180 DIVI BOTANICI. 



and the Egyptian queen in marriage, bestowed on him the title of 

 king, and made him sovereign of all the territories which his father 

 formerly possessed. After his decease, so greatly and so deservedly 

 revered were the righteousness and benignity of his patriotic reign, 

 that his people instituted a solemn ritual for worshiping, with divine 

 honours,* the character and memory of their philanthropic monarch 

 — the device of a grateful veneration unimbued with the Celestial 

 Wisdom revealed to man, for the exaltation of his intellects in guid- 

 ing the exercise of his moral and religious powers. 



Besides administering the affairs of his kingdom with assiduity 

 and justice, Juba enjoyed a favourite occupation in the study of 

 literature and the sciences. From facts procured by personal inves- 

 tigation, he composed a natural history of the Mauritanian regions : 

 he also wrote monographs on the Euphorbium, on the Tree that 

 yields Frankincense, and on the ono2,t Laser or juice of the Silphi- 



* Bv the Athenians, a statue was raised and consecrated in honour of this 

 illustrious prince, who preferred the quiet pursuits of* science and philan- 

 thropy to the more dazzling enterprises of robbery and carnage in war. 

 Tradition relates the tale, that the /Ethiopians were the first inhabitants of 

 the earth ; that they were the first who worshiped the gods ; and that, for 

 this piety, their country was never invaded by a foreign enemy. The pos- 

 terity of these reputed progenitors of the human race, exalted Juba to the 

 " divine order," and worshiped him as a deity ; such was the extravagant 

 devotion with which the ancient Polytheists were prone to regard great per- 

 sonages, distinguished for generous or patriotic excellency ; and such are 

 the fruits of an energetic veneration when undisciplined in true wisdom or 

 mistrainedby the ignorance or artifice of its guides. 



■j- 01102 was the term anciently used for designating Juice in general : 

 under restriction, it denoted the crude sap of plants, whether expressed or 

 extilled : ultimately, it came to denote the Juice, allusively to that of the 

 Silphium, with a signification of pre-eminence : but, in its earliest accepta- 

 tion, the word usually represented the milky juice of the wild Fig-tree em- 

 ployed for curdling milk, by the primitive races of men. The Laser was a 

 resinous gum which the Greeks and Romans reckoned equally valuable as 

 gold, both for culinary and medicinal purposes. At Rome, it obtained the 

 highest consideration in being deposited in the national treasury as available 

 property. When Julius Caesar usurped the government of his country, he 

 seized and sold one hundred and eleven pounds of the Laser, as his chief 

 resource for defraying the expenses of the first civil war, — a curious fact 

 which displays the effect of appreciating things, whether plants or books, 

 according to their rarity. This precious substance was transparent, russet- 

 coloured, and fragrant; in some of its sensible qualities, it resembled myrrh; 

 in taste, it was hot, tart, pungent ; its virtues were inestimable, in that they 

 proved a reputed antidote to all sorts of poison, could restore sight to the 

 Wind, and had the power of protecting youth from the dreaded encroach- 

 ments of old age ! Various places in Syria, Libya, Media and Armenia, but 



