Pliny the Elder on Science and Technology

The Elder Pliny's Natural History greatly influenced the content and character of subsequent technical literature. He has received little attention since the 1920s and this book is an overdue reassessment of Pliny's ideas and his text. Pliny had to adapt Latin and Greek to his scientific theories and this has rendered parts of his text ambiguous. Healy includes a detailed study of the technical language and also modern experiments simulating Pliny's techniques.