Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus, (23–79) better known as Pliny the Elder, was an ancient author and natural philosopher of some importance who wrote Naturalis Historia. He believed that "true glory consists of doing what deserves to be written, and writing what deserves to be read".

He was the son of a Roman eques by the daughter of the Senator Gaius Caecilius of Novum Comum. He was born at Como, not (as is sometimes supposed) at Verona: it is only as a native of Gallia Transpadana that he calls Catullus of Verona his conterraneus, or fellow-countryman, not his municeps, or fellow-townsman (Praef. §1). A statue of Pliny on the facade of the Duomo of Como celebrates him as a native son.

Chronology of His Life

Before 35 (N.H. xxxvii.81) his father took him to Rome, where he was educated under his father's friend, the poet and military commander, Publius Pomponius Secundus, who inspired him with a lifelong love of learning. Two centuries after the death of the Gracchi, Pliny saw some of their autograph writings in his preceptor's library (xiii.83), and he afterwards wrote that preceptor's Life.

He mentions the grammarians and rhetoricians, Remmius Palaemon and Arellius Fuscus (xiv.4; xxxiii.152), and he may have been their student. In Rome he studied botany in the topiarius (garden) of the aged Antonius Castor (xxv.9), and saw the fine old lotus trees in the grounds that had once belonged to Crassus (xvii.5). He also viewed the vast structure raised by Caligula (xxxvi.111), and probably witnessed the triumph of Claudius over Britain in 44 (iii.119). Under the influence of Seneca the Younger he became a keen student of philosophy and rhetoric, and began practicing as an advocate.

He saw military service under Corbulo in Germania Inferior in 47, taking part in the Roman conquest of the Chauci and the construction of the canal between the rivers Maas and Rhine (xvi. 2 and 5). As a young commander of cavalry (praefectus alae) he wrote in his winter-quarters a work on the use of missiles on horseback (De jaculatione equestri), with some account of the points of a good horse (viii.162).

In Gaul and Spain he learned the meanings of a number of Celtic words (xxx.40). He took note of sites associated with the Roman invasion of Germany, and, amid the scenes of the victories of Drusus, he had a dream in which the victor enjoined him to transmit his exploits to posterity (Plin. Epp. iii.5, 4). The dream prompted Pliny to begin forthwith a history of all the wars between the Romans and the Germans.

He probably accompanied his father's friend Pomponius on an expedition against the Chatti (50), and visited Germany for a third time (50s) as a comrade of the future emperor, Titus Flavius (Praef. §3). Under Nero he lived mainly in Rome. He mentions the map of Armenia and the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea, which was sent to Rome by the staff of Corbulo in 58 (vi.40). He also saw the building of Nero's "golden house" after the fire of 64 (xxxvi.111).

Meanwhile he was completing the twenty books of his History of the German Wars, the only authority expressly quoted in the first six books of the Annals of Tacitus (1.69), and probably one of the principal authorities for the Germania. It was superseded by the writings of Tacitus, and, early in the 5th century, Symmachus had little hope of finding a copy (Epp. xiv.8).

He also devoted much of his time to writing on the comparatively safe subjects of grammar and rhetoric. A detailed work on rhetoric, entitled Studiosus, was followed by eight books, Dubii sermonis, in 67.

Under his friend Vespasian he returned to the service of the state, serving as procurator in Gallia Narbonensis (70) and Hispania Tarraconensis (73), and also visiting the province of Gallia Belgica (74). During his stay in Spain he became familiar with the agriculture and the mines of the country, besides paying a visit to Africa (vii.37). On his return to Italy he accepted office under Vespasian, whom he used to visit before daybreak for instructions before proceeding to his official duties, after the discharge of which he devoted all the rest of his time to study (Plin. Epp. iii.5, 9).

He completed a History of his Times in thirty-one books, possibly extending from the reign of Nero to that of Vespasian, and deliberately reserved it for publication after his death (N. H., Praef. 20). It is quoted by Tacitus (Ann. xiii.20, xv.53; Hist. iii.29), and is one of the authorities followed by Suetonius and Plutarch.

