Pliny's Natural History Chapter Summaries

A fragment of Pliny’s Natural History from book XXI Sections XXI. XV. 28 –XVII 31.
To Book XXI. XIX . 40—XX.43

In the recent discover I made, I found few pages of the Natural History by Pliny the Elder，the very first thing that Pliny the Elder described in the section we found is a plant called baccar or what we called nard. And the scent from baccar is similar to the smell of cinnamon, which the scent only comes from the root of baccar. The root has been used to produce a kind of urguent made by the ancients. It was a short description in the pages we found, Pliny also state where the baccar grows and how to identify baccar to other similar plants. In the next chapter, Pliny recorded a kind of flower called saffron. In this chapter,
We are not sure who his parents were, but we do know that his family was wealthy. Pliny the Elder was considered as a roman author, historian, and natural philosopher. He had spent most of his life studying and writing or investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field, Pliny the Elder is known for his work Natural History, an encyclopedia of all the ancient knowledge. Pliny was also known as an army commander of the early Roman Empire. He is also a personal friend to Vespasian who became the emperor after Nero’s death. Pliny the Elder was also a good combat officer, he was in 3 major combats, most of them are seek for peace, during the war of Chatti, Titus was his commander and his friend. Titus became the emperor, and Natural History was given to Titus. Most of the information we get about Pliny the Elder is from the fragments of the letters between him and his nephew Pliny the younger whose father died and got adopted by Pliny the Elder as his own son. 1 The death of Pliny the elder was one of the most dramatic events in history. Pliny the elder was living with his sister and his nephew Pliny the younger. One day, his sister asks him to watch a natural phenomenon which is the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which overwhelmed Pompeii and Herculaneum. He was preparing to cross the Bay of Naples to observe the phenomenon closely when he got a message from his friend Rectina asking for
In the pages I found, Pliny accurately explained what kind of flower saffron is, including the grow condition and difficulty to massively cultivated. In today’s world saffron is considered as one of the most expensive spice in the world, this is crocus flower only can produce about three threads of saffron, so in calculation of one pound of saffron need about 14,000 threads. And one pound of saffron in world market right now is going to cost an average of $1000 U.S. dollars. I am really surprised, that the saffron has been a popular but expensive spice even back in the ancient world, in his work he stated not a lot of people can get the most pure saffron, and a substitute of saffron was for the general population because they can’t afford the real one. Another thing caught my eye is not only adulteration for goods happening in the present world, it already began thousands of years ago, and there was tests for the purity of saffron. Despite of the tests are scientific or not and its accuracy from the test we can know even people back to the ancient times like to take as much as advantage they can to save some fortune. Surprisingly enough, that people in present world still practice the same adulteration of saffron, and even sell them in the super market for much cheaper price.