Pliny the Elder's Natural History: The Empire in the Encyclopedia

by Trevor Murphy

Overview

Pliny the Elder's Natural History, from first-century Rome, is the most important surviving encyclopedia of the ancient world. As a guide to the cultural meanings of everyday things in ancient Rome it is unparalleled. Concentrating on Pliny's accounts of foreign lands and peoples, monsters, and barbarians, Trevor Murphy demonstrates the political significance of this reference book as a monument to the power of Roman imperial society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199262885
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/20/2004
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	244
Product dimensions:	8.86(w) x 5.56(h) x 0.73(d)

About the Author

Trevor Murphy is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Encyclopedia as artefactPart I: Reading the Natural History1. The Shape of the Natural History2. Knowledge as a commodityPart II: The Ethnographies of the Natural History3. Reading the Ethnographies4. Triumphal Geography5. After Rome: the Ends of the WorldConclusion: Encyclopedias and Monuments

Editorial Reviews

"Murphy takes a provocative new approach as he concentrates on ethnography and geography in Pliny. Murphy argues persuasively that reference works are a kind of institutional knowledge, and that military, political, and commercial power of Rome provided subject matter for Pliny.... Highly recommended."—Choice

From the Publisher