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A review by jesswalsh
Natural History: A Selection by Pliny the Elder, John F. Healey
2.0
This translation is medium but the presentation of it - the quality and usefulness of the footnotes - is shit.
Throughout the whole thing only a handful of the statements Pliny makes are disputed/commented upon, and those examples seem absolutely random. At one point during the geographical chapters a footnote intercedes that the given length of Sri Lanka is wrong when... bb... all the given dimensions in those chapters are wrong to a greater or lesser extent? The only historical ‘fact’ to be questioned is that of the Athenian tyrannicides killing Hipparchus, to which the footnote snippily and incongruously notes ‘there is no evidence to support this claim’.
The few notes that are included tend to give the modern dates for events, but even in this case the lack of engagement with the actual text makes them less than useful. As an example, in book 31 line 41, Pliny states the Aqua Marcia was built by King Ancus Marcius and later repaired by praetor Quintus Marcius Rex. The editor makes a note here to say QMR built the aqueduct in 144 BC. This begs the question, obviously, of why Pliny thought the aqueduct far pre-dated this and was originally built in the time of the kings? Why was Pliny so incorrect about this point, which we would expect him be to be well informed of considering the dates line up with Cato the censor, a period of Roman history that was documented and Pliny often refers to. The note gives you nothing, not even a starting point of engagement, and just adds a level of unneeded confusion.
In one case, the editor is even flat out wrong by more than 300 years - in book 33 line 16 Pliny references Gaius Marius Jr making off with the treasury, which is noted as occurring in 390 BC. It actually happened in 82 BC during the civil war against Sulla. In academic terms, this is beyond a boo boo and into the realm of ‘stinker’.
Most damningly for the quality of translation, the footnotes almost never comment on the language or grammar used in the original, so it’s hard to get a sense of the Latin or the renowned Pliny ‘roughness’. There are a few places I would have loved to hear the justification for a particular sentence construction, or an explanation for a convoluted mess, but there just never was one.
It seems the same decision to create a ‘selection’ of the book rather than present the whole text (not explained or justified at any point) may have been taken to reduce the footnotes to a bare minimum, which would explain why they are so few and their length/quality is so low, but a better selection could definitely have been made.
Skip this, get a reader to Pliny or something instead.
Throughout the whole thing only a handful of the statements Pliny makes are disputed/commented upon, and those examples seem absolutely random. At one point during the geographical chapters a footnote intercedes that the given length of Sri Lanka is wrong when... bb... all the given dimensions in those chapters are wrong to a greater or lesser extent? The only historical ‘fact’ to be questioned is that of the Athenian tyrannicides killing Hipparchus, to which the footnote snippily and incongruously notes ‘there is no evidence to support this claim’.
The few notes that are included tend to give the modern dates for events, but even in this case the lack of engagement with the actual text makes them less than useful. As an example, in book 31 line 41, Pliny states the Aqua Marcia was built by King Ancus Marcius and later repaired by praetor Quintus Marcius Rex. The editor makes a note here to say QMR built the aqueduct in 144 BC. This begs the question, obviously, of why Pliny thought the aqueduct far pre-dated this and was originally built in the time of the kings? Why was Pliny so incorrect about this point, which we would expect him be to be well informed of considering the dates line up with Cato the censor, a period of Roman history that was documented and Pliny often refers to. The note gives you nothing, not even a starting point of engagement, and just adds a level of unneeded confusion.
In one case, the editor is even flat out wrong by more than 300 years - in book 33 line 16 Pliny references Gaius Marius Jr making off with the treasury, which is noted as occurring in 390 BC. It actually happened in 82 BC during the civil war against Sulla. In academic terms, this is beyond a boo boo and into the realm of ‘stinker’.
Most damningly for the quality of translation, the footnotes almost never comment on the language or grammar used in the original, so it’s hard to get a sense of the Latin or the renowned Pliny ‘roughness’. There are a few places I would have loved to hear the justification for a particular sentence construction, or an explanation for a convoluted mess, but there just never was one.
It seems the same decision to create a ‘selection’ of the book rather than present the whole text (not explained or justified at any point) may have been taken to reduce the footnotes to a bare minimum, which would explain why they are so few and their length/quality is so low, but a better selection could definitely have been made.
Skip this, get a reader to Pliny or something instead.