博物誌 — プリニウス
You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 1 (of 6) Author : the Elder Pliny Translator : John Bostock Henry T. Riley Release date : July 12, 2018 [eBook #57493] Language : English Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57493 Credits : Produced by Turgut Dincer, Brian Wilcox and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) *** START OF BOHN’S CLASSICAL LIBRARY. PLINY’S NATURAL HISTORY. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PLINY. TRANSLATED, WITH COPIOUS NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE LATE JOHN BOSTOCK, M.D., F.R.S. AND H. T. RILEY, Esq. , B.A., LATE SCHOLAR OF CLARE HALL, CAMBRIDGE. VOL. I. LONDON: HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. MDCCCLV. PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND FRANCIS, RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET. PREFACE The only translation of Pliny’s Natural History which has hitherto appeared in the English language is that by Philemon Holland, published in the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth. It is no disparagement to Holland’s merits, as a diligent and generally faithful translator, to say that his work is unsuited to the requirements of the nineteenth century. In the present translation, the principal editions of Pliny have been carefully consulted, and no pains have been spared, as a reference to the Notes will show, to present to the reader the labours of recent Commentators, among whom stands pre-eminent the celebrated Cuvier. It has been a primary object to bring to the illustration of the work whatever was afforded by the progress of knowledge and modern discoveries in science and art. Without ample illustration, Pliny’s valuable work would want much of the interest which belongs to it, and present difficulties scarcely surmountable by any one who has not made the Author his especial study. In the first two Books, the text of Hardouin, as given in Lemaire’s edition (Paris, 1827), has been followed; in the remainder that of Sillig (Gotha, 1851-3), excepting in some few instances, where, for reasons given in the Notes, it has been deemed advisable to depart from it. The first two Books, and portions of others, are the performance of the late Dr. Bostock, who contemplated a translation of the entire work; but, unfortunately for the interests of science, he was not permitted to carry his design into execution. Upwards of a hundred pages had been printed off before the present Translator entered on his duties; and as they had not the advantage of Dr. Bostock’s superintendence through the press, some trifling oversights have occurred. These are, for the most part, corrected in a short Appendix . THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF PLINY. Caius Plinius Secundus was born either at Verona or Novum Comum 1 , now Como, in Cisalpine Gaul, in the year A.U.C. 776, and A.D. 23. It is supposed that his earlier years were spent in his native province; and that he was still a youth when he removed to Rome, and attended the lectures of the grammarian Apion. It was in about his sixteenth year that he there saw Lollia Paulina 2 , as in the following she was divorced by Caligula, and it was probably in his twentieth that he witnessed the capture of a large fish at Ostia, by Claudius and his attendants 3 , and in his twenty-second that he visited Africa 4 , Egypt, and Greece. In his twenty-third year Pliny served in Germany under the legatus Pomponius Secundus, whose friendship he soon acquired, and was in consequence promoted to the command of an ala , or troop of cavalry. During his military career he wrote a treatise (now lost) “On the Use of the Javelin by Cavalry,” and travelled over that country 5 as far as the shores of the German Ocean, besides visiting Belgic Gaul. In his twenty-ninth year he returned to Rome, and applied himself for a time to forensic pursuits, which however he appears soon to have abandoned. About this time he wrote the life of his friend Pomponius, and an account of the “Wars in Germany,” in twenty books, neither of which are extant. Though employed in writing a continuation of the “Roman History” of Aufidius Bassus, from the time of Tiberius, he judiciously suspended its publication during the reign of Nero, who appointed him his procurator in Nearer Spain, and not improbably honoured him with equestrian rank. It was during his sojourn in Spain that the death of his brother-in-law, C. Cæcilius, left his nephew C. Plinius Cæcilius Secundus (the author of the Letters) an orphan; whom immediately upon his return to Rome, A.D. 70, he adopted, receiving him and his widowed mother under his roof. Having been previously known to Vespasian in the German wars, he was admitted into the number of his most intimate friends, and obtained an appointment at court, the nature of which is not known, but Rezzonico conjectures that it was in connexion with the imperial treasury. Though Pliny was on intimate terms also with Titus, to whom he dedicated his Natural History, there is little ground for the assertion, sometimes made, that he served under him in the Jewish wars. His account of Palestine clearly shows that he had never visited that country. It was at this period that he published his Continuation of the History of Aufidius Bassus. From the titles which he gives to Titus in the dedicatory preface, it is pretty clear that his Natural History was published A.D. 77, two years before his death. In A.D. 73 or 74, he had been appointed by Vespasian præfect of the Roman fleet at Misenum, on the western coast of Italy. It was to this elevation that he owed his romantic death, somewhat similar, it has been remarked, to that of Empedocles, who perished in the crater of Mount Ætna. The closing scene of his