Monsters and Themes of Pliny's Natural History and Homer's Odyssey

Student's Name
Professor's Name
Subject
Date
Pliny's Natural History and Homer's Odyssey
Question One
Although Pliny did not discriminate between fact, opinion, and conjecture in his multi-volume book, he is recognized for founding the first encyclopedia of science. Natural History was the main repository for scientific knowledge and ideas in the West for many years. Due to his affluent familial background, Pliny could complete his education in Rome. He started his military career in Germany and eventually became a cavalry commander. He went back to Rome, possibly to pursue legal studies. Pliny lived in semiretirement, studying and writing until he was appointed procurator in Spain after Nero's rule (Murphy 4). His nephew, Pliny the Younger, described his dedication to his studies and research methodology.
Question Two
John Block Friedman offers some insightful observations regarding the alleged monsters of antiquity in his chapter on "The Plinian Races," notably from the Greeks' point of view (Friedman 5). He gives several instances of human tribes that ancient writer mischaracterized as possessing enigmatic, horrific traits. He also examines these entities and comes to some intriguing conclusions.
In Friedman's discourse, several different "monster" races are mentioned. He explains how a few races accidentally become fifty more by misunderstanding, whether due to a mistranslation or just a basic human desire to make something larger, better, and more hideous than the last (Friedman 8). Theoretically, when people traveled the world and discovered that the "monstrous" tribes they had imagined did not exist, they would discard these traditions as fiction, nothing more than imaginative tales. Even if some of these races were real, those that were not were nonetheless talked about as though they were.
The first of Friedman's two explanations for this is that the Plinian people had a psychological need for the existence of the monster species they had created. As seen above, people have always enjoyed monsters (Friedman 15). To exist, they must have monsters. The idea that there were "monsters" out there to make them feel normal was popular among the Greeks and Romans.
Pliny discusses a variety of monstrous races. According to his book, a race called the Psylli existed in Africa and was named for the ruler Psyllus, who is interred in the Greater Syrtes area. The toxin in their bodies, which is fatal to snakes, was enough to knock the beasts out cold (Secundus, 62). Since snakes do not run from blood-impure people, it was this tribe's habit to expose their newborns to the most vicious snakes as soon as they were born to test their women's faithfulness.
According to Pliny's writings, ladies of this monstrous kind, known as Bitiae, exist in Scythia. The Thibii and several more tribes of a similar sort are mentioned by Phylarchus as well. According to him, they may be identified by the double pupil in one eye and the picture of a horse in the other. Additionally, he asserts that they cannot drown, even when they are heavily clothed. According to Damon, a tribe in Ethiopia known as the Pharmaces forces the corpses it touches to fade away.
Because of his stoicism, Pliny believed that everything in nature was cre...