Mistrella, Marco Romani2020-07-12Acta Classica Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensis, Vol. 54 (2018) , 123–1350418-453Xhttps://hdl.handle.net/2437/317266This 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.application/pdfPliny the ElderinventionheurematographyempireteleologyfolyóiratcikkOpen AccessActa Classica Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensishttps://doi.org/10.22315/ACD/2018/7Acta Classica Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensis54Acta Class. Univ. Sci. Debr.2732-3390