He also virtually completed his great work, the Naturalis Historia, an encyclopedia into which Pliny collected much of the knowledge of his time. The work had been planned under the rule of Nero. The materials collected for this purpose filled rather less than 160 volumes in 23, when Larcius Licinus, the praetorian legate of Hispania Tarraconensis, vainly offered to purchase them for a sum equivalent to more than £3,200 (1911 estimated value) or £200,000 (2002 estimated value). He dedicated the work to the emperor Titus Flavius Vespasianus in 77.

Vesuvius

Soon afterwards he received from Vespasian the appointment of praefect of the Roman fleet at Misenum. On August 24, 79 A.D., he was stationed at Misenum, at the time of the great eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which overwhelmed Pompeii and Herculaneum. A desire to observe the phenomenon directly, and also to rescue some of his friends from their perilous position on the shore of the Bay of Naples, led to his launching his galleys and crossing the bay to Stabiae (near the modern town of Castellammare di Stabia). His nephew, Pliny the Younger, provided an account of his death, and suggested that he collapsed and died through inhaling poisonous gases emitted from the volcano. [1].

He is still remembered in vulcanology where the term plinian (or plinean) refers to a very violent eruption of a volcano marked by columns of smoke and ash extending high into the stratosphere. The term ultra-plinian is reserved for the most violent type of plinian eruption such as the 1883 destruction of Krakatoa.

The story of his last hours is told in an interesting letter addressed twenty-seven years afterwards to Tacitus by the Elder Pliny's nephew and heir, Pliny the Younger (Epp. vi.16), who also sends to another correspondent an account of his uncle's writings and his manner of life (iii.5):

"He began to work long before daybreak.…He read nothing without making extracts; he used even to say that there was no book so bad as not to contain something of value. In the country it was only the time when he was actually in his bath that was exempted from study. When travelling, as though freed from every other care, he devoted himself to study alone. In short, he deemed all time wasted that was not employed in study."

His only writings to have survived to modern times is the Naturalis historia. It was used as an authority over the following centuries by countless scholars.

Literature

At the conclusion of his literary labours, as the only Roman besides Lucretius who had ever taken for his theme the whole realm of nature, he prays for the blessing of the universal mother on his completed work.

In literature he assigns the highest place next to Homer, Cicero and Virgil.

He takes a keen interest in nature, and in the natural sciences, studying them in a way that was then new in Rome, while the small esteem in which studies of this kind were held does not deter him from endeavouring to be of service to his fellow countrymen (xxii.15).

The scheme of his great work is vast and comprehensive, being nothing short of an encyclopedia of learning and of art so far as they are connected with nature or draw their materials from it. With a view to this work he studied the original authorities on each subject and was most assiduous in making excerpts from their pages. His indices auctorum are, in some cases, the authorities which he has actually consulted (though in this respect they are not exhaustive); in other cases, they represent the principal writers on the subject, whose names are borrowed second-hand for his immediate authorities. He frankly acknowledges his obligations to all his predecessors in a phrase that deserves to be proverbial (Praef. 21, plenum ingenni pudoris fateri per quos profeceris). He had neither the temperament for original investigation, nor the leisure necessary for the purpose.

It was his scientific curiosity as to the phenomena of the eruption of Vesuvius that brought his life of unwearied study to a premature end; and any criticism of his faults of omission is disarmed by the candour of the confession in his preface: nec dubitamus multa esse quae et nos praeterierint; homines enim sumus et occupati officiis.

His style betrays the influence of Seneca. It aims less at clearness and vividness than at epigrammatic point. It abounds not only in antitheses, but also in questions and exclamations, tropes and metaphors, and other mannerisms of the Silver Age. The rhythmical and artistic form of the sentence is sacrificed to a passion for emphasis that delights in deferring the point to the close of the period. The structure of the sentence is also apt to be loose and straggling. There is an excessive use of the ablative absolute, and ablative phrases are often appended in a kind of vague "apposition" to express the author's own opinion of an immediately previous statement, e.g. xxxv.80, dixit (Apelles) ... uno se praestare, quod manum de tabula sciret tollere, memorabili praecepto nocere saepe nimiam diligentiam.

