SOURCE: Nicholas Phillies Howe, "In Defense of the Encyclopedic Mode: On Pliny's Preface to the Natural History," in Latomus: Revue d'etudes Latines, Vol. 44, No. 3, July-September, 1985, pp. 561-76.

In the following essay, Howe analyzes Pliny's vision of his own work as found in the Preface to Natural History, concluding that Pliny's defensive explanations of his historical recordings illustrate his lack of faith in the future.

The study of Pliny's Natural History has been confined for the most part to assessing the accuracy of its contents and to tracing its sources. As if taking their cue from its shapelessness, most scholars of the Natural History seem more concerned with selected passages than with the work as a whole. The narrow focus of most Pliny scholarship is understandable, but it has led to certain regrettable omissions. For rarely are the larger questions asked: to what end did Pliny collect all of...