Pliny: Natural History, Vol. II

PLINY: NATURAL HISTORY

BOOK III

1 I. So much as to the situation and the marvels of land and water and of the stars, and the plan and dimensions of the universe.

Now to describe its parts, although this also is considered an endless task, not lightly undertaken without some adverse criticism, though in no field does enquiry more fairly claim indulgence, only granting it to be by no means wonderful that one born a human being should not possess all human knowledge. For this reason I shall not follow any single authority, but such as I shall judge most reliable in their several departments, since I have found it a characteristic common to virtually all of them that each gave the most careful description of the particular region in which he personally was writing. 2 Accordingly I shall neither blame nor criticise anyone. The bare names of places will be set down, and with the greatest brevity available, their celebrity and its reasons being deferred to their proper sections; for my topic now is the world as a whole. Therefore I should like it to be understood that I specify the bare names of the places without their record, as they were in the beginning before they had achieved

any history, and that though their names are mentioned, it is only as forming a portion of the world and of the natural universe.