Parens Natura and Smithian Growth

This chapter describes Pliny's attitude to Mother Nature as influenced by Stoic thought of his day. This attitude formed the basis for Pliny's moral thinking about useful knowledge of Nature, with major implications (at least in Pliny's view) for the economic consequences of empire. Pliny held profoundly ambivalent ideas about the economic benefits and vices of empire. The benefits came almost entirely from what could be described as an argument that anticipated Adam Smith by seventeen centuries to the effect that Rome's expansion opened the way to the discovery of new and varied natural resources from the conquered lands, and Roman rule promoted the exchange of these resources through trade during the Pax Romana. On the other hand, Pliny believed that Roman attitudes and power also promoted the misuse, abuse, and even violation of Nature, most egregiously in mining and quarrying. To Pliny, what might count as economic growth and improvement of living standards cannot be value free—and at the heart of those moral values is the emotional and spiritual devotion to Mother Nature.