78 
Pliny's natural history. 
[Book XXV. 
heart of wilds and deserts, and searcliing into every vein and 
fibre of the earth — and all this, to discover the hidden virtues 
of every root, the properties of the leaf of every plant, and the 
various purposes to which they might be applied ; converting 
thereby those vegetable productions, which the very beasts of 
the field refuse to touch, into so many instruments for our 
welfare. 
CHAP. 2. (2.)— THE LATIN AUTHORS WHO HAVE WEITTEN UPON 
THESE PLANTS. 
This subject has not been treated of by the writers in our 
own language so extensively as it deserves, eager as they have 
proved themselves to make enquiry into everything that is 
either meritorious or profitable. M. Cato, that great master 
in all useful knowledge, was the first, and, for a long time, the 
only author who treated of this branch^ of learning; and 
briefly as he has touched upon it, he has not omitted to make 
some mention of the remedial treatment of cattle. After him, 
another illustrious personage, C. Yalgius,^ a man distinguished 
for his erudition, commenced a treatise upon the same subject, 
which he dedicated to the late Emperor Augustus, but left 
unfinished. At the beginning of his preface, replete as it is 
with a spirit of piety,^ he expresses a hope that the majestic 
sway of that prince may ever prove a most efficient remedy 
for all the evils to which mankind are exposed. 
CHAP. 3. AT VrHAT PERIOD THE EOlilANS ACQUIRED SOME KNOW- 
LEDGE OF THIS SUBJECT. 
The only* person among us, at least so far as I have been able 
to ascertain, who had treated of this subject before the time of 
Yalgius, was Pompeius Lenseus,^ the freedman of Pompeius 
Magnus ; and it was in his day, I find, that this branch of 
knowledge first began to be cultivated among us. Mithridates, 
the most powerful monarch of that period, and who was finally 
conquered by Pompeius, is generally thought to have been a 
1 As Fee remarks, it is more as a writer upon Agriculture than upon 
Materia Medica, that Cato is entitled to the thanks of posterity. 
See end of B. xx. 
2 His piety, apparently, was tainted with adulation. 
* With the exception of Gato, of course. 
^ See end of B. xiv. 
