Pliny the Elder
**P****liny the Elder** (born Gaius Plinius Secundus, AD 23–79) was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, a naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and friend of emperor Vespasian.
Spending most of his spare time studying, writing, and investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field, Pliny wrote the encyclopedic Naturalis Historia (Natural History), which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. His nephew, Pliny the Younger, wrote of him in a letter to the historian Tacitus:
For my part I deem those blessed to whom, by favour of the gods, it has been granted either to do what is worth writing of, or to write what is worth reading; above measure blessed those on whom both gifts have been conferred. In the latter number will be my uncle, by virtue of his own and of your compositions.[1]
Pliny the Younger refers to Tacitus’s reliance upon his uncle's book, the History of the German Wars. Pliny the Elder died in AD 79, while attempting the rescue, by ship, of a friend and his family, in Stabiae, from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which already had destroyed the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.[2] The wind caused by the sixth and largest pyroclastic surge of the volcano’s eruption did not allow his ship to leave port, and Pliny probably died during that event.[3]
Life and times[edit]
Background[edit]
One of theXanten Horse-Phaleraelocated in the British Museum, measuring 10.5 cm (4.1 in).[4] It bears an inscription formed from punched dots: PLINIO PRAEF EQ; i.e. Plinio praefecto equitum, "Pliny prefect of cavalry". It was perhaps issued to every man in Pliny's unit. The figure is the bust of the emperor.
Pliny's dates are pinned to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 and a statement of his nephew that he died in his 56th year, which would put his birth in AD 23 or 24.
Pliny was the son of an equestrian, Gaius Plinius Celer, and his wife, Marcella. Neither the younger nor the elder Pliny mention the names. Their ultimate source is a fragmentary inscription (CIL V 1 3442) found in a field in Verona and recorded by the 16th century Augustinian monk Onofrio Panvinio at Verona. The form is an elegy. The most commonly accepted reconstruction is
PLINIVS SECVNDVS AVGV. LERI. PATRI. MATRI. MARCELLAE. TESTAMENTO FIERI IVSSO
The V's represent U's. It should say
"Plinius Secundus augur ordered this to be made as a testament to his father [Ce]ler and his mother [Grania] Marcella"
The actual words are fragmentary. The reading of the inscription depends on the reconstruction,[5] but in all cases the names come through. Whether he was an augur and whether she was named Grania Marcella are less certain.[6] Jean Hardouin presents a statement from an unknown source that he claims was ancient, that Pliny was from Verona and that his parents were Celer and Marcella.[7] Hardouin also cites the conterraneity (see below) of Catullus.[5]
City and Lake ofComo, painted by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 1834.
It is unknown how the inscription got to Verona, but it could have arrived by dispersal of property from Pliny the Younger's then Tuscan (now Umbrian) estate at Colle Plinio, north of Città di Castello, identified for certain by his initials in the roof tiles. He kept statues of his ancestors there. Pliny the Elder was born at Como, not at Verona: it is only as a native of old Gallia Transpadana that he calls Catullus of Verona his conterraneus, or fellow-countryman, not his municeps, or fellow-townsman.[8][9] A statue of Pliny on the façade of the Duomo of Como celebrates him as a native son. He had a sister, Plinia, who married into the Caecilii and was the mother of his nephew, Pliny the Younger, whose letters describe his work and study regimen in detail.
In one of his letters to Tacitus (avunculus meus), Pliny the Younger details how his uncle's breakfasts would be light and simple (levis et facilis) following the customs of our forefathers (veterum more interdiu). This shows that Pliny the Younger wanted it to be conveyed that Pliny the Elder was a "good Roman", which means that he maintained the customs of the great Roman forefathers. This statement would have pleased Tacitus.
