Empire and invention: the Elder Pliny's heurematology ("Nat." VII 191–215)
Empire and invention: the Elder Pliny's heurematology ("Nat." VII 191–215)
Fájlok
Dátum
Szerzők
Mistrella, Marco Romani
Folyóirat címe
Folyóirat ISSN
Kötet címe (évfolyam száma)
Kiadó
University of Debrecen.
Absztrakt
Leírás
This paper focuses on the catalog of inventions and inventors that concludes book VII of Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia (Nat. VII 191-215). While the list is certainly a fundamental source for the largely lost tradition of Greek invention-catalogs, the literary, rhetorical, and intellectual-historical importance of Pliny’s heurematography has, to date, rarely been appreciated for its own merits. I argue that, in spite of the seemingly irregular and heterogeneous character of the catalog, the underlying rhetorical strategy of Pliny’s heurematography allows the list to become a teleological narrative. As I argue, Pliny’s main goal is to show the Romans’ historical merit in unifying the whole Mediterranean world through the appropriation of its cultural and technological patrimony.
Kulcsszavak
Pliny the Elder, invention, heurematography, empire, teleology