
Pliny the Elder, “The Natural History”, Book I (79) - peterburkimsher
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plin.+Nat.+toc
======
cmccart
Some sections are truly fascinating. Personally, I always loved the chapter on
asbestos
([http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137%3Abook%3D19%3Achapter%3D4))
because I was surprised to learn that they had figured out its uses by that
time in history.

~~~
elhudy
Serious question: is it still possible to get a hold of asbestos clothing
and/or accessories (bags, napkin, etc.)? Also, how dangerous are these
materials relative to the finer and more processed industrial counterparts?

~~~
kencausey
I'll just leave this here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_impact_of_asbestos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_impact_of_asbestos)

~~~
Dylan16807
That article barely touches on the different types of asbestos or the relative
dangers after different kinds of processing. It's not much of an answer to the
question.

------
thewayfarer
The people behind the Perseus project are singularly amazing. This project
really enhances our ability to read and research these texts, and it has
continually improved over time. Many people might not know that many of the
great features like the vocabulary, navigation, and search tools are at least
(from my experience) 13 years old. That's right: around the time the web
development world was largely just putting on its "Web 2.0" hat, the
remarkable people at Tufts already created this significant, dynamic web app
that was easy to use, had deep tooling sophistication, hosted a large wealth
of content, and enormously benefitted a generation of students and scholars.

~~~
jackfoxy
I cannot get this to display the latin, although I select view by default
original language and update preferences.

------
tempodox
The single greatest web app I've ever seen. You can display the original text
and click on every single word to see a grammatical parse (beside the
translation). So many other web sites pale in comparison, despite having more
colours.

~~~
peterburkimsher
The Tufts site is good, but I wanted a better mobile view. So I made
PlinyPedia.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15668314](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15668314)

~~~
tempodox
\- Where is the original text?

\- There is no “J” in Latin.

~~~
peterburkimsher
\- Look in the toolbar where there's a back/"Browse" button, and also many
links in the description text ("PlinyPedia is reformatted to be mobile-
friendly", Search and Browse to find out even more".

How can I make that more obvious?

\- No joke!

~~~
peterburkimsher
"there were originally eighteen letters"

[https://peterburk.github.io/pliny/ChaptersHtml/7.%20Book%20V...](https://peterburk.github.io/pliny/ChaptersHtml/7.%20Book%20VII.%20Man,%20His%20Birth,%20His%20Organization,%20And%20The%20Invention%20Of%20The%20Arts./57.%20Chap.%2057.%20\(56.\)-The%20Inventors%20Of%20Various%20Things..html#ref_8)

------
ben174
Was confused at first. I was reading this expecting a history of the beer.

~~~
tzakrajs
Also came for beer history and was mildly disappointed.

~~~
ngold
You did learn who you beer was named after. He is a remarkable character.

------
cafard
The Perseus project at Tufts is wonderful.

------
peterburkimsher
I enjoy reading Wikipedia. Naturalis Historia is the world's earliest known
encyclopaedia, and I think it's worth reading "lest we forget" the lessons
from classical antiquity.

~~~
peterburkimsher
This got a lot of response! Therefore I made a mobile-friendly version of the
site, PlinyPedia.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15668314](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15668314)

------
quotemstr
Is 79 the earliest year tag ever used in an HN headline?

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agumonkey
I laughed at the fact that there's no year short syntax here.

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peterwwillis
This is what you get when you try to write down everything you have heard and
can remember about the world, and about as accurate.

~~~
kwhitefoot
What was your point? That one man without an army of collaborators can't make
a really good encyclopaedia? Or was it that it is worthless to try?

~~~
peterwwillis
My point was it was a stupid idea, and done really poorly, even by standards
of the day. It was made worse by the fact that people respected him, so his
errors perpetuated for nearly two millennia, rarely challenged because "the
ancients" were seen to possess great wisdom.

~~~
ImSkeptical
Given that this was done poorly by the standards of the day, can you point to
a superior contemporaneous text on the same subject of superior quality?

~~~
peterwwillis
Περὶ ὕλης ἰατρικῆς, or "De Materia Medica", an early pharmacopoeia, composed
over 20 years by a Roman army medic. Or another composed later, Περὶ φυτῶν
ἱστορία, "Peri Phyton Historia", ten volumes just on plants, written as notes
for lectures to students. Most texts written by philosophers of the day would
also have included a lot more analysis.

Of course, Pliny referred to the first book and others in writing his Natural
History, but it ended up as a sort of Dummy's Guide to Natural History, trying
to compose a really wide subject matter into a few books over 2 years, and
obviously getting a lot wrong in the process. It's fair to say nobody would
have taken this seriously if not for his name.

------
marcuskaz
Article is about the dude and not the beer.

[https://russianriverbrewing.com/pages/pliny-the-
elder](https://russianriverbrewing.com/pages/pliny-the-elder)

~~~
dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15664839](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15664839)

