Editing Natural History (Pliny) (section)

==Production==

===Purpose===

Pliny's purpose in writing the ''Natural History'' was to cover all learning and art so far as they are connected with nature or draw their materials from nature.<ref name=EB1911/> He says:<ref name=PlinyDedication/><blockquote>My subject is a barren one – the world of nature, or in other words life; and that subject in its least elevated department, and employing either rustic terms or foreign, nay barbarian words that actually have to be introduced with an apology. Moreover, the path is not a beaten highway of authorship, nor one in which the mind is eager to range: there is not one of us who has made the same venture, nor yet one among the Greeks who has tackled single-handed all departments of the subject.</blockquote>

===Sources===

Pliny studied the original authorities on each subject and took care to make excerpts from their pages. His ''indices auctorum'' sometimes list the authorities he actually consulted, though not exhaustively; in other cases, they cover the principal writers on the subject, whose names are borrowed second-hand from his immediate authorities.<ref name=EB1911/> He acknowledges his obligations to his predecessors: "To own up to those who were the means of one's own achievements."<ref>Pliny the Elder. [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Pliny_the_Elder/praefatio*.html#21 Praefatio:21]</ref>

In the preface, the author claims to have stated 20,000 facts gathered from some 2,000 books and from 100 select authors.<ref>{{cite book | author=Anderson, Frank J.  | title=An Illustrated History of the Herbals | url=https://archive.org/details/illustratedhisto00ande  | url-access=registration  | publisher=Columbia University Press | year=1977 | isbn=0-231-04002-4 | page=[https://archive.org/details/illustratedhisto00ande/page/17 17]}}</ref> The extant lists of his authorities cover more than 400, including 146 Roman and 327 Greek and other sources of information. The lists generally follow the order of the subject matter of each book. This has been shown in [[Heinrich Brunn]]'s ''Disputatio'' ([[Bonn]], 1856).<ref name=EB1911/><ref>Cf. Heinrich Brunn's ''Kleine Schriften Gesammelt Von Hermann Brunn Und Heinrich Bulle...: Bd. Zur Griechischen Kunstgeschichte. Mit 69 Abbildungen Im Text Und Auf Einer Doppeltafel'', 1905 reproduction by Ulan Press (2012).</ref>

One of Pliny's authorities is [[Marcus Terentius Varro]]. In the geographical books, Varro is supplemented by the topographical commentaries of [[Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa|Agrippa]], which were completed by the emperor [[Augustus]]; for his [[zoology]], he relies largely on Aristotle and on [[Juba II|Juba]], the scholarly [[Mauretania]]n king, ''studiorum claritate memorabilior quam regno'' (v. 16).<ref name=EB1911/> Juba is one of his principal guides in botany;<ref name=EB1911/> [[Theophrastus]] is also named in his Indices, and Pliny had translated Theophrastus's Greek into Latin. Another work by Theophrastus, ''[[On Stones]]'' was cited as a source on [[ores]] and [[mineral]]s. Pliny strove to use all the Greek histories available to him, such as Herodotus and [[Thucydides]], as well as the ''[[Bibliotheca Historica]]'' of [[Diodorus Siculus]].<ref>Cf. Mary Beagon, ''Roman Nature: The Thought of Pliny the Elder'', Clarendon Press (1992), ''s.v.''; Trevor Murphy, ''Pliny the Elder's Natural History: The Empire in the Encyclopedia'', OUP (2004), pp.&nbsp;196–200 and ''passim''.</ref>

===Working method===

His nephew, Pliny the Younger, described the method that Pliny used to write the ''Natural History'':<ref name=letterV>Pliny the Younger. Book 3, Letter V. ''[http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_plinyltrs3.htm To Baebius Macer] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081201143647/http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_plinyltrs3.htm |date=1 December 2008 }}.'' in "Letters of Pliny the Younger" with introduction by John B. Firth.</ref>

<blockquote>
Does it surprise you that a busy man found time to finish so many volumes, many of which deal with such minute details?... He used to begin to study at night on the [[Volcanalia|Festival of Vulcan]], not for luck but from his love of study, long before dawn; in winter he would commence at the seventh hour... He could sleep at call, and it would come upon him and leave him in the middle of his work. Before daybreak he would go to Vespasian&nbsp;– for he too was a night-worker&nbsp;– and then set about his official duties. On his return home he would again give to study any time that he had free. Often in summer after taking a meal, which with him, as in the old days, was always a simple and light one, he would lie in the sun if he had any time to spare, and a book would be read aloud, from which he would take notes and extracts.</blockquote>

Pliny the Younger told the following anecdote illustrating his uncle's enthusiasm for study:<ref name=letterV/>

<blockquote>
After dinner a book would be read aloud, and he would take notes in a cursory way. I remember that one of his friends, when the reader pronounced a word wrongly, checked him and made him read it again, and my uncle said to him, "Did you not catch the meaning?" When his friend said "yes," he remarked, "Why then did you make him turn back? We have lost more than ten lines through your interruption." So jealous was he of every moment lost.
</blockquote>

===Style===

Pliny's writing style emulates that of [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]].<ref>Cf. Trevor Murphy, ''Pliny the Elder's Natural History: The Empire in the Encyclopedia'', OUP (2004), pp.&nbsp;181–197.</ref> It aims less at clarity and vividness than at [[epigrammatic]] point. It contains many [[antitheses]], questions, exclamations, [[Trope (linguistics)|tropes]], [[metaphor]]s, and other [[mannerism]]s of the [[Silver Age of Latin Literature|Silver Age]].<ref>Cf. P. L. Chambers, ''The Natural Histories of Pliny the Elder: An Advanced Reader and Grammar Review'', University of Oklahoma Press (2012), ''s.v.'', and Latin [[syntax]] in Pliny; see also Roger French & Frank Greenaway, ''Science in the Early Roman Empire: Pliny the Elder, his Sources and Influence'', Croom Helm (1986), pp.&nbsp;23–44.</ref> His sentence structure is often loose and straggling. There is heavy use of the [[ablative absolute]], and [[ablative]] phrases are often appended in a kind of vague "apposition" to express the author's own opinion of an immediately previous statement, e.g.,<ref name="NH XXXV:80">''Natural History'' XXXV:80</ref>

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto;"
|+ A sentence illustrating Pliny's writing style
|-
! style="width:  80px;" | &nbsp;
! style="width: 225px;" | First half: description 
! style="width: 225px;" | Second half: Pliny's opinion
|-
! Pliny<ref name="NH XXXV:80"/> 
| {{lang|la|dixit (Apelles)&nbsp;... uno se praestare, quod manum de tabula sciret tollere,}} || {{lang|la|memorabili praecepto nocere saepe nimiam diligentiam.}}
|-
! Grammar 
| [[Active voice|Active sentence]] || [[Ablative absolute]] phrase
|- 
! Translation<ref>Healy, 2004. page 331 (translation of XXXV:80</ref> 
| In one thing Apelles stood out, namely, knowing when he had put enough work into a painting, || a salutary warning that too much effort can be counterproductive.<br/>&nbsp;
|}