Natural History: A Selection (Classics)

Buy Natural History: A Selection (Penguin Classics) Reprint edition by Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder) () Paperback on leondumoulin.nl ✓ FREE.
Table of contents

• Pliny the Elder's Natural History: The Empire in the Encyclopedia
• Natural History by Pliny the Elder | leondumoulin.nl
• Navigation menu

Learn more about Amazon Prime. Read more Read less. Add all three to Cart Add all three to List. These items are shipped from and sold by different sellers. Buy the selected items together This item: Ships from and sold by SimonBooks. Ships from and sold by Amazon. Customers who bought this item also bought. Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1. Complete Letters Oxford World's Classics. Agricola and Germania Penguin Classics. Selected Speeches and Statements. The Ten Books on Architecture Bks. Product details Paperback Publisher: View shipping rates and policies Average Customer Review: Related Video Shorts 0 Upload your video.

Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. This collection of excerpts from Pliny's encyclopedia is astonishing, enjoyable. It is astonishing because the Romans knew about technologies that I had thought were modern, such as hydraulic gold mining. It is enjoyable because Pliny's personal observations about various topics are personable, sensible, and very modern.

You can't help liking him. Appalling because after giving a common-sense summary of a topic, he then proceeded to list every Roman urban legen he could collect, with no sign of skepticism. He mixed cogent insights with utter rubbish in roughly equal proportions. Still, even the rubbish was fun to read. Did you know that Saturn is the farthest planet away from the Earth no telescopes , that it is a frozen and barren world, and that its orbit takes 30 years to complete?

Did you know that the Moon is , miles above the earth? Did you know that the Earth is a rocky sphere much like the Moon? Did you know that Cleopatra once ate a pearl earring just to win a bet? I thought the excerpts were fun from beginning to end. The man died rescuing victims from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius that buried Pompeii. The elder Pliny must have been a wonderful person to know. He was curious about everything, was well-educated, well-traveled, and had a lot of practical experience in worldly matters.

He was a Renaissance Man way before the Renaissance. In this delightful work, Pliny set out to write down everything he knew about everything. You can read the table of contents to see the topics he covers and how the material is organized. He has some strong opinions as well as a sense of humor. That said, there were a couple of pages when he got into metallurgy and mining where I was getting antsy, so perhaps Healy made the right choice.

I found this a very enjoyable reading experience that gave me a lot of insight into how educated Romans perceived the world. Pliny knew it was round. Five stars, despite the abridgement. Pliny the Elder wrote this book and much, much more--this is merely a "selection"-- in about 75 A.

In it, he tried to put all the knowledge in the world, which is pretty damn ambitious. Much of his knowledge is accurate--for instance, he knew the earth was round and revolved every 24 hours--but much is wildly bizarre, like his description of a tribe of Himalayan people with their feet pointed backward who "run with extraordinary speed" or his discussion of which animals have the worst bad breath lions and bears.

And then there are some moments of philosophical speculation, such as this passage: And it has stood the test of time for more than 19 centuries. You can discount this review by the way that I bought this seeking to read the famous account of Vesuvius' eruption.

I couldn't remember which Pliny wrote it - and since I have free shipping through Amazon Prime, I just went ahead and impulse-bought the Natural History, without even Googling the Plinys. These selections from the Natural History are fascinating. However, Bede updated and corrected Pliny on the tides. In Robert of Cricklade wrote the Defloratio Historiae Naturalis Plinii Secundi consisting of nine books of selections taken from an ancient manuscript. The work was one of the first classical manuscripts to be printed , at Venice in by Johann and Wendelin of Speyer , but J.

Healy described the translation as "distinctly imperfect". Philemon Holland made an influential translation of much of the work into English in Riley made a complete translation in The Natural History is generally divided into the organic plants and animals and the inorganic matter, although there are frequent digressions in each section.

Its description of metals and minerals is valued for its detail in the history of science , being the most extensive compilation still available from the ancient world. The first topic covered is Astronomy, in Book II. Pliny starts with the known universe, roundly criticising attempts at cosmology as madness, including the view that there are countless other worlds than the Earth.

He doubts the four Aristotelian elements, fire, earth, air and water, [41] but records the seven "planets" including the sun and moon. Book II continues with natural meteorological events lower in the sky, including the winds, weather, whirlwinds, lightning, and rainbows. Book VII discusses the human race, covering anthropology and ethnography , aspects of human physiology and assorted matters such as the greatness of Julius Caesar , outstanding people such as Hippocrates and Asclepiades , happiness and fortune.

The encyclopedia mentions different sources of purple dye, particularly the murex snail, the highly prized source of Tyrian purple. It describes the elephant and hippopotamus in detail, as well as the value and origin of the pearl and the invention of fish farming and oyster farming.

