The most important surviving encyclopaedia from the ancient world, Pliny the Elder's Natural History is unparalleled as a guide to the cultural meanings of everyday things in 1st-century Rome. As part of a new direction in classical scholarship, this book reads the work not just for the information it contains, but to understand how and why Pliny collects and presents information as he does. Concentrating on the geographic and ethnographic information in Pliny, the book demonstrates the work's political importance. The selection and arrangement of the encyclopaedia's material show that it is m ... More

The most important surviving encyclopaedia from the ancient world, Pliny the Elder's Natural History is unparalleled as a guide to the cultural meanings of everyday things in 1st-century Rome. As part of a new direction in classical scholarship, this book reads the work not just for the information it contains, but to understand how and why Pliny collects and presents information as he does. Concentrating on the geographic and ethnographic information in Pliny, the book demonstrates the work's political importance. The selection and arrangement of the encyclopaedia's material show that it is more than an instrument of reference: it is a monument to the power of Roman imperial society.