28 DIVI BOTANICI. 



whole medical profession, in all time coming. Having related these 

 facts, Dion strangely adds, with reference to the honoured physician, 

 " but, it is right that he should be exposed who could arrogate to 

 himself the work of fate and fortune : and so it happened that 

 although Augustus had been recovered, yet when Marcellus* soon 

 afterwards fell sick, the youth died notwithstanding he also was treat- 

 ed by Musa's method." Manifestly, however, this is a childish and 

 unjust imputation ; for, if Musa changed the previous to a contrary 

 treatment ; and if, under this treatment exclusively, the emperor was 

 soon brought to health from " the gates of death ;" then, by simple 

 equity, the treatment and the cure ought to be regarded as cause and 

 effect, while the merit of this should justly be ascribed to him who 

 directed its cause, and not to " fate and fortune," inasmuch as he 

 incurred the risk of its discredit, if he had proved unsuccessful. 



By the same historian it is stated that, in certain quarters, Livia 

 was charged with having procured the death of Marcellus, by poison ; 

 but it is stated further, this suspicion was rendered questionable by 

 the fact that, for two yeais, the seasons had been so unwholsome as 

 to generate diseases which proved fatal to a great multitude of per- 

 sons. These diseases seem to have constituted an epidemic, with 

 appearances resembling modifications of the Cholera, according to 

 their general descriptions. 



* Taken altogether, Virgil's JEneid is a complete and splendid Panegyric 

 on Augustus, and with this the poet dexterously mingles complimentary 

 episodes in honour of his patrons and most valued friends. His elegiac 

 verses on Marcellus have always met with universal commendation, for the 

 delicate eulogy and affecting sentiment with which they are imbued. This 

 accomplished prince was the son of Octavia, the sister of Augustus, who had 

 adopted his nephew with the intention of bequeathing to him the imperial 

 wealth and the Roman sovereignty. Marcellus married Julia, the emper- 

 or's daughter, who was soon thrown into widowhood by the sudden demise 

 of her husband, in the eighteenth year of his age. His premature death 

 occasioned great and unfeigned lamentation : and, for celebrating his virtues, 

 the poet was rewarded with the most princely favour and munificence. 

 When Virgil was reading his pathetic episode to Octavia with the sweetness, 

 propriety and grace which distinguished him, the princess became intensely 

 affected and shed abundance of tears; but, on finding the beautifully mourn- 

 ful panegyric appropriated to her son, whose name remained judiciously 

 unmentioned till the close, she was overpowered with the "joy of grief," 

 and sunk into a swoon. On recovering a little, Octavia ordered ten sesterces 

 — upwards of eighty pounds sterling — to be given to the minstrel for every 

 one of the twenty-seven verses which have immortalized the excellencies of 

 a son whose melancholy destiny she deplored. — Virr/iUi JEneidos, lib. vi, v. 

 i!(50_886. 