The keeping of aquariums was a popular pastime of the rich, and Pliny provides anecdotes of the problems of owners becoming too closely attached to their fish. Pliny correctly identifies the origin of amber as the fossilised resin of pine trees. Evidence cited includes the fact that some samples exhibit encapsulated insects, a feature readily explained by the presence of a viscous resin. Pliny refers to the way in which it exerts a charge when rubbed, a property well known to Theophrastus. He devotes considerable space to bees , which he admires for their industry, organisation, and honey , discussing the significance of the queen bee and the use of smoke by beekeepers at the hive to collect honeycomb.

• CHERUBIKON.
• Kentucky Country: Folk and Country Music of Kentucky.
• Customers who bought this item also bought.

He praises the song of the nightingale. The manufacture of papyrus and the various grades of papyrus available to Romans are described. The vine, viticulture and varieties of grape are discussed in Book XIV, while Book XV covers the olive tree in detail, [52] followed by other trees including the apple and pear, [53] fig, [54] cherry, [55] myrtle and laurel , [56] among others. Pliny gives special attention to spices, such as pepper , ginger , and cane sugar. He mentions different varieties of pepper, whose values are comparable with that of gold and silver, while sugar is noted only for its medicinal value.

He is critical of perfumes: Other substances added include myrrh , cinnamon , and balsam gum. Pliny lists over drugs, compared to in Dioscorides 's De Materia Medica , in Theophrastus, and in Galen. Pliny addresses magic in Book XXX. He is critical of the Magi, attacking astrology , and suggesting that magic originated in medicine, creeping in by pretending to offer health.

He names Zoroaster of Ancient Persia as the source of magical ideas. He states that Pythagoras , Empedocles , Democritus and Plato all travelled abroad to learn magic, remarking that it was surprising anyone accepted the doctrines they brought back, and that medicine of Hippocrates and magic of Democritus should have flourished simultaneously at the time of the Peloponnesian War.

Pliny's work includes discussion of all known cultivated crops and vegetables, as well as herbs and remedies derived from them. He describes machines used in cultivation and processing the crops. For example, he describes a simple mechanical reaper that cut the ears of wheat and barley without the straw and was pushed by oxen Book XVIII, chapter It is depicted on a bas-relief found at Trier from the later Roman period. He also describes how grain is ground using a pestle, a hand-mill, or a mill driven by water wheels , as found in Roman water mills across the Empire.

He is critical of greed for gold, such as the absurdity of using the metal for coins in the early Republic. He gives examples of the way rulers proclaimed their prowess by exhibiting gold looted from their campaigns, such as that by Claudius after conquering Britain, and tells the stories of Midas and Croesus. He discusses why gold is unique in its malleability and ductility , far greater than any other metal.

The examples given are its ability to be beaten into fine foil with just one ounce, producing leaves four inches square. Fine gold wire can be woven into cloth, although imperial clothes usually combined it with natural fibres like wool. He once saw Agrippina the Younger , wife of Claudius, at a public show on the Fucine Lake involving a naval battle, wearing a military cloak made of gold.

He rejects Herodotus's claims of Indian gold obtained by ants or dug up by griffins in Scythia. Silver , he writes, does not occur in native form and has to be mined, usually occurring with lead ores. Spain produced the most silver in his time, many of the mines having been started by Hannibal. One of the largest had galleries running up to two miles into the mountain, while men worked day and night draining the mine in shifts.

Pliny is probably referring to the reverse overshot water-wheels operated by treadmill and found in Roman mines. Britain, he says, is very rich in lead, which is found on the surface at many places, and thus very easy to extract; production was so high that a law was passed attempting to restrict mining. Fraud and forgery are described in detail; in particular coin counterfeiting by mixing copper with silver, or even admixture with iron.

Tests had been developed for counterfeit coins and proved very popular with the victims, mostly ordinary people.

He deals with the liquid metal mercury, also found in silver mines. He records that it is toxic, and amalgamates with gold, so is used for refining and extracting that metal. He says mercury is used for gilding copper, while antimony is found in silver mines and is used as an eyebrow cosmetic. The main ore of mercury is cinnabar , long used as a pigment by painters. He says that the colour is similar to scolecium , probably the kermes insect. Copper and bronze are, says Pliny, most famous for their use in statues including colossi, gigantic statues as tall as towers, the most famous being the Colossus of Rhodes.

He personally saw the massive statue of Nero in Rome, which was removed after the emperor's death. The face of the statue was modified shortly after Nero's death during Vespasian's reign, to make it a statue of Sol. Hadrian moved it, with the help of the architect Decrianus and 24 elephants, to a position next to the Flavian Amphitheatre now called the Colosseum.

