This chapter begins by discussing problems with applying the term “scientific encyclopedia” to ancient writings, and explains some key differences of ancient scientific encyclopedias from their modern counterparts. The following three sections closely associate the production of such works to three key intellectual traditions: the Peripatetic school (which collectively contributed to the so-called pseudo-Aristotelian collection of Physical Problems), the tradition of Latin encyclopedism (culminating with Pliny the Elder's monumental Natural History), and Greco-Roman imperial culture, which boosted the composition of a wide gamut of scientific works of encyclopedic scope. The chapter concludes with an overview of the reception and afterlife of scientific encyclopedias in later antiquity and the Middle Ages.
...MoreBook Georgia L. Irby-Massie (2016) A Companion to Science, Technology, and Medicine in Ancient Greece and Rome.
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