The Writing of the Natural History
The one-legged creature is from John Mandeville, Voyages and Travels (1650), again ‘Copyright of University of Manchester’
Pliny the Elder spent every available moment working. His nephew tells us his uncle was carried everywhere accompanied by slave secretaries who read to him and made notes. Pliny claims to have consulted 2,000 sources and accumulated 20,000 facts, although the actual number is much higher.
Pliny has been criticised for placing too much reliance on other writers but it is clear that he wanted to record as much information as possible, whether or not he himself believed it to be true. Stories of wonders and fantastical creatures made the Natural History a popular work and it was frequently reprinted. With the development of modern science and the questioning of ancient knowledge, Pliny’s work fell out of favour. In recent years, scholars have returned to the Natural History with fresh interest.
Diagram of the contents of the Natural History, from Pliny on Art and Society, Jacob Isager, Routledge, 1991.
The echeneïs fish
A Speaking Raven
There is a very small fish that is in the habit of living among the rocks, and is known as the echeneïs. It is believed that when this has attached itself to the keel of a ship its progress is impeded, and that it is from this circumstance that it takes its name. [Book 9 Chap. 41. (25.)—The echeneïs, and its uses in enchantments.]
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Remoras use their sucking discs to latch onto pretty much anything for a free ride, whether it's other fish, turtles, divers or ships, and so they were named accordingly - in Latin, remora means "delay", while the scientific family name Echeneidae comes from Echeneïs, which is made up of two Greek words, echein ("to hold") and naus ("a ship"). Once the meaning ‘‘holding onto ships’’ shifted to “holding back ships’’ over time, a myth was born that was so influential, it lived in the consciousness of nearly every sailor on nearly every sea voyage in the Mediterranean and Mid-Atlantic Oceans up until a few hundred years ago.
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Pliny describes the phenomenon of the 'ship-holder' - an eel-sized fish with a suction disc that could bring warships to a halt despite the force of violent seas, whirlwinds, and storms. And not just any warships: Pliny blamed remoras for the defeat of Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and hints that they were indirectly responsible for the assassination of Caius Caligula.
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At the battle of Actium, it is said, a fish of this kind stopped the prætorian ship of Antonius (Mark Antony) in its course, at the moment that he was hastening from ship to ship to encourage and exhort his men, and so compelled him to leave it and go on board another. Hence it was, that the fleet of Cæsar gained the advantage in the onset, and charged with a redoubled impetuosity. [Book 32 Chap. 1. (1.)—The Power of Nature as Manifested in Antipathies.
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The Emperor Caius (Caligula) experienced a sudden stoppage of his ship when returning to Rome shortly before he was assassinated, [...] the cause being perceived upon finding that, out of the whole fleet, the emperor's five-banked galley was the only one that was making no way. The moment this was discovered, some of the sailors plunged into the sea, and, on making search about the ship's sides, they found an echeneïs adhering to the rudder. Upon its being shown to the emperor, he strongly expressed his indignation that such an obstacle as this should have impeded his progress, and have rendered powerless the hearty endeavours of some four hundred men. One thing, too, it is well known, more particularly surprised him, how it was possible that the fish, while adhering to the ship, should arrest its progress, and yet should have no such power when brought on board.
'It is why a whole section of his treatment of birds is devoted to those which can mimic human speech and highlights the tale of the talking raven who frequented a cobbler’s shop in the city of Rome until it was killed by a jealous rival shopkeeper. The bird was avenged by the lynching of its murderer and the holding of a fully-fledged funeral, bearers, wreaths and all; many of Rome’s leading citizens had been less fortunate, observes Pliny drily. [Book 10 Chap. 60. (43.)—A Sedition that arose among the Roman People, in Consequence of a Raven Speaking]'
Dr. Mary Beagon
A Gigantic Ship
'There was a fir too that was particularly admired when it formed the mast of a ship which brought from Egypt, by order of the Emperor Caius, the obelisk that was erected in the Vaticania Circus...It is beyond all doubt that there has been othgon on the sea more wonderful than this ship ... the length of it took up the greater part of the left side of the harbour at Ostia. It was sunk on the spot by order of the Emperor Caius, three moles, each as high as a tower, being built upon it; they were constructed with cement which the same vessel had conveyed from Puteoli.
(Book 16 - The Forest Trees - Chap 76)
From a mosaic floor from Lod (formerly Lydda), Israel.
The Roman Boomerang
'The aquifolia tree [...] a staff made of the wood, if, when thrown at an animal, from want of strength in the party throwing it, it falls short of the mark, will roll back again towards the thrower, of its own accord so remarkable are the properties of this tree.'
(Book 24 Remedies derived from Forest Trees - Chap 72)
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It is likely that copyists have made a mistake in this passage, and that the reading should be "aquifolia" rather than "agrifolia". Aquifolia can be identified with the Ilex aquifolium, or holly, where Pliny in his descriptions evidently confounds the holm- oak with the holly.
The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.
Pages from a Reinassance copy of Pliny the Elder's Natural History in the Rylands Library in Manchester
Copyright of the University of Manchester.
The image and illustrated capital letter shows Titus to whom the work was dedicated.