プリニウス『博物誌』における帝国 Pliny the Elder's Natural History : The Empire in the Encyclopedia

Murphy, Trevor

Oxford University Press（2004/03発売）

• 製本 Hardcover:ハードカバー版／ページ数 244 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9780199262885
• DDC分類 878.0109

基本説明

This original study shows that as well as being an exhaustive survey of the phenomena of nature, it is also an unparalleled guide to the political and cultural systems that the Romans used to understand their world.

Full Description

The most important surviving encyclopedia from the ancient world, Pliny the Elder's Natural History is unparalleled as a guide to the cultural meanings of everyday things in first-century Rome. As part of a new direction in classical scholarship, Trevor Murphy reads the work not just for the information it contains, but to understand how and why Pliny collects and presents information as he does. Concentrating on the geographic and ethnographic information in Pliny, Murphy demonstrates the work's political importance. The selection and arrangement of the encyclopedia's material show that it is more than an instrument of reference: it is a monument to the power of Roman imperial society.

Contents

Introduction: Encyclopedia as artefact ; PART I: READING THE NATURAL HISTORY ; 1. The Shape of the Natural History ; 2. Knowledge as a commodity ; PART II: THE ETHNOGRAPHIES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY ; 3. Reading the Ethnographies ; 4. Triumphal Geography ; 5. After Rome: the Ends of the World ; Conclusion: Encyclopedias and Monuments