A series of books written by Pliny the Elder, and compiled by Pliny the Younger after the former succumbed to the eruption of Vesuvius. The word 'history' in this context doesn't mean past events, but 'research', so the title means more of 'research of the nature', although it includes politics and other anthropological contents. I've been reading this book for a while now, and I'm on book VII on 'Man', so far it has been really interesting. This book not only gives an insight into the 2000 year old Roman society, but also makes me examine how far we have come in the 21st century. So have any of you read this book or have suggestions for other books dealing with ancient society and sciences? And a denarius of Vespasian to the bottom left, acting as a time capsule!
Indeed, the Greek ἱστορία has a broad semantic range, but the closest word in English I can think of is inquiry, which fits well with your translation as research. ***I'm going to switch from the Greek alphabet now to transliterating into Roman characters to make it easier for everyone.*** What I find fascinating is that it stems from the root hist-. This root broadly refers to anything set upright, such as a mast (histos) on a ship or the beam on a loom (also histos). From this basic sense, there arise such cognates as histodoke (mast-holder), histophoros (bearing a mast), and histokeraia (sail-yard) in the nautical sphere. In the context of weaving, we have histononos (working at the loom), histotonos (stretched at the loom), histourgeo (to work at the loom, to weave), histourgia (weaving) and histourgos (a weaver). Now, imagine an inquiry or writing as weaving a narrative. We have historiographia (writing history), historema (narrative, tale), historeo (to inquire into, to research) and the cognate adjective historikos (exact, precise, scientific). Research and writing about the findings is like weaving a narrative. Compare the Latin-derived English words text and textile. Fascinating stuff, this philology.
Like all contemporary writings Pliny's works are a window to the the thought pattern of the Ancients but like most, almost all writers of that period on natural phenomenon, while these people made observations, they did not attempt experiments to verify the conclusions of their observations. That would take another time period to become the norm.
This gives me an excuse to post, from my book collecting days, the world's worst 17th Century folio (14" x 9") edition of Pliny's Natural History (or here, L' Histoire du Monde de C. Pline Second). It is a partial, but still has a front board and a title page. According to the eBay seller I got this off of in '08, this book was damaged in a Maine antique store fire. Whatever it was, something bad happened It doesn't look burnt to me - I suspect rodents (natural history indeed). But there is considerable water damage too, which usually means a fire: The rear "title page" is heavily damaged and detached; it may be from a different volume. A bit of an orphan, I put it in a frame and it hangs in the dining room - My efforts at bibliography: Front board with gilt wreath present, but attached by one cord, some old graffiti. No rear board. Spine and most of binding perished. Text damaged at upper left, damage grows worse as it proceeds through text (water and possible worm (?) damage), occasional old ink notes. Collation is as follows: (1) blank; (1) title; (2) dedicatory Ode; (3) “Salut” Epistre; (3) “Noms des Autheurs”; (16) “Des Poids, Mesures et Dimensions des Anceins”; (1) blank; (1-166) Text, as follows: pp. 1-5 Preface; pp. 6-26 Book I (“Sommaire,” dedication to Emperor, etc.); pp. 27-78 Book II; pp. 78-104 Book III; pp. 105-127 Book IV; pp. 128-155 Book V; 156-166 Book VI (incomplete). A single damaged leaf, apparently the final one from Index (Volume II?) was included; this has printer’s “imprimeur” information and is dated 1608.
I live in the country outside of Dunn, North Carolina. It's about 25 minutes driving from the town, and the library is very limited on their collections. However, Campbell University is another 20 minutes. How limited do you think that a university's library would be about coin history. I buy the Red Book each year and have a few other books about coins that I got from Amazon. However, I would like to get deeper into the history of coins before the 18th century. N.C. State University, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Duke are about 90 minutes from home. The more I read Coin Talk, the greater my interest in the history of coins get.
