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This thesis reviews Pliny's career and the composition of his last work, the Naturalis Historia. In the first chapter, the hypotheses of Münzer and Syme relating to Pliny's career are examined and an alternative suggested, according to which Pliny's military career may be dated a decade later than is usually envisaged. Chapter two dates the composition of the NH to either 72-78 or 76-78. Chapter three examines Pliny's working time-table and offers comparison with Cicero's time-table in 45 B.C. Chapter four reviews the various resources available to Pliny for research. Chapter five examines his working-methods and suggests a possible format for his commentarii. There are thirteen appendices, seventeen figures, and eight maps.

In 1530, a German physician named Otto Brunfels published an herbal entitled Herbarum Vivae Eicones (Living Images of Herbs). In it, he planned to map the names of medicinal herbs known in and native to Germany onto their Greek and Latin names. Brunfels’ audience included fellow physicians and in order to assist with the identification of the herbs in his book, his publisher employed a woodcut artist to produce realistic images of them, a novelty in the genre of printed herbals. Over time, Brunfels’ work was superseded by 16th-century botanists and his legacy was relegated to the illustrations of his herbs, while his contributions to the naming and description of them were dismissed as unoriginal. However, a closer examination reveals Brunfels’ herbal as a transitional text bridging the gap between the herbal tradition and the development of the science of botany. In addition to citing Pliny the Elder as his primary authoritative influence, Brunfels also references a number of 15th-century Italian humanist scholars who were neither botanists nor physicians, but who were known for their critiques of the early printed editions of Pliny’s Historia Naturalis and even of Pliny himself as a natural history authority. Thus, Brunfels’ herbal is tied to the manuscript and printing history of Pliny and to humanist attempts to correct and stabilize his text. Moreover, in the course of his work, Brunfels encountered a number of herbs that were known to him, but whose Latin and Greek nomenclature he could not accurately identify. As a result, he was forced to describe in his own words, in original Latin, these herbae nudae with German nomenclature but with unknown Greek and Latin names. In addition, Brunfels encounters considerable disagreement among the ancient authorities about the naming and classification of other herbs and he is again forced to insert his own opinion, which he calls iudicium nostrum. I argue that Brunfels’ original Latin is a very early example of what would eventually become formal botanical Latin. Brunfels’ herbal is situated in such a way that it looks backward whilst simultaneously looking forward. It is an object of reception, appropriating terminology and methods from Pliny the Elder and from the humanist scholars who debated the quality of the printed editions of his work and the accuracy of the information provided in it. It is simultaneously the subject of reception, demonstrating a halting, hesitant vocabulary and style of Latinity that would eventually come to be identified with botany as a discipline. Chapter 1 addresses Pliny’s ideas of what constitutes knowledge (cognitio) about plants in the Historia Naturalis, via his arguments against improper nomenclature (nomina nuda) and the alignment of herbal medicine with magic (magicae herbae). Pliny’s advocacy for proper methodology (experience over book learning) is also examined. Chapter 2 turns to the manuscript tradition of Pliny’s text and the first two printed editions, in 1469 and 1470, which were corrupt and resulted in an unstable, inaccurate text. In Chapter 3, the reactions of the Italian humanists to these early printed editions are considered, along with the transition from critiques of the editors and printers to debates about inaccuracies that can be traced to Pliny himself. Chapter 4 turns to Otto Brunfels and traces his reliance on Pliny as well as on the Italian humanists, especially Ermolao Barbaro, who claimed to “heal” the errors in Pliny and stabilized his text. Brunfels’ original descriptions of herbs are also discussed. In the conclusion, Brunfels’ work is compared with that of botanists who postdated him, including Leonhard Fuchs, Kaspar Bauhin, and Karl Linnaeus.

Les premiers siècles de notre ère ont légué de nombreux témoignages de pratiques dites « magiques », de l’inventaire de remèdes jusqu’aux rituels d’envoûtement, en passant par la mise en scène de pouvoirs surhumains dans la sphère humaine. Dans un monde méditerranéen relativement globalisé, les pratiques magiques ouvrent un espace de savoirs transculturels autour de l’exercice d’un pouvoir rituel. Animaux et matières animales ont été employés dans la composition de remèdes médicaux comme de rituels guérisseurs, pour mettre en œuvre un pouvoir rituel, invoquer les dieux, envoûter. En partant de Pline l’Ancien, des Cyranides et des papyrus de magie grecs, une enquête qui fait parler aigle, chauve-souris, chat, chien, echeneis, hyène, huppe, lézards, serpents et taupe aux côtés de nombres d’autres figures animales permet d’observer leurs « cuisine », sacrifices ou mises à mort rituelles, mais aussi leur participation à la représentation des puissances surhumaines dans un contexte multiculturel, principalement entre Rome, la Grèce et l’Égypte. L’utilisation de l’animal dans les rites comme dans la médecine a été le lieu d’un dialogue entre différents domaines de savoirs et différentes cultures, et les modalités d’énonciation de tels savoirs, selon le type de documentation, témoigne de la multiplicité des interprétations qui ont pu, et doivent être apportées aux rites. L’écriture de natures animales merveilleuses permet d’énoncer tant le pouvoir rituel que des discours physiologiques, telle la notion d’antipathie. Ce faisant, l’anthropozoologie participe à une révision de la notion même de « magie » dans le champ de l’histoire des religions antiques. / Documents from the Roman Imperial Period testify for the practice of “magic” all around the Mediterranean sea, including lists of remedies and cursing rituals, as well as the pretentions for some marvellous powers in the human sphere. In a relatively globalized world, the so-called “magical” practices are an open space for a kind of multicultural knowledge. Animals have been used in the making of medical remedies and rituals in the performance of a ritual power, to invoke the gods, or to cast curses. Getting from Pliny the Elder, the Cyranides and the greek papyri of magic, an investigation where eagle, bat, cat, dog, echeneis, hyena, hoopoe, lizards, snakes and mole talk among many other animal figures gives a chance to observe their cooking, sacrifice, or ritual killing, as well as their ability to represent the powers beyond in a multicultural context, first of all between Rome, Greece and Egypt. The use of animals in rites and medicine has been a subject of dialogue between different fields of knowledge and different cultures. The modalities of enunciation of such knowledge testify of the multiplicity of possible interpretations for the rites depending on the documentation. The writing of marvellous animal natures makes the ritual power as well as physiological discourses, such as the notion of antipathy. Then, the animal studies take part in a revising of the very notion of “magic” in the field of antic history.

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