Two inscriptions identifying the hometown of Pliny the Younger as Como take precedence over the Verona theory. One (CIL V 5262) commemorates the younger's career as the imperial magistrate and details his considerable charitable and municipal expenses on behalf of the people of Como. Another (CIL V 5667) identifies his father Lucius' village as Fecchio (tribe Oufentina) near Como. It is likely therefore that Plinia was a local girl and Pliny the Elder, her brother, was from Como.[10]
Gaius was a member of the Plinii gens: the insubric root Plina still persists, with rhotacism, in the local surname "Prina". He did not take his father's cognomen, Celer, but assumed his own, Secundus. As his adopted son took the same cognomen, Pliny founded a branch, the Plinii Secundi. The family was prosperous: Pliny the Younger's combined inherited estates made him so wealthy that he could found a school and a library, endow a fund to feed the women and children of Como, and own multiple estates around Rome and Lake Como, as well as enrich some of his friends as a personal favor. No earlier instances of the Plinii are known.
In 59 BC, only about 82 years before Pliny's birth, Julius Caesar founded Novum Comum (reverting to Comum) as a colonia to secure the region against the Alpine tribes, whom he had been unable to defeat. He imported a population of 4,500 from other provinces (not clear from where) to be placed in Comasco and 500 aristocratic Greeks to found Novum Comum itself.[11] The community was thus multi-ethnic and the Plinies could have come from anywhere; whether any conclusions can be drawn from Pliny's preference for Greek words, or Julius Pokorny's derivation of the name from north Italic as "bald"[12] is a matter of speculative opinion. There appears to be no record of any ethnic distinctions in Pliny's time. The population prided themselves on being Roman citizens.
Pliny the Elder did not marry and had no children. In his will, he adopted his nephew, which entitled the latter to inherit the entire estate. The adoption is called a "testamental adoption" by writers on the topic, who assert that it applied to the name change only, but Roman jurisprudence recognizes no such category. Pliny the Younger thus became the adopted son of Pliny the Elder after the latter's death.[13] For at least some of the time, however, Pliny the Elder resided under the same roof with his sister and nephew (whose husband and father, respectively, had died young): they were living there when Pliny the Elder decided to investigate the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and was sidetracked by the need for rescue operations and a messenger from his friend asking for assistance.
Student and lawyer[edit]
Pliny's father took him to Rome to be educated in lawmaking. Pliny relates that he saw Marcus Servilius Nonianus.
...
Noted author
During Nero's reign of terror, Pliny avoided working on any writing that would attract attention to himself. His works on oratory in the last years of Nero's reign (67, 68) focused on form rather than on content. He began working on content again probably after Vespasian's rule began in AD 69, when it was clear that the terror was over and would not be resumed. It was to some degree reinstituted (and later cancelled by his son Titus) when Vespasian suppressed the philosophers at Rome, but not Pliny, who was not among them, representing, as he says, something new in Rome, an encyclopedist (certainly, a venerable tradition outside Italy).
In his next work, he "completed the history which Aufidius Bassus left unfinished, and... added to it thirty books."[18] Aufidius Bassus was a cause célèbre according to Seneca the Younger,[41][42] a man much admired at Rome. He had begun his history with some unknown date, certainly before the death of Cicero,[43] so probably the Civil Wars or the death of Julius Caesar, ending with the reign of Tiberius. It was cut short when Bassus died slowly of a lingering disease, with such spirit and objectivity that Seneca remarked that Bassus seemed to treat it as someone else's dying.
Pliny's continuation of Bassus's History was one of the authorities followed by Suetonius and Plutarch. Tacitus also cites Pliny as a source. He is mentioned concerning the loyalty of Burrus, commander of the Praetorian Guard, whom Nero removed for disloyalty.[44] Tacitus portrays parts of Pliny's view of the Pisonian conspiracy to kill Nero and make Piso emperor as "absurd"[45] and mentions that he could not decide whether Pliny's account or that of Messalla was more accurate concerning some of the details of the Year of the Four Emperors.[46] Evidently Pliny's extension of Bassus extended at least from the reign of Nero to that of Vespasian. Pliny seems to have known it was going to be controversial, as he deliberately reserved it for publication after his death:[47]
It has been long completed and its accuracy confirmed; but I have determined to commit the charge of it to my heirs, lest I should have been suspected, during my lifetime, of having been unduly influenced by ambition. By this means I confer an obligation on those who occupy the same ground with myself; and also on posterity, who, I am aware, will contend with me, as I have done with my predecessors.
