Author’s Prologue
assemblyofitemsofevidence.^5 Butinfactweshouldnotbewaryofusing
theNaturalHistoryalsoasjustthat,asanendlessseriesofsidelightsonhuman
interactionwithandexploitationof,thevariedcomponentsofthenatural
world,whetherorganic(plants,animals,andfish)orinorganic,whichmeans
aboveallmetalsandstone,asittookplaceintheclassicalworld.
The latter theme is one area with which, at least as regards the era be-
foretherewere‘‘guns,’’JaredDiamond’sinfinitelystimulatingandsuggestive
bookdoesnotreallydeal.Thatistosay,theevolutionoftools,andwiththem
the expansion of human capacity to dig, to quarry, to cut both wood and
stone, and to construct wheeled vehicles, ships, houses, temples, and pub-
licbuildings,aswellastheabilitytomakeweaponsforkillinganimalsand
otherhumans,bothatclosequartersandatadistance.
Yet,evenifitwerethecasethatwepossessednoliteraryrecord(transmit-
tedthroughmedievalmanuscripts)oftheclassicalworld,andhadnoideaof
itshistoryasconstructedbythosewhowrotewithinit,thearrival,evolution,
andspread—overmostoftheareafromHadrian’sWalltoAfghanistan—ofa
verydistinctivematerialculturewouldbeclearlyvisibleinthearchaeologi-
calrecord.Forwhatthatrecordwouldshowfirstofallisavastproduction
of manufactured objects, particularly pottery vessels and containers of in-
numerablekinds,accompaniedbyahighlevelofconstructioninstone,of
bothprivateandmonumentalcommunalbuildings,andbyrepresentational
art,coinsbearingbothwordsandimages(ofwhichtheremustliterallybe
millions now preserved), and documents inscribed on stone or bronze,or
onperishablematerials.Inthecaseofwrittentextsinmanyofthelanguages
involved—forinstance(obviously),Latin,Greek,Hebrew,andSyriac—no
complex process of decipherment, such as there is with Akkadian, would
evenbenecessary.Forintheselanguagestheletterforms,thegrammar,and
muchofthevocabularyareessentiallystillcurrenttoday.
Ofcoursethispictureofahypotheticalre-discoveryde novoofahitherto
unknown‘‘classical’’world,knownonlyfromarchaeology,isafantasy,be-
causethecloseconnectionsbetweenitandourselvesareafunctionofthe
fact both that the classical world itself evolved an elaborate literature, and
thatsubsequentgenerationshavenotonlyneverlostcontactwiththatlit-
erature,buthavebeenprofoundlyshapedbycontactwithit.Ifnothingelse,
there has never been a break in the cultural history of the Near East, the
Mediterranean and Europe, of a sort which would have led to a break in
thecontinuousreadingoftheBible,inHebrew,inGreek,andinLatin.It
. M.Beagon,Roman Nature: The Thought of Pliny the Elder();notealsoR.French,
Ancient Natural History: Histories of Nature().