80-673: The December solstice , also known as the southern solstice , is the solstice that occurs each December – typically on 21 December, but may vary by one day in either direction according to the Gregorian calendar . In the Northern Hemisphere , the December solstice is the winter solstice (the day with the shortest period of daylight), whilst in the Southern Hemisphere it is the summer solstice (the day with
160-467: A summarium, or list of contents, at the beginning of the work that was later interpreted by modern printers as a table of contents. The table below is a summary based on modern names for topics. Pliny's purpose in writing the Natural History was to cover all learning and art so far as they are connected with nature or draw their materials from nature. He says: My subject is a barren one –
240-474: A component of the relative velocity of the Sun as it is observed in the sky. Relative velocity is the motion of an object from the point of view of an observer in a frame of reference . From a fixed position on the ground, the Sun appears to orbit around Earth. To an observer in an inertial frame of reference , planet Earth is seen to rotate about an axis and orbit around the Sun in an elliptical path with
320-412: A leap day re-aligns the calendar with the orbit. Thus the solstices always occur between June 20 and 22 and between December 20 and 23 in a four-year-long cycle with the 21st and 22nd being the most common dates, as can be seen in the schedule at the start of the article. Using the current official IAU constellation boundaries – and taking into account the variable precession speed and the rotation of
400-484: A meal, which with him, as in the old days, was always a simple and light one, he would lie in the sun if he had any time to spare, and a book would be read aloud, from which he would take notes and extracts. Pliny the Younger told the following anecdote illustrating his uncle's enthusiasm for study: After dinner a book would be read aloud, and he would take notes in a cursory way. I remember that one of his friends, when
480-738: A midwinter party, to celebrate that the Sun is at its lowest point and coming back. The Fremont Solstice Parade takes place every summer solstice in Fremont, Seattle, Washington in the United States . The reconstructed Cahokia Woodhenge , a large timber circle located at the Mississippian culture Cahokia archaeological site near Collinsville, Illinois , is the site of annual equinox and solstice sunrise observances. Out of respect for Native American beliefs these events do not feature ceremonies or rituals of any kind. Unlike
560-407: A model for later encyclopedias and scholarly works as a result of its breadth of subject matter, its referencing of original authors, and its index . Pliny's Natural History was written alongside other substantial works (which have since been lost ). Pliny (AD 23–79) combined his scholarly activities with a busy career as an imperial administrator for the emperor Vespasian . Much of his writing
640-624: A noise festival, to call the Sun back. Further east, the Aymara people celebrate their New Year on 21 June. A celebration occurs at sunrise, when the sun shines directly through the Gate of the Sun in Tiwanaku . Other Aymara New Year feasts occur throughout Bolivia , including at the site of El Fuerte de Samaipata . In the Hindu calendar , two sidereal solstices are named Makara Sankranti which marks
720-457: A painting, a salutary warning that too much effort can be counterproductive. Everything from "a salutary warning" onwards represents the ablative absolute phrase starting with "memorabili praecepto". Pliny wrote the first ten books in AD 77, and was engaged on revising the rest during the two remaining years of his life. The work was probably published with little revision by the author's nephew Pliny
800-450: A view to their role in human life. Pliny devotes a number of the books to plants, with a focus on their medicinal value; the books on minerals include descriptions of their uses in architecture , sculpture , art , and jewellery . Pliny's premise is distinct from modern ecological theories, reflecting the prevailing sentiment of his time. Pliny's work frequently reflects Rome's imperial expansion, which brought new and exciting things to
880-551: A wider sense, as the date (day) that such a passage happens. The solstices, together with the equinoxes, are connected with the seasons. In some languages they are considered to start or separate the seasons; in others they are considered to be centre points (in England , in the Northern Hemisphere, for example, the period around the northern solstice is known as midsummer). Midsummer's Day , defined as St. Johns Day by
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#1732766115460960-469: A year into 24 solar terms (節氣). Xiàzhì ( pīnyīn ) or Geshi ( rōmaji ) ( Chinese and Japanese : 夏至; Korean : 하지(Haji) ; Vietnamese : Hạ chí ; lit. summer's extreme ) is the 10th solar term, and marks the summer solstice . It begins when the Sun reaches the celestial longitude of 90° (around 21 June) and ends when the Sun reaches the longitude of 105° (around 7 July). Xiàzhì more often refers in particular to
