Pliny the Elder’s discourse on Roman gold mining: The ecological approach of his gold metaphor and the personification of Nature

Abstract

Book XXXIII of Naturalis Historia by Pliny the Elder is the most comprehensive compendium of Roman gold mining in the 1st century. For an interdisciplinary in-depth study of the text, this work combines discourse analysis with a geological examination of the Latin author’s references. First, it frames Pliny’s allusions to mining through rhetorical devices—two figures of speech—that he uses to link them to his anthropology and the naturalist motivation of his treatise (in which mining references occupy only a minor part): the use of gold as a metaphor for greed, rather than merely for value or power, and the personification of nature, endowing it with the capacity for vengeance. Second, it supports most of Pliny’s references with current geological and historical data to justify his ecological concerns, which also help shape the framework through which he understands mining.