Life (23-79 CE)

Born at Comum of equestrian rank. Served in Germany under Pomponius Secundus at periods from c 46; commanded cavalry squadron. On return to Italy 57.58 pursued rhetorical and grammatical studies, and active as a lawyer at some stage. Procurator in Spain c 73. Died during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79. (Cambridge History of Classical Literature)

"Pliny the Elder, C. Plinius Secundus of Upper Italy, succeeded by extreme diligence and the most grudging use of time in combining an extensive official occupation as officer and inspector of finances in various parts of the Empire with the most comprehensive and many-sided studies and fertile literary activity in the departments of tactics, history, grammar, rhetoric, and natural science. Though his literary exertion partook in most branches more of the nature of a compilation, voluntarily resigning all claim to symmetry or even beauty of form, it still deserves admiration for its extent, and the death of Pliny (on the occasion of an eruption of Vesuvius) proves that it was the result of the most genuine thirst for knowledge." (Teuffel, v. 2, p. 102)

Works

Extant

Naturalis Historia or Naturae Historiae, 37 books, as follows: (1) list of contents, (2) cosmology, (3-6) geography, (7) anthropology, (8-11) zoology, (12-19) botany, (20-27) botany in relation to medicine, (28-32) zoology in relation to medicine, (33-37) mineralogy.

On Pliny's style: "Here...we may see the contortions and obscurities, the odd combinations of preciosity and baldness, and the pure vacuity to which rhetorical prose, handled by any but the most talented, could precipitously descend...." (Cambridge History of Ancient Literature)

Lost

• De iaculatione equestri
• De vita Pomponii Secundi (2 books)
• Bella Germaniae (20 books)
• Studiosus (a training manual for orators, 3 bks.)
• Dubius sermo (on 'uncertainties of expression') 8 bks.
• A fine Aufidi Bassi (continuation of Bassus' history, 31 books, covering the reign of Claudius until about 67 A.D. It was an important source for Tacitus and other later historians)

Bibliography

Texts

Rackham, Jones and Eichholz (Loeb Classical Library 1938-63)

Studies

Beagon, Mary. Roman nature: the thought of Pliny the Elder (Oxford University Press, 1992).

French, Roger and Frank Greenaway (eds.). Science in the early Roman Empire: Pliny the Elder, his sources and influence (London : Croom Helm, c1986).

Conte, Gian Biagio. Genres and readers : Lucretius, love elegy, Pliny's Encyclopedia (Johns Hopkins University Press, c1994).