1040-521: Is Marcus Terentius Varro . In the geographical books, Varro is supplemented by the topographical commentaries of Agrippa , which were completed by the emperor Augustus ; for his zoology , he relies largely on Aristotle and on Juba , the scholarly Mauretanian king, studiorum claritate memorabilior quam regno (v. 16). Juba is one of his principal guides in botany; Theophrastus is also named in his Indices, and Pliny had translated Theophrastus's Greek into Latin. Another work by Theophrastus, On Stones
1120-455: Is arranged geographically and within the tables from the shortest day to the longest one. Solstice A solstice is the time when the Sun reaches its most northerly or southerly excursion relative to the celestial equator on the celestial sphere . Two solstices occur annually, around 20-22 June and 20-22 December. In many countries, the seasons of the year are defined by reference to
1200-454: Is encyclopaedic in scope, but its format is unlike a modern encyclopaedia . However, it does have structure: Pliny uses Aristotle's division of nature (animal, vegetable, mineral) to recreate the natural world in literary form. Rather than presenting compartmentalised, stand-alone entries arranged alphabetically, Pliny's ordered natural landscape is a coherent whole, offering the reader a guided tour: "a brief excursion under our direction among
1280-539: Is handled in Books XII to XVIII, with Theophrastus as one of Pliny's sources. The manufacture of papyrus and the various grades of papyrus available to Romans are described. Different types of trees and the properties of their wood are explained in Books XII to XIII. The vine, viticulture and varieties of grape are discussed in Book XIV, while Book XV covers the olive tree in detail, followed by other trees including
1360-429: Is hardly detectable with indirect viewing based devices like sextant equipped with a vernier , and impossible with more traditional tools like a gnomon or an astrolabe . It is also hard to detect the changes in sunrise/sunset azimuth due to the atmospheric refraction changes. Those accuracy issues render it impossible to determine the solstice day based on observations made within the 3 (or even 5) days surrounding
1440-432: Is human life in a natural landscape. After an initial survey of cosmology and geography , Pliny starts his treatment of animals with the human race, "for whose sake great Nature appears to have created all other things". This teleological view of nature was common in antiquity and is crucial to the understanding of the Natural History . The components of nature are not just described in and for themselves, but also with
1520-549: Is in the zodiacal circle as well and periodically crosses the path of the Sun. As some of these crossings represent eclipses of the Moon, the path of the Sun is given a synonym, the ekleiptikos (kuklos) from ekleipsis , "eclipse". The two solstices can be distinguished by different pairs of names, depending on which feature one wants to stress. ( Gregorian calendar ) ( subsolar point ) ( Northern Hemisphere ) ( Southern Hemisphere ) The traditional East Asian calendars divide
1600-402: Is known as an equinox . There are two solstices and two equinoxes in a tropical year. Because of the variation in the rate at which the sun's right ascension changes, the days of longest and shortest daylight do not coincide with the solstices for locations very close to the equator. At the equator, the longest day is around 23 December and the shortest around 16 September (see graph). Inside
1680-590: Is the midnight sun or midsummer -night sun or polar day. On the other hand, places on the Antarctic Circle (latitude 66.56° south) will see the Sun just on the horizon during midday, and all places south of it will not see the Sun above horizon at any time of the day. That is the polar night . During the December Solstice, the effects on both hemispheres are just the opposite. This sees polar sea ice re-grow annually due to lack of sunlight on
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#17327661154601760-431: Is to be watchful", in a military metaphor of a sentry keeping watch in the night. Pliny claims to be the only Roman ever to have undertaken such a work, in his prayer for the blessing of the universal mother: Hail to thee, Nature, thou parent of all things! and do thou deign to show thy favour unto me, who, alone of all the citizens of Rome, have, in thy every department, thus made known thy praise. The Natural History
1840-538: The Christian Church , is 24 June, about three days after the solstice itself). Similarly 25 December is the start of the Christmas celebration, and is the day the Sun begins to return to the Northern Hemisphere. The traditional British and Irish main rent and meeting days of the year, "the usual quarter days ," were often those of the solstices and equinoxes. Many cultures celebrate various combinations of
