After the study entitled History of the Plants, Theophrastus continued his research on botany and published a second set of results, now entitled Causes of the Plants.Assuming the inevitable dialogue between the two titles, Theophrastus progressed, however, from an inventory to a more technical reflection, looking at agriculture as an 'art' with the capacity to manipulate nature and serve commercial, gastronomic and medicinal objectives.This volume offers the first translation into Portuguese of the Causes of plants, by Theophrastus. The nature of the subject needed the collaboration of a Hellenist and a botanist, in order to ensure the accuracy of the translation and the specificity of the footnotes and indexes. Beside the large number of footnotes, there is an introduction that identifies Theophrastus, his intellectual circle and the scientific structure of his exposition. The volume also includes a bibliography and eight indexes: four of Greek nomenclature and its translation into Portuguese, referring to the chapters of Theophrastus' text; the others of Latin names given to the species (plants and animals), referring to the footnotes. |