Aelian's on the Nature of Animals

Trained by a sophist named Pausanias of Caesarea, Aelian was known in his time for a work called "Indictment of the Effeminate", an attack on the emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. He was also fond of making almanac-like collections, only fragments of which survive, devoted to odd topics such as man [...]
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Trained by a sophist named Pausanias of Caesarea, Aelian was known in his time for a work called "Indictment of the Effeminate", an attack on the emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. He was also fond of making almanac-like collections, only fragments of which survive, devoted to odd topics such as manifestations of the divine and the workings of the supernatural. "De Natura Animalium" ("On the Nature of Animals") has a similar patchwork quality, but it was esteemed enough in his time to survive more or less whole, and it is about all that is known of Aelian's work today. A collection of stories that he found interesting enough to relate about animals - whether or not he believed them - Aelian's book constitutes an early encyclopedia of animal behavior, affording unparalleled insight into what ancient Romans knew about and thought about animals - and, it is of particular interest to modern scholars, about animal minds.