1920-608: The Defloratio Historiae Naturalis Plinii Secundi consisting of nine books of selections taken from an ancient manuscript. There are three independent classes of the stemma of the surviving Historia Naturalis manuscripts. These are divided into: The textual tradition /stemma was established by the German scholars J. Sillig , D. Detlefsen, L. von Jan, and K. Rück in the 19th century. Two Teubner Editions were published of 5 volumes;
2000-511: The Festival of Vulcan , not for luck but from his love of study, long before dawn; in winter he would commence at the seventh hour... He could sleep at call, and it would come upon him and leave him in the middle of his work. Before daybreak he would go to Vespasian – for he too was a night-worker – and then set about his official duties. On his return home he would again give to study any time that he had free. Often in summer after taking
2080-578: The Silver Age . His sentence structure is often loose and straggling. There is heavy use of the ablative absolute , and ablative phrases are often appended in a kind of vague "apposition" to express the author's own opinion of an immediately previous statement, e.g., dixit (Apelles) ... uno se praestare, quod manum de tabula sciret tollere, memorabili praecepto nocere saepe nimiam diligentiam. This might be translated In one thing Apelles stood out, namely, knowing when he had put enough work into
2160-416: The solstitial colure , i.e. the times when the apparent geocentric celestial longitude of the Sun is equal to 90° (June solstice) or 270° (December solstice). The dates of the solstice varies each year and may occur a day earlier or later depending on the time zone . Because the earth's orbit takes slightly longer than a calendar year of 365 days, the solstices occur slightly later each calendar year, until
2240-524: The Arctic or Antarctic Circles the sun is up all the time for days or even months. The seasons occur because the Earth's axis of rotation is not perpendicular to its orbital plane (the plane of the ecliptic ) but currently makes an angle of about 23.44° (called the obliquity of the ecliptic ), and because the axis keeps its orientation with respect to an inertial frame of reference . As a consequence, for half
2320-517: The December solstice. It is thus the length of time between adjacent December solstices. The length of the December-solstice year has been relatively stable between 6000 BC and AD 2000, in the range of 49 minutes 30 seconds to 50 minutes in excess of 365 days 5 hours. This is longer than the mean year of the Gregorian calendar , which has an excess time of 49 minutes and 12 seconds. Since 2000, it has been growing shorter. In 4000,
2400-458: The Moon is 230,000 miles away. He describes comets , noting that only Aristotle has recorded seeing more than one at once. Book II continues with natural meteorological events lower in the sky, including the winds, weather, whirlwinds, lightning, and rainbows. He returns to astronomical facts such as the effect of longitude on time of sunrise and sunset, the variation of the Sun's elevation with latitude (affecting time-telling by sundials), and
2480-475: The Sun and planets across the paths of and in among the stars.* Cleomedes states: The band of the Zodiac ( zōdiakos kuklos , "zodiacal circle") is at an oblique angle ( loksos ) because it is positioned between the tropical circles and equinoctial circle touching each of the tropical circles at one point ... This Zodiac has a determinable width (set at 8° today) ... that is why it is described by three circles:
December solstice - Misplaced Pages Continue
2560-420: The Sun at one focus . Earth's axis is tilted with respect to the plane of Earth's orbit and this axis maintains a position that changes little with respect to the background of stars . An observer on Earth therefore sees a solar path that is the result of both rotation and revolution. The component of the Sun's motion seen by an earthbound observer caused by the revolution of the tilted axis – which, keeping
2640-518: The Sun reaches the highest position in the sky once a year in June. The day this occurs is called the June solstice day. Similarly, for an observer on the South Pole , the Sun reaches the highest position on the December solstice day. When it is the summer solstice at one Pole, it is the winter solstice on the other. The Sun's westerly motion never ceases as Earth is continually in rotation. However,
2720-556: The Sun reaches the longitude of 285° (around 5 January). Dōngzhì more often refers in particular to the day when the Sun is exactly at the celestial longitude of 270°. The solstices (as well as the equinoxes ) mark the middle of the seasons in East Asian calendars. Here, the Chinese character 至 means "extreme", so the terms for the solstices directly signify the summits of summer and winter. The term solstice can also be used in
