Natural History: A Selection

Pliny’s Natural History is an astonishingly ambitious work that ranges from astronomy to art and from geography to zoology. Mingling acute observation with often wild speculation, it offers a fascinating view of the world as it was understood in the first century AD, whether describing the danger of diving for sponges, the first water-clock, or the use of asses’ milk to remove wrinkles. Pliny himself died while investigating the volcanic eruption that destroyed Pompeii in AD 79, and the natural curiosity that brought about his death is also very much evident in the Natural History — a book that proved highly influential right up until the Renaissance and that his nephew, Pliny the younger, described ‘as full of variety as nature itself’.

John F. Healy has made a fascinating and varied selection from the Natural History for this clear, modern translation. In his introduction, he discusses the book and its sources topic by topic. This edition also includes a full index and notes.

Pliny the Younger claimed that his uncle's book was "a learned and comprehensive work as full of variety as nature itself." It certainly includes more than 20,000 facts derived from over 2,000 earlier texts, which makes it the major source for ancient beliefs about every form of useful knowledge--from agriculture, architecture and astronomy to geography, metallury and zoology. Pliny's detailed but sceptical account of medicine and pharmacy is both a mine of informaion and a fascinating expose' of the doctors of his day. And his wonderful tall stories, personal reminiscences and many sharp digressions on human ambition, extravagance and greed all add color and a variety to his book. Yet Pliny was, above all, a man so intensely interested in the natural world that he was killed while trying to observe an eruption of Vesuvius at close quarters; theNatural Historyis a magnificent monument to his energy, extensive research and insatiable curiosity.