Pliny the Elder on science and technology
By: John F. Healy.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Oxford; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 467
Subjects: Pliny, the Elder -- Knowledge -- Science.; Pliny, the Elder; Science, Ancient.
Description: "This is the first major re-assessment of Pliny the scientist since Bailey's publication in the late 1920s. Modern experiments, simulating the techniques described by Pliny, and an in-depth study of his development of a technical language, confirm his unique contribution to our knowledge of science in early imperial Rome. Pliny does not, in general, understand the principles underlying the phenomena he observes but makes a significant input - especially in the fields of crystallography, chemistry, and physics as well as of the earth sciences - from which beginnings those scientific disciplines were to evolve many centuries later."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and indexes.