DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE BY THE ROMANS. 389 



Hecatompylos, through which the Macedonian army had to 

 pass in the marshy region of Mazanderan.* I would refer 

 more circumstantially to this passage if our uncertainty as to 

 the age in which this writer lived, did not prevent our 

 deciding what was due to the poet's own imagination, and 

 what was derived from historic sources. 



The great encyclopedic work of the elder Pliny, which, by 

 the richness of its contents, surpasses any other production or 

 antiquity, will be more fully considered in the sequel, when 

 we enter on the " history of the contemplation of the universe." 

 The natural history of Pliny, which has exercised a powerful 

 influence on the middle ages, is, as his nephew, the younger 

 Pliny, has elegantly remarked, " manifold as nature itself." 

 As the creation of an irresistible passion for a comprehensive, 

 but often indiscriminate and irregular accumulation of facts, 

 this work is unequal in style, being sometimes simple and 

 narrative, and sometimes full of thought, animation, and rhe- 

 torical ornament, and from its very character, deficient in 

 individual delineations of nature : although wherever the con- 

 nection existing between the active forces of the universe, 

 the well ordered Cosmos (natures majestas], is made the 

 object of contemplation, w r e cannot mistake the indications 

 of a true poetic inspiration. 



We would gladly instance the pleasantly situated villas on 

 the Pincian hill, at Tusculum and Tibur, on the promontory of 

 Misenum, and at Puteoli and Baia3, as proofs of a love of 



a heroic poem, in which Ovid's friend Pedo Albinovanus describes the 

 deeds of Germanicus, likewise describes the unfortunate passage of the 

 Ems (Ped. Albinov., Elegice, Amst. 1703, p. 172). Seneca considers this 

 description of the stormy waters as more picturesque than any passage 

 to be found in the writings of the other Roman poets. He remarks, 

 however : Latini declamatores in Oceani descriptione non nimis vigu- 

 erunt; nam aut tumide scripserunt aut curiose. 



* Curt, in Alex. Magno., vi. 16. Compare Droysen, Gesch. Alex- 

 anders des Grossen, 1833, s. 265. In Qucest. Natur., lib. iii. c. 27-30, 

 pp. 677-686, ed. Lips. 1741, of the too rhetorical Lucius Anneeus Seneca, 

 there is a remarkable description of one of the several instances of the 

 destruction of an originally pure and subsequently sinful race, by an 

 almost universal deluge, commencing with the words, Cum fatalis dies 

 diluvii venerit; and terminating thus : peracto exitio generis humani 

 extinctisgue pariter feris in quarum homines ingenia transierant. See 

 also the description of chaotic terrestrial revolutions, in Bhagavata~ 

 Purana, bk. iii. c. 17 (ed. Buraouf, t. i. p. 441). 



