Event

Speaker: Wesley Hanson, Lecturer University of Pennsylvania

Title: "Empire and Language in Pliny the Elder's Natural History"

Abstract: Early in the Natural History, Pliny praises Italy for its ability to unite distant enemies and bring into agreement the discordant dialects of the world through common use of the Latin language (3.39). The phrase that Pliny uses, sermonis commercium, aligns his interest in speech with potential benefits that Roman imperialism could generate by connecting cultures that span the known world – a world that Pliny felt his Natural History had a role in illuminating. At Natural History 5.45, Pliny notes that the Troglodytes, who lack a sermonis commercium, fall outside of these parameters. Animals, however, do demonstrate a capacity for language and so show that, by nature, certain parts of the world are open to a Roman conquest that has at its core a Latin language policy. For Pliny, the natural world can justify Roman conquest, and animals are especially efficacious for articulating a naturalized argument for conquest because they belong to the natural world and also overlap with humans through their use of language – an overlap that Pliny signals with the word sermo. By making the world comprehensible through its examination of animal speech, the Natural History sets itself up as playing a role in articulating a rational for imperial expansion. The question of what constituted a natural limit to Roman conquest required re-evaluation; Pliny proposes language. 

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