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Gregory McNamee - Aelian’s on the Nature of Animals

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Not much can be said with certainty about the life of Claudius Aelianus, known to us as Aelian. He was born sometime between A.D. 165 and 170 in the hill town of Praeneste, what is now Palestrina, about twenty-five miles from Rome, Italy. He grew up speaking that towns version of Latin, a dialect that other speakers of the language seem to have found curious, but--somewhat unusually for his generation, though not for Romans of earlier times--he preferred to communicate in Greek. Trained by a sophist named Pausanias of Caesarea, Aelian was known in his time for a work called Indictment of the Effeminate, an attack on the recently deceased emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who was nasty even by the standards of Imperial Rome. He was also fond of making almanac-like collections, only fragments of which survive, devoted to odd topics such as manifestations of the divine and the workings of the supernatural.
His De Natura Animalium (On the Nature of Animals) has a similar patchwork quality, but it was esteemed enough in his time to survive more or less whole, and it is about all that we know of Aelians work today. A mostly randomly ordered collection of stories that he found interesting enough to relate about animals--whether or not he believed them--Aelians book constitutes an early encyclopedia of animal behavior, affording unparalleled insight into what ancient Romans knew about and thought about animals--and, of particular interest to modern scholars, about animal minds.
If the science is sometimes sketchy, the facts often fanciful, and the history sometimes suspect, it is clear enough that Aelian had a fine time assembling the material, which can be said, in the most general terms, to support the notion of a kind of intelligence in nature and that extends human qualities, for good and bad, to animals. His stories, which extend across the known world of Aelians time, tend to be brief and to the point, and many return to a trenchant question: If animals can respect their elders and live honorably within their own tribes, why must humans be so appallingly awful?
Aelian is as brisk, as entertaining, and as scholarly a writer as Pliny, the much better known Roman natural historian. That he is not better known is simply an accident: he has not been widely translated into English, or indeed any European language. This selection from his work will introduce readers to a lively mind and a witty writer who has much to tell us.

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{ AELIANS }

On the Nature of Animals

Gregory McNamee TRINITY UNIVERSITY PRESS SAN ANTONIO - photo 1

Gregory McNamee

Picture 2

TRINITY UNIVERSITY PRESS

SAN ANTONIO

Picture 3

Published by Trinity University Press

San Antonio, Texas 78212

Copyright 2011 by Gregory McNamee. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Book design by Anne Richmond Boston

Trinity University Press strives to produce its books using methods and materials in an environmentally sensitive manner. We favor working with manufacturers that practice sustainable management of all natural resources, produce paper using recycled stock, and manage forests with the best possible practices for people, biodiversity, and sustainability. The press is a member of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit program dedicated to supporting publishers in their efforts to reduce their impacts on endangered forests, climate change, and forest dependent communities.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z 39.48-1992.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Aelian, 3rd cent.

[De natura animalium. English. Selections]

Aelians On the nature of animals / [translated and edited by] Gregory McNamee.

p. cm.

Summary: Selections from Aelians De Natura Animalium, translated and edited by Gregory McNamee, are a mostly randomly ordered collection of stories that constitute an early encyclopedia of animal behavior, affording insight into what ancient Romans knew about and thought about animalsand, of particular interest to modern scholars, about animal mindsProvided by publisher.

ISBN 978-1-59534-111-2

1. ZoologyPre-Linnean works. I. McNamee, Gregory. II. Title. III. Title: On the nature of animals.

PA 3821. E 5 2011

590 DC 22 2010053843

{ CONTENTS }

The octopus is greedy, sneaky, and voracious, and it will eat anything.

The owl is a wily bird, as crafty as a sorceress. If you were to capture one, it would beguile and bewitch you so that you would keep it as a pet, even allow it to sit on your shoulders as if it were some sort of good-luck charm.

If a horse should step on a wolfs footprint, then it would go numb.

When cranes squawk, rain is on the way.

If you want to start an argument at a dinner party, you can immediately do so by dropping a stone that a dog has gnawed into the wine. This will whip your guests into a fury.

We owe these observations on the ways of the animals of land, sea, and air to an encyclopedist, writer, collector, and moralist named Claudius Aelianus. Aelian, as we call him, was born sometime between 165 and 170 CE in the hill town of Praeneste, what is now Palestrina, about twenty-five miles from Rome. We do not know much about his early life, but we can imagine him to have been a bookish and curious boy, the kind who, like Heraclitus, might lie alongside a busy road to study the ways of industrious dung beetles and pester grown-ups to teach him how to read auguries from the flights of birds. He grew up speaking his towns version of Latin, but, somewhat unusually for his generation, though not for Romans of earlier times, he preferred to communicate in Greek, the language in which he wrote his many books.

Trained by a sophist named Pausanias of Caesarea, Aelian was known in his time for a work called Indictment of the Effeminate, an attack on the recently deceased emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who was nasty even by the standards of Imperial Rome. He was also fond of making almanac-like collections, only fragments of which survive, devoted to odd topics such as manifestations of the divine and the workings of the supernatural.

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