Pliny: Natural History, Vol. I (Loeb)

that published by Spira at Venice in 1469, an edition by Beroaldus published at Parma in 1476, and that of Palmarius at Venice in 1499. Commentaries start with Hermolai Barbari Castigationes Plinianae original: "Hermolaus Barbarus’s Corrections of Pliny", Rome, 1492–3.

The text of the present edition is printed from that of Detlefsen, Berlin, 1866; it has been checked against the Teubner edition of Ludwig von Jan, re-edited by Karl Mayhoff in two volumes, 1905, 1909 (Volume I reissued 1933), which is admirably equipped with textual notes.

Useful are the commentary by G. Brotier in usum Delphini original: "for the use of the Dauphin" (a series of editions prepared for the French royal heir) (1826); Pliny: Chapters on the Hist. of Art by K. Jex-Blake and E. Sellers (1896); more recently, Pliny's Chapters on Chemical Subjects by K. C. Bailey (1929–); and D. J. Campbell's commentary on Book II (1936).

VOLUME I: CONTENTS

Pliny's Preface. This is in the form of a covering letter from Pliny to accompany the gift of his treatise on Natural History to his friend Vespasian Caesar (that is, the ruling Emperor Vespasian's son, Titus, his successor as Princeps the first citizen or leader of the Roman state, who had already been vested with Imperium the authority to command and Tribunicia Potestas the powers of a Tribune of the Plebs). The reference to him in § 3 dates the passage: see above, p. viii. The author goes on to say that this dedication places the work outside the class of books intended for the general reader and invites serious criticism. The subject does not admit of an elevated style—the treatise is a plain record of the facts of Nature, designed for utility