DIVI BOTANICI. 23 



tions. During the lapse of many ages, these sagacious and venerat- 

 ed barbarians persevered in maturing the practice of enslaving every 

 alien nation which their fierce and sanguinary armies were able to 

 ruin and despoil of its independence. This system of outrage on the 

 divine institutions and on the natural rights of men was designed to 

 increase the opulence and power of the oppressor ; but, like every 

 other national enormity, it conduced with slow but certain influence 

 to aggravate the bane of rottenness and depravation to which even 

 the strongest constructed tyranny is necessarily exposed. From this 

 state, unusual merit occasionally redeemed a captive and raised him 

 to the humbling rank of being respected as the " freed man'' of his 

 enslaver, with a right to the chance of gleaning some reputation or 

 property in the applications of his skill and experience directed by a 

 good mental endowment. Such was the fortune of Antonius Musa, 

 who gained the high office of " Archiater to Augustus," and re- 

 ceived the meed of a deification from the chief priest of Botany, in 

 after- days, with an immortality greatly more exalted than that 

 which was bestowed by vassals and parasites on his imperial master. 

 Historians and traditionary chroniclers, and the poets also, are 

 all equally silent concerning the native land of Musa, the places of 

 his education, and the circumstances of his captivity. He is some- 

 times represented as a Greek by nation ; and, if this statement has 

 a sure foundation, he must have fallen a sacrifice to the rapacity of 

 those ruffians by whom the last germs of Grecian freedom were 

 trampled in the dust. His possession of " useful knowledge" and 

 his attainments in philosophy would render him an object of desire 

 to the wealthy or ambitious ; and, in consequence of his worth, he 

 was preferred by the august " slave-owner" to whom the " liberal" 

 Roman citizens submissively entrusted the absolute guardianship of 

 their " civil and religious liberties." 



tice of that republican law which sanctioned and sustained the despotism of 

 slavery. He it was, while magnanimous patriots all around him were stun- 

 ning Home with noise of virtuous cant, though hatching secretly a deed of 

 murder, he alone it was, who offered a generous homage at the shrine of 

 Intellect, by proclaiming liberty to the enlightened captive. History relates, 

 with grateful approbation, the tact that Julius Ciesar conferred the freedom 

 of the city on all those who practised the medical profession, and on those 

 who taught the liberal arts, as an encouragement for these persons to esta- 

 blish themselves in the capital, and for others to desire the privileges of 

 Roman citizens. Ciesar merely concentrated the sordid tyranny of the Many 

 into the arbitrary sovereignty of the Few. His successor gave peace to the 

 world lor half a century, and prosperity to his many-peopled dominions. 



