histo;ry of botany. 51 



liimself the merit of pursuing farther the career of the celebrated 

 Lesbian. This was Dioscorides, a native of Anazarbc in CilUia. 

 He lived in the first century after the birth of Christ. Medicine was 

 his profession. He was the first who bestowed the utmost attention by 

 enquiring into the medicinal properties of plants. He made them the 

 objeft of several travels through various provinces in Europe and Asia, 

 His work on the medical virtues of the plants *, which rendered him 

 the literary father of the Materia Medica, remains as a valuable monu- 

 ment of his greatness. His travels into remote countries had enabled 

 him to make more observations than Theophrastu s. He described 

 upwards of 6oo plants. 



The Greeks were in all sciences, especially in natural history, and in 

 the scientifiic representation of botany, the original predecessors 

 and teachers of the Romans, their conquerors. The latter, at the 

 most flourishing epochs of their universal monarchy devoted them- 

 selves more than evet to the Muses. The less known and less culti- 

 vated goddess Flora, found only among them one great votary, who, 

 by his meritorious exertions, preserved his name even beyond the grave. 

 This was Pliny the elder, of Veronai a man universally eminent in 

 Roman literature, and especially in natural history. The large classical 

 work which he wrote on this subjeft is principally appropriated to the 

 vegetable reign, which it occupies from the iithtothe 19th book. In 

 point of rich colleftions and keen observations he excelled all the 

 Greeks. By his own avowal, his natural history is a compilation from 



* Ilt^] vXr,; la.-T^i^<;, de Materia Medica, lib. vi. first published by A. Manuce at Venice, 

 1499, in folio ; afterwards by J. A. Saracenus at Frankfort, 1598, folio. The most mo- 

 dern and best edition is by the late Baron Von Kollar, Vienna, 1770, with plates. 



H 2 about 