2800-527: The Sun's motion in declination (i.e. vertically) comes to a stop, before reversing, at the moment of solstice. In that sense, solstice means "sun-standing". This modern scientific word descends from a Latin scientific word in use in the late Roman Republic of the 1st century BC: solstitium . Pliny uses it a number of times in his Natural History with a similar meaning that it has today. It contains two Latin-language morphemes, sol , "sun", and -stitium , "stoppage". The Romans used "standing" to refer to
2880-641: The Younger , and this verdict largely explains the appeal of the Natural History since Pliny's death in the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 . Pliny had gone to investigate the strange cloud – "shaped like an umbrella pine", according to his nephew – rising from the mountain. The Natural History was one of the first ancient European texts to be printed, in Venice in 1469. Philemon Holland 's English translation of 1601 has influenced literature ever since. The Natural History consists of 37 books. Pliny devised
2960-531: The Younger, who, when telling the story of a tame dolphin and describing the floating islands of the Vadimonian Lake thirty years later, has apparently forgotten that both are to be found in his uncle's work. He describes the Naturalis Historia as a Naturae historia and characterises it as a "work that is learned and full of matter, and as varied as nature herself." The absence of
3040-429: The air above and surrounding sea. The warmest and coldest periods of the year in temperate regions are offset by about one month from the solstices, delayed by the earth's thermal inertia. The concept of the solstices was embedded in ancient Greek celestial navigation . As soon as they discovered that the Earth was spherical they devised the concept of the celestial sphere , an imaginary spherical surface rotating with
3120-410: The author's final revision may explain many errors, including why the text is as John Healy writes "disjointed, discontinuous and not in a logical order"; and as early as 1350, Petrarch complained about the corrupt state of the text, referring to copying errors made between the ninth and eleventh centuries. About the middle of the 3rd century, an abstract of the geographical portions of Pliny's work
3200-541: The capital: exotic eastern spices, strange animals to be put on display or herded into the arena, even the alleged phoenix sent to the emperor Claudius in AD 47 – although, as Pliny admits, this was generally acknowledged to be a fake. Pliny repeated Aristotle's maxim that Africa was always producing something new. Nature's variety and versatility were claimed to be infinite: "When I have observed nature she has always induced me to deem no statement about her incredible." This led Pliny to recount rumours of strange peoples on
3280-404: The celestial sphere along the circumferences of circles in parallel planes perpendicular to the Earth's axis extended indefinitely into the heavens and intersecting the celestial sphere in a celestial pole. The Sun and the planets do not move in these parallel paths but along another circle, the ecliptic, whose plane is at an angle, the obliquity of the ecliptic , to the axis, bringing
December solstice - Misplaced Pages Continue
3360-450: The central one is called "heliacal" ( hēliakos , "of the sun"). The term heliacal circle is used for the ecliptic, which is in the center of the zodiacal circle, conceived as a band including the noted constellations named on mythical themes. Other authors use Zodiac to mean ecliptic, which first appears in a gloss of unknown author in a passage of Cleomedes where he is explaining that the Moon
3440-415: The day when the Sun is exactly at the celestial longitude of 90°. Dōngzhì ( pīnyīn ) or Tōji ( rōmaji ) ( Chinese and Japanese : 冬至; Korean : 동지(Dongji) ; Vietnamese : Đông chí ; lit. winter's extreme ) is the 22nd solar term, and marks the winter solstice . It begins when the Sun reaches the celestial longitude of 270° (around 23 December) and ends when
3520-579: The ecliptic – the solstices shift through the constellations as follows (expressed in astronomical year numbering in which the year 0 = 1 BC, −1 = 2 BC, etc.): Natural History (Pliny) The Natural History ( Latin : Naturalis Historia ) is a Latin work by Pliny the Elder . The largest single work to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day, the Natural History compiles information gleaned from other ancient authors. Despite
3600-580: The edges of the world. These monstrous races – the Cynocephali or Dog-Heads, the Sciapodae , whose single foot could act as a sunshade, the mouthless Astomi , who lived on scents – were not strictly new. They had been mentioned in the fifth century BC by Greek historian Herodotus (whose history was a broad mixture of myths , legends , and facts), but Pliny made them better known. "As full of variety as nature itself", stated Pliny's nephew, Pliny
3680-410: The equinox, the solstice time is not easy to determine. The changes in solar declination become smaller as the Sun gets closer to its maximum/minimum declination. The days before and after the solstice, the declination speed is less than 30 arcseconds per day which is less than 1 ⁄ 60 of the angular size of the Sun, or the equivalent to just 2 seconds of right ascension . This difference
