The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 4 (of 6)

The most ambitious reference work in Western history, compiled by a Roman senator who died observing the eruption of Vesuvius. Pliny's Natural History attempts to document everything known about the natural world in a single book: astronomy, geography, mineralogy, botany, zoology, and art. What makes this ancient encyclopedia endlessly fascinating is its peculiar mix of genuine observation and delightful superstition. You will learn genuine facts about plant cultivation alongside instructions involving stones placed on vegetables to make them grow larger. Emperors receive the same attentive treatment as leeks, with Pliny recording that Nero ate leeks and oil monthly to improve his singing voice. Nearly two thousand years old, this is one of the few surviving windows into hundreds of lost Greek and Roman sources. It is essential reading for anyone curious about how the ancients understood the world around them, and what they chose to preserve for posterity.