Solinus and Pliny the Elder on India
Vigasin Alexei A.
Collectanea rerum memorabilium of Solinus does not contain any new information in comparison with Pliny the Elder. Its significance for the textual criticism of the Naturalis Historia is also not great – differences with Pliny’s description of India can usually be explained simply by the negligence of the compiler. Solinus compresses Pliny’s text by means of cutting the specific geographical and ethnographic information. At the same time, he preserves everything that could be considered ‘wonderful things’ – and in this respect his work anticipates the further development of Latin geographical literature. The paper offers a number of new interpretations of Solinus’ text in the context of a discussion of the information of Latin scholars concerning the history and geography of India.
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