Book 3 - Southern Europe

Summary

Book 3 of the Natural History, the first geographical book, confines itself to southern Europe, from the outlet of the Mediterranean at the west to the mouth of the Danube at the northeast, excluding the Greek peninsula. After a brief introduction about geography and Pliny’s technique (1–2) and comments about Europe as a whole (3–5), the narrative moves through Hispania (6–30), Gaul (31–7), and Italy from the Alps to Sicily (38–138). The Italian portion is nearly two-thirds of the book, which concludes with the regions east of the Adriatic as far as the Danube (139–51). Discussion of mainland Greece is reserved for the following book (NH 4.1–39), whose beginning follows directly on the end of Book 3. The account of the lands west of Italy is limited to the Mediterranean coasts: the remaining portions of the Iberian peninsula and Europe are examined in Book 4 (94–120).