3760-548: The excess time will be 48 minutes 52 seconds, and, in 10000, 46 minutes 45 seconds. The following tables contain information on the length of the day on December 22nd, close to the winter solstice of the Northern Hemisphere and the summer solstice of the Southern Hemisphere (i.e. December solstice). The data was collected from the website of the Finnish Meteorological Institute on 22 December 2015, as well as from certain other websites. The data
3840-492: The first by L. von Jan (1856-78; see external links ) and the second by C. Mayhoff (1892-1906). The most recent critical editions were published by Les Belle Letters (1950-). All 5th century: Definite descendants of E (Paris lat. 6795): Possible descendants of E: Copies of E: Cousin of E: Independent earlier tradition: The work was one of the first classical manuscripts to be printed , at Venice in 1469 by Johann and Wendelin of Speyer , but J.F. Healy described
3920-464: The greatness of Julius Caesar , outstanding people such as Hippocrates and Asclepiades , happiness and fortune. Zoology is discussed in Books VIII to XI. The encyclopedia mentions different sources of purple dye, particularly the murex snail, the highly prized source of Tyrian purple . It describes the elephant and hippopotamus in detail, as well as the value and origin of the pearl and
4000-404: The halfway time between both noons is estimated solstice time. An interval of 45 days has been postulated as the best one to achieve up to a quarter-day precision, in the solstice determination. In 2012, the journal DIO found that accuracy of one or two hours with balanced errors can be attained by observing the Sun's equal altitudes about S = twenty degrees (or d = about 20 days) before and after
4080-410: The heavenly bodies ( ouranioi ) fixed in it (the modern one does not rotate, but the stars in it do). As long as no assumptions are made concerning the distances of those bodies from Earth or from each other, the sphere can be accepted as real and is in fact still in use. The Ancient Greeks use the term "ηλιοστάσιο" (heliostāsio) , meaning stand of the Sun . The stars move across the inner surface of
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#17327661154604160-419: The invention of fish farming and oyster farming . The keeping of aquariums was a popular pastime of the rich, and Pliny provides anecdotes of the problems of owners becoming too closely attached to their fish. Pliny correctly identifies the origin of amber as the fossilised resin of pine trees. Evidence cited includes the fact that some samples exhibit encapsulated insects, a feature readily explained by
4240-673: The longest period of daylight). During December solstice, the Sun is directly over the Tropic of Capricorn, located in the Southern Hemisphere. The solstice also marks the changing of seasons in many countries. 21 December is the first day of winter (in the Northern Hemisphere) and the first day of summer (in the Southern Hemisphere). The December-solstice solar year is the solar year based on
4320-455: The maximum elevation occurs at the summer solstice and the minimum at the winter solstice. The path of the Sun, or ecliptic , sweeps north and south between the northern and southern hemispheres. The lengths time when the sun is up are longer around the summer solstice and shorter around the winter solstice, except near the equator. When the Sun's path crosses the equator , the length of the nights at latitudes +L° and −L° are of equal length. This
4400-526: The means of one's own achievements." In the preface, the author claims to have stated 20,000 facts gathered from some 2,000 books and from 100 select authors. The extant lists of his authorities cover more than 400, including 146 Roman and 327 Greek and other sources of information. The lists generally follow the order of the subject matter of each book. This has been shown in Heinrich Brunn 's Disputatio ( Bonn , 1856). One of Pliny's authorities
4480-517: The months in which they take place every year. The word solstice is derived from the Latin sol ("sun") and sistere ("to stand still"), because at the solstices, the Sun's declination appears to "stand still"; that is, the seasonal movement of the Sun's daily path (as seen from Earth ) pauses at a northern or southern limit before reversing direction. For an observer at the North Pole ,
4560-413: The presence of a viscous resin. Pliny refers to the way in which it exerts a charge when rubbed, a property well known to Theophrastus. He devotes considerable space to bees , which he admires for their industry, organisation, and honey , discussing the significance of the queen bee and the use of smoke by beekeepers at the hive to collect honeycomb . He praises the song of the nightingale . Botany