Natural History
Main article: Natural History (Pliny)
Pliny's last work, according to his nephew, was the Naturalis Historia (literally "Natural History"), an encyclopedia into which he collected much of the knowledge of his time.[18] It comprised 37 books. His sources were personal experience, his own prior works (such as the work on Germany), and extracts from other works. These extracts were collected in the following manner: one servant would read aloud, and another would write the extract as dictated by Pliny. He is said to have dictated extracts while taking a bath. In winter he furnished the copier with gloves and long sleeves so that his writing hand would not stiffen with cold (Pliny the Younger in avunculus meus). His extract collection finally reached about 160 volumes, which Larcius Licinius, the Praetorian legate of Hispania Tarraconensis, vainly offered to purchase for 400,000 sesterces.[18] That would have been in 73/74 (see above). Pliny bequeathed the extracts to his nephew.
When composition of the Natural History began is unknown. Since he was preoccupied with his other works under Nero and then had to finish the history of his times, it is unlikely he began before 70. The procuratorships offered the ideal opportunity for an encyclopedic frame of mind. The date of an overall composition cannot be assigned to any one year. The dates of different parts must be determined, if they can, by philologicalanalysis (the "post-mortem" of the scholars).
Laocoon and his Sons, a sculpture admired by Pliny
The closest known event to a single publication date; that is, when the manuscript was probably released to the public for borrowing and copying, and was probably sent to the Flavians, is the date of the Dedication in the first of the 37 books. It is to the imperator Titus. As Titus and Vespasian had the same name, Titus Flavius Vespasianus, earlier writers hypothesized a dedication to Vespasian. Pliny's mention of a brother (Domitian) and joint offices with a father, calling that father "great", points certainly to Titus.[48]
Pliny also says that Titus had been consul six times. The first six consulships of Titus are in 70, 72, 74, 75, 76 and 77, all conjointly with Vespasian, and the seventh was in 79. This brings the date of the Dedication probably to 77. In that year Vespasian was 68. He had been ruling conjointly with Titus for some years.[48] The title imperator does not indicate that Titus was sole emperor, but was awarded for a military victory, in this case that in Jerusalem in 70.[49]
Aside from minor finishing touches, the work in 37 books was completed in AD 77.[50] It cannot be proved that it was written entirely in 77 or that Pliny was finished with it then. Moreover, the dedication could have been written before publication, and it could have been published either privately or publicly earlier without the dedication. The only certain fact is that Pliny did no further work on it after AD 79.
The Naturalis Historia is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day and purports to cover the entire field of ancient knowledge, based on the best authorities available to Pliny. He claims to be the only Roman ever to have undertaken such a work. It encompasses the fields of botany, zoology, astronomy, geology and mineralogy as well as the exploitation of those resources. It remains a standard work for the Roman period and the advances in technology and understanding of natural phenomena at the time. His discussions of some technical advances are the only sources for those inventions, such as hushing in mining technology or the use of water mills for crushing or grinding corn. Much of what he wrote about has been confirmed by archaeology. It is virtually the only work which describes the work of artists of the time, and is a reference work for the history of art. As such, Pliny's approach to describing the work of artists was to inform Lorenzo Ghiberti in writing his Commentaries and Giorgio Vasari who wrote the celebrated Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects.
The work became a model for all later encyclopedias in terms of the breadth of subject matter examined, the need to reference original authors, and a comprehensive index list of the contents. It is the only work by Pliny to have survived, and the last that he published, lacking a final revision at his sudden and unexpected death in the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius.
Death
Plaster casts of the casualties of the pumice-fall, whose remains vanished leaving cavities in the pumice atPompeii
Pliny had received from Emperor Vespasian, who had died two months earlier, the appointment of praefectus classis (fleet commander) in the Roman Navy. On AD August 24, 79, he was stationed at Misenum, at the time of the great eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which destroyed and buried Pompeii and Herculaneum. He was preparing to cross the Bay of Naples to observe the phenomenon directly when a message arrived from his friend Rectina asking to rescue her and Pomponianus. Launching the galleys under his command to the evacuation of the opposite shore, he himself took "a fast-sailing cutter", a decision that may have cost him his life. His nephew, Pliny the Younger, provided an account of his death, obtained from the survivors. The nephew and his mother had decided not to go on the voyage across the bay....