8 SKETCH OF THE RISK [tECT. I. 



The Romans, that extraordinary people, who, for 

 the space of seven hundred years that they were 

 engaged in almost perpetual wars and commo- 

 tions, spread by the force of the sword, the bless- 

 ings of civilization over the Barbarous part of 

 the world ; and who drew all their knowledge from 

 the more refined nations over whom their arms 

 had triumphed, began to study Botany, soon 

 after their victory over Mithridates. They did 

 not, however, add much to the discoveries of their 

 instructors. The works of DIOSCORIDES, a native 

 of Anagarba in Cilicia, who flourished under the 

 tyranny of Nero, and wrote on the Materia Me- 

 dica *, contain descriptions of scarcely more 

 than six hundred plants ; and the elder Pliny -f-, 

 who flourished a short time (about sixty-four 

 years) prior to the birth of Christ, after hav- 

 ing collected all the information of his prede- 

 cessors, has described one thousand plants only ; 

 but he acknowledged there were many more, 

 which, however, as they had no names, and were 

 of no use, he did not describe. The irruption of 

 the Goths, and other northern nations upon the 

 Roman empire, drove Botany, with the other sci- 



* lisp? Jxn$ iotTftxjis, de Materia Medica, lib. vi. VON 

 KOLLAR. Vienna, 1770. 



f Pliny was a native of Verona : he fell the victim of his 

 scientific ardour, in endeavouring to approach the crater of Ve- 

 suvius, during an eruption, in the 56th year of his age. 