Pliny gives a special place to iron, distinguishing the hardness of steel from what is now called wrought iron , a softer grade. He is scathing about the use of iron in warfare. The topic concentrates on the most valuable gemstones, and he criticises the obsession with luxury products such as engraved gems and hardstone carvings. He provides a thorough discussion of the properties of fluorspar , noting that it is carved into vases and other decorative objects.

Pliny moves into crystallography and mineralogy , describing the octahedral shape of the diamond and recording that diamond dust is used by gem engravers to cut and polish other gems, owing to its great hardness. He relates the story of a woman who owned a ladle made of the mineral, paying the sum of , sesterces for the item.

Nero deliberately broke two crystal cups when he realised that he was about to be deposed, so denying their use to anyone else. Pliny returns to the problem of fraud and the detection of false gems using several tests, including the scratch test, where counterfeit gems can be marked by a steel file, and genuine ones not.

Perhaps it refers to glass imitations of jewellery gemstones. He refers to using one hard mineral to scratch another, presaging the Mohs hardness scale.

1. Natural History by Pliny the Elder!
2. Share this title.
3. Confessions of a Christian Humanist?
4. Graphs and Networks: Transfinite and Nonstandard!
5. Trevor Murphy.

Diamond sits at the top of the series because, Pliny says, it will scratch all other minerals. Pliny's chapters on Roman and Greek art are especially valuable because his work is virtually the only classical source of information on the subject. Greek epigrams contribute their share in Pliny's descriptions of pictures and statues. Pliny's knowledge of the Greek authorities was probably mainly due to Varro, whom he often quotes e.

Navigation menu

For a number of items relating to works of art near the coast of Asia Minor and in the adjacent islands, Pliny was indebted to the general, statesman, orator and historian Gaius Licinius Mucianus , who died before The main merit of his account of ancient art, the only classical work of its kind, is that it is a compilation ultimately founded on the lost textbooks of Xenocrates and on the biographies of Duris and Antigonus.

The statue is attributed by Pliny to three sculptors from the island of Rhodes: Agesander , Athenodoros possibly son of Agesander and Polydorus. In the temple near the Flaminian Circus , Pliny admires the Ares and the Aphrodite of Scopas , "which would suffice to give renown to any other spot". At Rome indeed the works of art are legion; besides, one effaces another from the memory and, however beautiful they may be, we are distracted by the overpowering claims of duty and business; for to admire art we need leisure and profound stillness XXXVI: Pliny provides lucid descriptions of Roman mining.

He describes gold mining in detail, [66] with large-scale use of water to scour alluvial gold deposits. In another part of his work, Pliny describes the use of undermining [h] to gain access to the veins. Copper mining is mentioned, using a variety of ores including copper pyrites and marcasite , some of the mining being underground, some on the surface.

The anonymous fourth-century compilation Medicina Plinii contains more than 1, pharmacological recipes, the vast majority of them from the Historia naturalis ; perhaps because Pliny's name was attached to it, it enjoyed huge popularity in the Middle Ages. Isidore of Seville 's Etymologiae The Etymologies , c. Sir Thomas Browne expressed scepticism about Pliny's dependability in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica: Now what is very strange, there is scarce a popular error passant in our days, which is not either directly expressed, or diductively contained in this Work; which being in the hands of most men, hath proved a powerful occasion of their propagation.

Wherein notwithstanding the credulity of the Reader is more condemnable then the curiosity of the Author: Laehn to represent the collective opinion of Pliny's critics, [80] wrote of Pliny that "He was not an original, creative thinker, nor a pioneer of research to be compared either with Aristotle and Theophrastus or with any of the great moderns. He was, rather, the compiler of a secondary sourcebook. Further, Calvino compares Pliny to Immanuel Kant , in that God is prevented by logic from conflicting with reason, even though in Calvino's view Pliny makes a pantheistic identification of God as being immanent in nature.

As for destiny, Calvino writes:. The art historian Jacob Isager writes in the introduction to his analysis of Pliny's chapters on art in the Natural History that his intention is:. More specifically, Isager writes that "the guiding principle in Pliny's treatment of Greek and Roman art is the function of art in society", [64] while Pliny "uses his art history to express opinions about the ideology of the state". Natural history was an ancient form of scientific knowledge, most closely associated with the writings of the Roman encyclopedist Pliny the Elder His loquacious and witty Historia naturalis offered an expansive definition of this subject.

Findlen contrasts Pliny's approach with that of his intellectual predecessors Aristotle and Theophrastus, who sought general causes of natural phenomena, while Pliny was more interested in cataloguing natural wonders, and his contemporary Dioscorides explored nature for its uses in Roman medicine in his great work De Materia Medica. Work by those with scientific as well as philological expertise has resulted in improvements both to Pliny's text and to his reputation as a scientist. The essential coherence of his enterprise has also been rediscovered, and his ambitious portrayal, in all its manifestations, of 'nature, that is, life'..