The studies collected in this book represent the newest research being done on this important and difficult figure. If Rome is not always regarded as the most natural home for the scientific spiritóthat seeming rather to characterize Greeceóparticular problems are raised by the effort Pliny had to make to transfer his Greek sources into a Roman form and context. The papers seek to locate Pliny in his social and intellectual milieu, to survey his approach to particular sciences such as astronomy, mineralogy, botany and pharmacopoeia. Two papers consider the response to his work in the Renaissance.