Pantagathus Posted May 9, 2006 Report Share Posted May 9, 2006 Just thought I'd share... "We trace out all the veins of the earth, and yet, living upon it, undermined as it is beneath our feet, are astonished that it should occasionally cleave asunder or tremble: as though, forsooth, these signs could be any other than expressions of the indignation felt by our sacred parent! We penetrate into her entrails, and seek for treasures in the abodes even of the Manes, as though each spot we tread upon were not sufficiently bounteous and fertile for us! And yet, amid all this, we are far from making remedies the object of our researches: and how few in thus delving into the earth have in view the promotion of medicinal knowledge! For it is upon her surface, in fact, that she has presented us with these substances, equally with the cereals, bounteous and ever ready, as she is, in supplying us with all things for our benefit! It is what is concealed from our view, what is sunk far beneath her surface, objects, in fact, of no rapid formation, that urge us to our ruin, that send us to the very depths of hell. As the mind ranges in vague speculation, let us only consider, proceeding through all ages, as these operations are, when will be the end of thus exhausting the earth, and to what point will avarice finally penetrate! How innocent, how happy, how truly delightful even would life be, if we were to desire nothing but what is to be found upon the face of the earth; in a word, nothing but what is provided ready to our hands!" - Pliny, Book 33 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pertinax Posted May 10, 2006 Report Share Posted May 10, 2006 two dispartate quotes come readily to mind here: the first is a comment made to the late Mr Jack Hargreaves (if you check my msn blog you will get an idea of his id as a man of the land and rural arts) " man will come to rue the invention of the internal combustion engine more than any other thing he has turned his hand to " ;and there is a phrase in the Koran relating to persons who are unable to content themselves with the simple life lived in a particular place without " seeking into the bowels of the earth" and running hither and thither. Pliny was of an age when nature was still to be tamed and trodden down by technology , how odd that he ,even in that day should speak out so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pantagathus Posted May 10, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 10, 2006 I guess I've never really read these last Pliny books in detail (or at all), he speaks throughout the books on metal & stone with alot of disparagement and conviction. I love this one as well: "But it is with iron also that wars, murders, and robberies are effected, and this, not only hand to hand, but from a distance even, by the aid of missiles and winged weapons, now launched from engines, now hurled by the human arm, and now furnished with feathery wings. This last I regard as the most criminal artifice that has been devised by the human mind; for, as if to bring death upon man with still greater rapidity, we have given wings to iron and taught it to fly." - Pliny, 34.39 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M. Porcius Cato Posted May 14, 2006 Report Share Posted May 14, 2006 (edited) Sorry to see that Pliny was such a technophobic Luddite. I wonder if he wrote his jeramiad against metal with an iron stylus? Edited May 14, 2006 by M. Porcius Cato Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julian Posted May 15, 2006 Report Share Posted May 15, 2006 How ironic he was killed as a result of the Earth spewing its innards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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