Magnes the shepherd

As set out in Pliny's Naturalis Historia ("Natural History"), an early encyclopedia published c. 77 CE – c. 79 CE,[2] and as translated from the Latin in Robert Jacobus Forbes' Studies in Ancient Technology, Pliny wrote the following (attributing the source of his information, in turn, to Nicander of Colophon):[3] Nicander is our authority that it [magnetite ore] was called Magnes from the man who first discovered it on Mount Ida[note A] and he is said to have found it when the nails of his shoes and the ferrule of his staff adhered to it, as he was pasturing his herds.

[3]The passage appears at Book XXXVI of Naturalis Historia, covering "The Natural History of Stones", at chapter 25 entitled "The Magnet: Three Remedies".

[4] Although Pliny's description is often cited, the story of Magnes the shepherd is postulated by physicist Gillian Turner to be much older, dating from approximately 900 BCE.

[6] Written in approximately 600 CE, book XVI of Etymologiae by Isidore of Seville tells the same story as Pliny, but places Magnes in India.

Pliny states that Magnes, the shepherd, discovered it, and the legend told of him is that while carrying a message over Mount Ida he felt his feet clinging to the earth, to the iron ore which lay thickly upon the hill.