Natural History
Also known as: Naturalis Historia, The Natural History
A vast Latin encyclopedia in thirty-seven books surveying the cosmos, geography, zoology, botany, minerals, medicine, and the arts, synthesizing Greek and Roman learning with Roman imperial perspectives.
Description
Pliny’s Natural History is an encyclopedic synthesis of ancient knowledge, arranged across thirty-seven books. It ranges from cosmology and timekeeping to ethnography, zoology, botany, pharmacology, metallurgy, gemology, and the visual arts, often citing hundreds of earlier authorities. The work preserves fragments of lost Greek scholarship (Aristotle, Theophrastus) alongside Roman observations, practical lore, and marvels. Though credulous in places, it attempts critical collection and organization, providing an index and author lists. As the largest surviving Roman encyclopedia, it became a foundational reference for late antiquity and the medieval Latin West, shaping scientific, medical, and artistic discourse for centuries.
Historiography
Surviving through a complex manuscript tradition, the Natural History circulated widely in late antiquity and the Middle Ages, often excerpted and reorganized. Early printed editions (from 1469) accelerated its influence. Modern standard texts rely on comparative collation of medieval codices and Renaissance prints. English translations by Bostock & Riley and Loeb (Rackham et al.) are widely cited; scholars analyze Pliny’s method, source‐criticism, and reception across encyclopedic and scientific genres.
Date Notes
Composed in Latin in the AD 70s, dedicated to Titus; circulating by AD 77. Pliny died in AD 79 during the eruption of Vesuvius; the work reflects revisions up to that year.
Archetypes
Symbols
Major Characters
- Pliny the Elder
Myths
- Marvels and Prodigies of the World
- Monstrous Races and Wonders
- Portents and Omens
Facts
- Composed in Latin and dedicated to Titus as an encyclopedic survey of nature and art.
- Arranged in 37 books with an index and lists of authorities consulted.
- Preserves extensive material from otherwise lost Greek works, notably Theophrastus.
- Combines observation, hearsay, and citation, often noting sources explicitly.
- Influenced medieval encyclopedists, including Isidore of Seville and Solinus.
- Covers cosmology, geography, zoology, botany, minerals, medicine, and the arts.
- Art history books record artists, techniques, and famous works of antiquity.
- Pharmacological sections enumerate remedies from plants, animals, and minerals.
- Pliny perished in AD 79 during the eruption of Vesuvius soon after the work’s completion.
- Early printed editions appeared in 1469; numerous modern critical editions and translations exist.