The fall of Demetrius from power removed the protector of Theophrastus, and the ignorant anti-educationalist party of the day revived their persecutions. In the year 305 B.C. a political noodle managed to frame a law, and to get it passed by the ruling body of the day, which forbade all philosophers under pain of death to give any public instruction without permission of the State. This curious law was passed in order to prevent the education of the people being advanced, and the result was that Theophrastus and several other teachers left Athens. Good sense, however, seems to have prevailed over ignorance and hostility to learning, and the law was abolished in the following year. Moreover, the proposer of it was fined the great sum of five talents for his folly. Then Theophrastus returned to Athens, and taught there until he died. The whole population followed his body to the grave. It is a remarkable fact that the writings of Aristoteles and Theophrastus on plants, were not improved upon for many hundreds of years. They were both observers of nature, and their works contained all the knowledge on the subject, of their time. When the Romans obtained the supremacy in Europe, and had possessions in Asia and in Africa, men were not found amongst them who could add to the knowledge of the Greeks about plants; so the books of the two great men who were the fathers of botany were simply copied by their successors, or criticized, and doubtful novelties were added. There were many Roman writers on agriculture, but few wrote on the nature and structure of plants, and amongst them the most celebrated was Caius Plinius Secundus, commonly called Pliny the Elder.