About the middle of the 3rd century an abstract of the geographical portions of Pliny's work was produced by Solinus; and early in the 4th century the medical passages were collected in the Medicina Plinii. Early in the 8th century we find Bede in possession of an excellent manuscript of the whole work. In the 9th century Alcuin sends to Charlemagne for a copy of the earlier books (Epp. 103, Jaffé); and Dicuil gathers extracts from the pages of Pliny for his own Mensura orbis terrae (ca. 825).

Pliny's work was held in high esteem in the Middle Ages. The number of extant manuscripts is about 200; but the best of the more ancient manuscripts, that at Bamberg, contains only books xxxii-xxxvii. Robert of Cricklade, prior of St. Frideswide at Oxford, dedicated to Henry II a Defloratio consisting of nine books of selections taken from one of the manuscripts of this class, which has been recently recognized as sometimes supplying us with the only evidence for the true text. Among the later manuscripts, the codex Vesontinus, formerly at Besançon (11th century), has been divided into three portions, now in Rome, Paris, and Leiden respectively, while there is also a transcript of the whole of this manuscript at Leiden.

A special interest attaches to his account of the manufacture of the papyrus (xiii.68 seq.), and of the different kinds of purple dye (ix.130), while his description of the notes of the nightingale is an elaborate example of his occasional felicity of phrase (xxix.81 seq.).

Some of Pliny's wisest and most famous adages include:

    "Among these things, one thing seems certain - that nothing certain exists and that there 
     is nothing more pitiful or more presumptuous than man."

    "Because of a curious disease of the human mind, it pleases us to enshrine in history 
     records of bloodshed and slaughter, so that those ignorant of the facts of the world may
     become acquainted with the crimes of mankind."

Research after 1500

Sir Thomas Browne expressed a wholesome skepticism about Pliny's dependability in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646):

"Now what is very strange, there is scarce a popular error passant in our days, which is not either directly expressed, or diductively contained in this Work; which being in the hands of most men, hath proved a powerful occasion of their propagation. Wherein notwithstanding the credulity of the Reader is more condemnable then the curiosity of the Author: for commonly he nameth the Authors from whom he received those accounts, and writes but as he reads, as in his Preface to Vespasian he acknowledgeth." [2]

Most of the recent research on Pliny has been concentrated on the investigation of his authorities, especially those which he followed in his chapters on the history of art - the only ancient account of that subject which has survived.

A carnelian inscribed with the letters C. PLIN. has been reproduced by Cades (v.211) from the original in the Vannutelli collection. It represents an ancient Roman with an almost completely bald forehead and a double chin; and is almost certainly a portrait, not of Pliny the Elder, but of Pompey the Great. Seated statues of both the Plinies, clad in the garb of scholars of the year 1500, may be seen in the niches on either side of the main entrance to the cathedral church of Como.

The elder Pliny's anecdotes of Greek artists supplied Vasari with the subjects of the frescoes which still adorn the interior of his former home at Arezzo.

External links

Primary sources

Contemporaneous account of Pliny's death (the famous letter by Pliny's nephew, Pliny the Younger, in Latin and English)
A complete Latin transcription of the Naturalis Historia and a Complete 1855 English translation

Secondary material

Pliny the Elder Biography and summary of Natural History
Origin of the term Plinian, with notes about Pliny's cause of death (UCSB Volcano Information Center)

References

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
The elder Pliny on the human animal: Natural history, book 7, translated with introduction and historical commentary by Mary Beagon. (2005)
T.M. Murphy Title Pliny the Elder's Natural history : the Empire in the encyclopedia (2004)
Cotta Ramosino, Laura. Plinio il Vecchio e la tradizione storica di Roma nella Naturalis historia (2004)
Sorcha Carey Pliny's catalogue of culture : art and empire in the Natural history (2003)
J.F. Healy Pliny the Elder on science and technology (1999)