[46] For a brief account of Oriental influences in Roman religion, see Dill, Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire (London, 1898), ch. 4.
[47] Younger Pliny, Epistles, 3, 5.
[48] An outline of the contents of leading encyclopædic works, so far as known, is here given for purposes of comparison with the contents of the Etymologies.
| Marcus Terentius Varro, 116–28 B.C. | ||||
| Antiquitatum Rerum Humanarum et Divinarum Libri XLI. | ||||
| Rerum Humanarum Libri XXV. | ||||
| Bk. 1. | Introduction. | |||
| 2–7. | de hominibus. | |||
| 8–13. | de locis (8, Rome; 11, Italy; 12, remaining Europe; 13, Asia and Africa). | |||
| 14–19. | de temporibus (14, introduction; 15, de saeculis; 16, de lustris; 17, de annis; 18, de mensibus; 19, de diebus). | |||
| 20–25. | de rebus. | |||
| Rerum Divinarum Libri XVI. | ||||
| Bk. 26. | Introduction. | |||
| 27–29. | de hominibus. | |||
| 30–32. | de locis. | |||
| 33–35. | de temporibus. | |||
| 36–38. | de rebus. | |||
| 38–41. | de diis. | |||
This encyclopedia stands for the interests of the scholarly antiquarian rather than for those of the man interested in natural science. The work itself is lost, but the nature of its contents is fairly well known, thanks to St. Augustine. For further information regarding Varro’s encyclopedic works, see Boissier, Étude sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. Varron, Paris, 1861; and Geschichte der Römischen Literatur, Martin Schanz, München, 1909, Erster Teil, Zweite Hälfte, 187, 188.
| Verrius Flaccus (flourished under Augustus). | |
| De Verborum Significatu. | |
The work itself has been lost, as also the greater part of the abbreviation of it to twenty books made by Pompeius Festus before 200 A.D. Festus’s abridgement was further abridged by Paulus Diaconus in Charlemagne’s time. It is regarded as certain that material in Isidore’s Etymologies came directly or indirectly from the De Verborum Significatu. Nettleship, Lectures and Essays, Oxford, 1885.
| Pliny the Elder (23–79 A.D.). | |||
| Naturalis Historiae Libri XXXVII. | |||
| Bk. 1. | Contents and lists of sources. | ||
| 2. | Description of the universe. | ||
| 3–6. | Geography. | ||
| 7. | Man. | ||
| 8. | Animals. | ||
| 9. | Fishes. | ||
| 10. | Birds. | ||
| 11. | Insects. | ||
| 12–27. | Trees, shrubs, plants, including medicinal botany. | ||
| 27–32. | Medicinal zoölogy. | ||
| 32–37. | Metals, colors, stones, and gems, especially from the artist’s point of view. | ||
Dressel, De Isidori Originum Fontibus, pp. 243–247, in Rivista di filologia, 1874–75, gives an incomplete list of Isidore’s borrowings from Pliny. He points out Isidore’s carelessness in borrowing in one case where he shows that what Pliny tells us of the echineis, Isidore hastily assigns to the mullus. Cf. Isidore 12, 6, 25, with Pliny, 32; 8, 9, 70, 138–39.