discuss how the ancients saw,
interpreted and handled the natural world, from the elements to the
most complex of living things. Their discussions on these matters
formed a resource for those who later worked on the same topics,
including scientists. The intention of this series is to show what it was in the aims, expectations, problems and circumstances of the
ancient writers that formed the nature of what they wrote. A consequent purpose is to provide historians with an understanding
of the materials out of which later writers, rather than passively
receiving and transmitting ancient ‘ideas’, constructed their own world view.
