Gaius Plinius Secundus, known in English as Pliny
the Elder, was born in Como, Italy, to parents of
the equestrian class, which meant wealth and position
in the world of ancient Rome. As a youth he
studied rhetoric, the art of speaking in public, and
also traveled. At age 23 he joined the military and
was made tribune, a common entry point for sons
of the equestrian or senatorial classes. He worked
his way up to a cavalry unit and was stationed in
present-day Germany.
During his years of service on the Rhine, Pliny
wrote a short treatise, now lost, on spear-throwing
from horseback, based on his observations of the
Germanic tribes. He followed this work with a biography
of his teacher and military commander,
Publius Pomponius Secundus. After a brief visit to
Rome in 52, he returned to Germany and began
his 20-volume History of the Germanic Wars. This
work, also lost, had an immense impact on his fellow
historians; TACITUS and Suetonius quote Pliny
a great deal.
Returning again to Rome in 59, Pliny withdrew
from the military to practice law and turn his attention
to writing.His next works were not considered
particularly original or inspiring. The Scholar, for
example, was a training manual for orators and
rhetoricians, and its advice would be surpassed in
both substance and style by QUINTILIAN. The eightvolume
Problems in Grammar was perhaps the only
subject Pliny could find to write about that would
not incur the wrath of the capricious Emperor
Nero. His Continuation of the History of Aufidius
Bassas updated events at Rome from the late 40s to
his own time. None of these works, unfortunately,
have survived to the present time.
In 69, after a succession of emperors, Pliny returned
to favor under Vespasian, with whom he
was previously acquainted.He served as procurator
in a series of provinces and was then made prefect
of the Roman navy stationed at Misenum, in the
Bay of Naples. He was killed while attempting to
evacuate people from Pompeii when Vesuvius
erupted on August 24, 79. His nephew, PLINY THE
YOUNGER, wrote in one of his letters:
The fortunate man, in my opinion, is he to
whom the gods have granted the power either
to do something which is worth recording or to
write what is worth reading, and most fortunate
of all is he who can do both. Such a man
was my uncle.
By the time of his death, Pliny had published
75 books and left behind 160 volumes of unpublished
work. His crowning literary achievement,
the only one that survives, was the encyclopedic
Historia naturalis, or Natural History, consisting
of 37 books, published in 77. In these volumes,
Pliny deals with the entirety of creation, from cosmology
to anthropology, geography to biology, as
well as horticulture and agriculture, medicine,
magic, and the properties of metal and stone. In
fact the work covers all things natural and in addition
contains frequent accounts of human inventions
and institutions. The work reflects Pliny’s
systematic mind, his immense curiosity, and his
tireless working habits. The younger Pliny said of
him: “He had a keen attention, incredible devotion
to study, and a remarkable capacity for dispensing
with sleep.” It was said that he even
dictated notes to his secretary while in the bath.
The Natural History freely mixes fact with fiction,
since the author, though a Stoic like most educated
men of his day, possessed a great love of the
curious. The Natural History was frequently read
and relied on during the MIDDLE AGES, when some
of its more peculiar notations were taken as literal
fact—for instance, when Pliny describes certain
peoples of the East as having ears that they can tie
around their heads or heads set directly upon
shoulders, with no neck at all. To the modern
reader the work may often appear simply quaint,
as, for example, when Pliny speculates that people
in Ethiopia grow tall due to their country’s climate,
because “the juice is called away into the upper
portions of the body by the nature of heat.” In
other places he flatly contradicts current knowledge—
for instance, when he declares that the earth
is clearly the center of the universe.
The Natural History is still valuable as an anthropological
document reflecting the world of the
first century as Pliny knew it, and his process of
direct observation remains a foundational method
for conducting scientific research.
An English Version of a Work by
Pliny the Elder
Natural History: A Selection. Translated by John F.
Healy. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.
Works about Pliny the Elder
Beagon, Mary. Roman Nature: The Thought of Pliny
the Elder. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1992.
Healy, John F. Pliny the Elder on Science and Technology.
Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2000.