A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

418 PLINIUS. PLINIUS.
upon them. He gives a few notices of the inhabit- It is unnecessary to follow him in detail through
ants of the different provinces, but no clear or the rest of this part of his work. It is carried on
comprehensive account of the population of the in much the same style. When treating of Africa
country generally, or any intelligible views even he mentions (apparently without disbelief) the
of its physical characteristics. After a similar monstrous races in the south, some without articuaccount of Gallia Narbonensis, Pliny proceeds to late language, others with no heads, having mouths
Italy. His account of this country is, on the and eyes in their breasts. He accedes to the
whole, the best of the kind that he has given. opinion of king Juba, that the Nile rises in a
Following the division of Augustus, he enumerates mountain of Mauritania, and that its inundations
the different provinces, going round the coast. are due to the Etesian winds, which either force
Thle extent of coast line was of course favourable the current back upon the land, or carry vast
for defining the positions of places situated on or quantities of clouds to Aethiopia, the rain from
near it. Where the coast or river does not give which swells the river. Of the races to the north
him a convenient method of defining the position and east of the Pontus and on the Tanais he has
of places, he simply enumerates them, usually in preserved a very large number of names. With
alphabetical order. He has been at considerable regard to India he has some accounts which show
pains to specify a number of distances between that amid the conflicting, and what even Pliny
mouths of rivers, headlands, and other salient or calls incredible statements of different writers, a
important points, but his numbers can scarcely ever good deal of accurate information had reached the
be relied on. Many are egregiously wrong. This Romans. It is to be regretted that Pliny was
may be partly the fault of copyists, but there can deterred by the nature of these accounts from giving
be little doubt that it is mainly the fault of Pliny us more of them. It would have been interesting
himself, from his misunderstanding the data of the to know what Greeks who had resided at the
authors from whom he copied. In connection with courts of Indian kings (vi. 17) told their countrythe more important sections of Italy he enumerates men. We could have spared for that purpose most
in order the races which successively inhabited of the rough and inaccurate statements of distances
them, and where the occasion presents itself men- which he has taken the trouble to put in. Some intions not only the towns which existed in his own tercourse which had taken place with the king of
time, but those which had been destroyed. The Taprobane in the reign of the emperor Claudius
Tiberis and Padus, especially the latter, he enables Pliny to give a somewhat circumstantial
describes with considerable care. After the pro- account of the island and people. Though of very
vinces on the western coast of Italy, he takes the small value as a systematic work, the books on geoislands between Spain and Italy, and then returns graphy are still valuable on account of the extensive
to the mainland. collection of ancient names which they contain, as
Leaving Italy he proceeds to the provinces on well as a variety of incidental facts which have
the north and east of the Adriatic sea, and those been preserved out of the valuable sources to which
south of the Danube-Liburnia, Dalmatia, Noricum, Pliny had access.
Pannonia, Moesia; and in the fourth book takes The five following books (vii. —xi.) are devoted
up the Grecian peninsula. His account of this to zoology. The seventh book treats of man, and
is a good example of his carelessness, indistinctness, opens with a preface, in which Pliny indulges his
and confusion as a geographer. After the provinces querulous dissatisfaction with the lot of man, his
on the western side of northern Greece (Epeirus, helpless and unhappy condition when brought into
Acarnania, &c.), he takes the Peloponnesus, and the world, and the pains and vices to which he is
then comes back to Attica, Boeotia, and Thessaly. subject. After bespeaking some measure of belief
IIis account excludes the Peloponnesus firom Hellas for the marvellous accounts that he will have to
or Graecia, which begins from the isthmus, the give, and suggesting that what appears incredible
first country in it being Attica, in which he includes should be regarded in its connection with a great
Megaris (iv. 7). His notices are of the most whole (naturae veto rerums vis atque mcajestas isz
meagre description possible, consisting of hardly any- omnibus momentisfide caret, siquis modo partes ejus
thing but lists of names. All that he says of Attica ac non totaCn coimplectatusr anis o), he enumerates
does not occupy twenty lines. After Thessaly come a nunmber of the most astonishing and curious races
Macedonia, Thrace, the islands round Greece, the reported to exist upon the earth: —cannibals, men
Pontus, Scythia, and the northern parts of Europe. with their feet turned backwards; the Psylli,
Of the existence of the Hyperboreans he thinks it whose bodies produce a secretion which is deadly
impossible to doubt, as so many authors affirmed to serpents; tribes of Androgyni; races of enthat they used to send offerings to Apollo at Delos chanters; the Sciapodae, whose feet are so large,
(iv. 12). Nor does he express any distrust when that when the sun's heat is very strong they
recounting the stories of races who fed upon horses' lie on their backs and turn their feet upwards to
hoofs, or of tribes whose ears were large enough to shade themselves; the Astomi, who live entirely
serve as a covering for their bodies. His account upon the scents of fruits and flowers; and various
of Britain, which he makes lie over against Ger- others almost equally singular. Haec, he remarks,
many, Gaul, and Spain, is very meagre. From atque talia ex hosninue gyensere lutdibria sibi, nobis
Britain he proceeds to Gallia, in his account of miracula, ingyeniosafrcit naclra. He then proceeds
which he mixes up Caesar's division according to to a variety of curious accounts respecting the geraces with the division according to provinces neration and birth of children, or of monsters in
(Ukert, Geographie der Griechlen und Pt}nmer, ii. 2. their place. An instance of a change of sex he
p. 238), and so, not unnaturally, is indistinct and affirms to have come within his own knowledge
contradictory. After Gallia he comes back to the (vii. 4). The dentition, size, and growth of
northern and western parts of Spain and Lusitania. children, examples of an extraordinary precocity,
This sketch will give the reader an idea of the and remarkable bodily strength, swiftness, and
clumsy manner in which Pliny treats geography. keenness of sight and hearing, furnish him with