According to the preface, Pliny’s Natural History belongs to the genre of historia , of which subject is the nature. At the same time, the preface offers other genre classifications as well: encyclios paideia, thaesaurus . Pliny himself points out the novelty of his work: Libros naturalis historiae […] novicium opus (praef. 1.). Regarding Pliny’s peculiar concept of nature, in terms of the genre and literary history, Natural History can be interpreted as a borderline case.