文档介绍：THE LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY
FOUNDED BT JAMES LOEB, .
EDITED BY
E. H. WAEMINGTON, ., .
PKEVIOTJS EDITORS
tT. E. PAGE, .,. tE. CAPPS, .,.
tW. H. D. ROUSE, . L. A. POST. L .
PLINY
NATURAL HISTORY
1
PRAEFATIO, LIBRI, I, H
330
PLINY
NATURAL HISTORY
IN TEN VOLUMES
I
PRAEFATIO, LIBRI I, II
WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION
H. RACKHAM, .
FELLOW OF CBRIST'S COLLEOE, OAUBRIDOB
CAMBRIDOE, MASSACHU9ETT9
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD
IIOULXVU
FntST PRrs-TED . 1938
Repri>-ted .... 1944
Revised and reprinted . 1949
EEPRiirrED .... 1958
Reprinted .... 1967
fRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD
THE UNIVERSITV PRESS, GLASGOW
CONTENTS
PAQB
PREFATOET NOTE vi
INTRODTTCTION Vii
PLINY's rREFACE 1
BOOK I 23
BOOE n 169
PREFATORY NOTE
The need for a new edition of this volume allows
me to correct some misprints and mistakes in the
text and translation. I am gratified to reviewers
for pointing out a few that I had not noticed myself.
Some of the mistakes of nomenclature were due to
the plan of publication, which prechided postponing
Book I, PUny's Table of Contents, till the whole of the
treatise had been worked through and the objects
mentioned had been so far as possible identified by his
descriptions.
H. R.
October, 1943.
V»
INTRODUCTION
Gaius Plinius Secundus—usually called Pliny
the Elder to distinguish him from his nephew and
ward, Gaius Phnius Caecihus Secundus, whose
coUected correspondence has preserved such a vivid
picture of Roman life in the time of Trajan—belonged
to a family of wealth and position in the North of
Italy. He was born o in . 23. After study-
ing at Rome he started when twenty-three years
old on an ofRcial career, serving in Germany under
L. Pomponius Secundus, and rising to mand
of a cavalry squadron. Seven or eight years later he
came back to Rome and took up the study of