CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY, MIDDLE AGES 53 



extremely fanatical Christian Church in Egypt wiped out the last vestiges 

 of pagan scholarship. 



Roman natural science 

 In Rome, which in time assumed Alexandria's position as the supreme capital 

 of the world, there arose no equivalent to the Museum. It was not until a 

 later epoch that the Roman people, with their decidedly practical mind, 

 attained to the higher culture, and only in the juridical sphere did they make 

 any independent contribution to the development of intellectual work; 

 otherwise they appropriated Greek culture, special branches of which they 

 converted to various — mostly practical — purposes. One applied science 

 of this kind which the Romans created was the science of agriculture. In 

 contrast to the Greeks they were agriculturists body and soul and early felt 

 the need of having their experiences in this sphere collated and recorded. 

 The old censor Cato actually wrote a treatise on agriculture, and after him 

 there are mentioned a large number of writers on agricultural subjects. The 

 foremost of these was undoubtedly Columella, whose writings contain suf- 

 ficient of interest to biology to warrant his being mentioned. 



Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella was born at the beginning of the 

 Christian era in Spain, but he seems to have lived in Rome and there com- 

 posed his treatise on agriculture in twelve books. Of biological interest is 

 his account of domestic animals, their management and necessities of life, 

 their races and areas of distribution. All the useful animals of his time, even 

 the bee, are dealt with in his work, most sections of which are, as a matter 

 of fact, of purely economic interest. 



Pliny, too, shows a marked interest In the practical application of 

 science. He was the most eminent of Rome's natural philosophers and, next 

 to Aristotle, the most influential of the biologists of classical antiquity. 

 Throughout later antiquity and the Middle Ages and far on into more recent 

 times his Natural History has played an important part in the development of 

 science; indeed, it may be said that even in our own day his influence has not 

 entirely waned. In contrast to Aristotle, however, he has been harshly criti- 

 cized in the biological literature of the present day — extravagantly so, be- 

 cause more has been demanded of him than he ever intended and more than he 

 was able to offer. He has been characterized as a soulless compiler, because, 

 more honest than Aristotle, he always quotes his sources; his superstition has 

 been ridiculed because he tells of marvellous animals the existence of which 

 none of his contemporaries doubted. Above all, the constantly repeated com- 

 parisons between him and Aristotle are entirely unjustified; the aims and 

 methods of the one were not those of the other. A study of Pliny's life and 

 work will confirm this. 



Gaius Plinius Secundus was bora a.d. i3 at Comum, now the Como 

 of northern Italy. He belonged to a family of public officials, and his own 