4640-541: The reader pronounced a word wrongly, checked him and made him read it again, and my uncle said to him, "Did you not catch the meaning?" When his friend said "yes," he remarked, "Why then did you make him turn back? We have lost more than ten lines through your interruption." So jealous was he of every moment lost. Pliny's writing style emulates that of Seneca . It aims less at clarity and vividness than at epigrammatic point. It contains many antitheses , questions, exclamations, tropes , metaphors , and other mannerisms of
4720-571: The remainder at the time of his death during the AD ;79 eruption of Vesuvius . The rest was published posthumously by Pliny's nephew, Pliny the Younger . The work is divided into 37 books, organised into 10 volumes. These cover topics including astronomy , mathematics , geography , ethnography , anthropology , human physiology , zoology , botany , agriculture , horticulture , pharmacology , mining , mineralogy , sculpture , art , and precious stones . Pliny's Natural History became
4800-743: The rites of Easter in most Christian churches, as well as the Wiccan Ostara . The autumnal equinox is associated with the Jewish holiday of Sukkot and the Wiccan Mabon . In the southern tip of South America , the Mapuche people celebrate We Tripantu (the New Year) a few days after the northern solstice, on 24 June. Further north, the Atacama people formerly celebrated this date with
4880-402: The same angle in space, is oriented toward or away from the Sun – is an observed daily increment (and lateral offset) of the elevation of the Sun at noon for approximately six months and observed daily decrement for the remaining six months. At maximum or minimum elevation, the relative yearly motion of the Sun perpendicular to the horizon stops and reverses direction. Outside of the tropics,
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#17327661154604960-403: The solstice without the use of more complex tools. Accounts do not survive but Greek astronomers must have used an approximation method based on interpolation, which is still used by some amateurs. This method consists of recording the declination angle at noon during some days before and after the solstice, trying to find two separate days with the same declination. When those two days are found,
5040-416: The solstices and the equinoxes . The term solstice can also be used in a broader sense, as the day when this occurs. For locations not too close to the equator or the poles, the dates with the longest and shortest periods of daylight are the summer and winter solstices, respectively. Terms with no ambiguity as to which hemisphere is the context are " June solstice " and " December solstice ", referring to
5120-503: The start of Uttarayana and Karka Sankranti which marks the start of Dakshinayana . The former occurs around 14 January each year, while the latter occurs around 14 July each year. These mark the movement of the Sun along a sidereally fixed zodiac ( precession is ignored) into Makara, the zodiacal sign which corresponds with Capricorn , and into Karka, the zodiacal sign which corresponds with Cancer , respectively. The Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station celebrates every year on 21 June
5200-436: The subject. Pliny studied the original authorities on each subject and took care to make excerpts from their pages. His indices auctorum sometimes list the authorities he actually consulted, though not exhaustively; in other cases, they cover the principal writers on the subject, whose names are borrowed second-hand from his immediate authorities. He acknowledges his obligations to his predecessors: "To own up to those who were
5280-546: The subsolar point is further south than any other time: at latitude 23.44° south, known as the Tropic of Capricorn . The subsolar point will cross every latitude between these two extremes exactly twice per year. Also during the June solstice, places on the Arctic Circle (latitude 66.56° north) will see the Sun just on the horizon during midnight, and all places north of it will see the Sun above horizon for 24 hours. That
5360-418: The summer solstice because the average of the two times will be early by q arc minutes where q is (πe cosA)/3 times the square of S in degrees (e = earth orbit eccentricity, A = earth's perihelion or Sun's apogee), and the noise in the result will be about 41 hours divided by d if the eye's sharpness is taken as one arc minute. Astronomical almanacs define the solstices as the moments when the Sun passes through
5440-503: The translation as "distinctly imperfect". A copy printed in 1472 by Nicolas Jenson of Venice is held in the library at Wells Cathedral . Philemon Holland made an influential translation of much of the work into English in 1601. John Bostock and H. T. Riley made a complete translation in 1855. The Natural History is generally divided into the organic plants and animals and the inorganic matter, although there are frequent digressions in each section. The encyclopedia also notes
5520-571: The uses made of all of these by the Romans. Its description of metals and minerals is valued for its detail in the history of science , being the most extensive compilation still available from the ancient world. Book I serves as Pliny's preface, explaining his approach and providing a table of contents. The first topic covered is Astronomy, in Book II. Pliny starts with the known universe, roundly criticising attempts at cosmology as madness, including
