- About the middle of the 2d century b.c., Greece succumbed to the Roman legions. The Romans made contributions in politics—but their interest in science was primarily in its application. Thus, in biology, both medicine and agriculture were encouraged because of their importance to the welfare of the army and the empire. Of note are Pliny, Dioscorides, and Galen.
- Pliny the Elder (a.d. 23–79) put together a natural history of 37 volumes. This work influenced the development of biology and natural history throughout the Middle Ages in chiefly a negative way. In this encyclopedia of nature, Pliny mixed fact and fancy, and did not use scientific standards as a guide as can be seen from the anecdotes he recounts, such as the bear licking its cubs into shape. Soon after Christian authors, taking inspiration from Pliny, composed stories about animals to convey moral and religious messages. The medieval bestiaries were the continuation of this tradition of combining wonderful stories of birds and beasts with miracle and allegory.
- Dioscorides (c. a.d. 40–90) was a Greek who worked under Nero as an army surgeon. He originated the pharmacopoeia, tersely describing plants of value to medicine and frequently including their habits and habitats. Annotated copies of this materia medica formed the chief source of pharmocological knowledge for the next 1,500 years.
- The 2d century a saw the last great biologist of antiquity, Galen of Pergamum, who standardized anatomy and physiology for the next 15 centuries. Court physician to Marcus Aurelius, he composed voluminous works containing the ideas of his predecessors as well as his own contributions. He described from dissections, and performed experiments on living animals. By severing the spinal cord of living animals at different levels he gained knowledge of nerve functions. Galen also distinguished between motor and sensory nerves. His knowledge of physiology and anatomy allowed him to effect cures when other physicians failed. Posing an obstacle to Galen’s investigation was his inability to procure human cadavers for dissection. Consequently he relied chiefly on his dissections of the Barbary ape for an understanding of the human body, which resulted in his making a number of errors. Galen’s brilliance had as an unfortunate side effect that he was taken as an absolute authority for many centuries.
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