 Virgil, the well known Roman poet, died b. c. 19 ; his famous 

 * Georgics/ a poem on agriculture in four books, was 

 written at the particular request of Maecenas, a Eoman 

 nobleman, who was a great patron of letters. The first 



^' There were other Greek writers of less note, or who, though of 

 gi'eat note (for instance Aristotle), did not contribute veiy much to 

 Botany, though they wrote something on the subject. Not a few of 

 theii' works are lost, therefore I confine myseK to these three. A full 

 list is given by Gesner, in a preface to the Herbal of Hieronymus 

 Tragus. 