5600-605: The variation of day length with latitude. In Books III to VI, Pliny moves to the Earth itself. In Book III he covers the geography of the Iberian peninsula and Italy; Book IV covers Europe; Book V looks at Africa and Asia, while Book VI looks eastwards to the Black Sea, India and the Far East. Book VII discusses the human race, covering anthropology and ethnography , aspects of human physiology and assorted matters such as
5680-541: The view that there are countless other worlds than the Earth. He concurs with the four (Aristotelian) elements, fire, earth, air and water, and records the seven "planets" including the Sun and Moon. The Earth is a sphere, suspended in the middle of space. He considers it a weakness to try to find the shape and form of God, or to suppose that such a being would care about human affairs. He mentions eclipses, but considers Hipparchus 's almanac grandiose for seeming to know how Nature works. He cites Posidonius 's estimate that
5760-454: The whole of the works of nature ..." The work is unified but varied: "My subject is the world of nature ... or in other words, life," he tells Titus. Nature for Pliny was divine, a pantheistic concept inspired by the Stoic philosophy , which underlies much of his thought, but the deity in question was a goddess whose main purpose was to serve the human race: "nature, that is life"
5840-476: The winter and summer solstices, the equinoxes, and the midpoints between them, leading to various holidays arising around these events. During the southern or winter solstice , Christmas is the most widespread contemporary holiday, while Yalda , Saturnalia , Karachun , Hanukkah , Kwanzaa , and Yule are also celebrated around this time. In East Asian cultures, the Dongzhi Festival is celebrated on
5920-519: The winter solstice. For the northern or summer solstice , Christian cultures celebrate the feast of St. John from June 23 to 24 (see St. John's Eve , Ivan Kupala Day ), while Modern Pagans observe Midsummer, known as Litha among Wiccans . For the vernal (spring) equinox, several springtime festivals are celebrated, such as the Persian Nowruz , the observance in Judaism of Passover ,
6000-415: The work's title, its subject area is not limited to what is today understood by natural history ; Pliny himself defines his scope as "the natural world, or life". It is encyclopedic in scope, but its structure is not like that of a modern encyclopedia . It is the only work by Pliny to have survived, and the last that he published. He published the first 10 books in AD 77, but had not made a final revision of
6080-502: The world of nature, or in other words life; and that subject in its least elevated department, and employing either rustic terms or foreign, nay barbarian words that actually have to be introduced with an apology. Moreover, the path is not a beaten highway of authorship, nor one in which the mind is eager to range: there is not one of us who has made the same venture, nor yet one among the Greeks who has tackled single-handed all departments of
6160-521: The year the Northern Hemisphere is inclined toward the Sun while for the other half year the Southern Hemisphere has this distinction. The two moments when the inclination of Earth's rotational axis has maximum effect are the solstices. At the June solstice the subsolar point is further north than any other time: at latitude 23.44° north, known as the Tropic of Cancer . Similarly at the December solstice
6240-600: Was cited as a source on ores and minerals . Pliny strove to use all the Greek histories available to him, such as Herodotus and Thucydides , as well as the Bibliotheca Historica of Diodorus Siculus . His nephew, Pliny the Younger, described the method that Pliny used to write the Natural History : Does it surprise you that a busy man found time to finish so many volumes, many of which deal with such minute details?... He used to begin to study at night on
6320-421: Was done at night; daytime hours were spent working for the emperor, as he explains in the dedicatory preface addressed to Vespasian's elder son, the future emperor Titus , with whom he had served in the army (and to whom the work is dedicated). As for the nocturnal hours spent writing, these were seen not as a loss of sleep but as an addition to life, for as he states in the preface, Vita vigilia est , "to be alive
6400-467: Was produced by Solinus . Early in the 8th century, Bede , who admired Pliny's work, had access to a partial manuscript which he used in his " De natura rerum ", especially the sections on meteorology and gems . However, Bede updated and corrected Pliny on the tides . There are about 200 extant manuscripts, but the best of the more ancient manuscripts, that at Bamberg State Library , contains only books XXXII–XXXVII. In 1141 Robert of Cricklade wrote
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