"The more I observe nature, the less prone I am to consider any statement about her to be impossible.” (Historia Naturalis 11.6)
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| Front page of a the second book of Historia Naturalis, from an edition printed...sometime after the advent of the printing press but before they learned about white space. |
I like the Elder Pliny - he's charming. He was, in fact, some of what I would like to be. He worked his whole adult life and wrote books in the evening. There is a letter he wrote to the Emperor Vespasian assuring the emperor that the large number of books coming from the Pliny Press did NOT mean that his work wasn't getting done - he simply didn't sleep much and wrote at night.
Pliny died rescuing friends and investigating the biggest natural event of his lifetime - the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. That somehow feels like a fitting end for such a naturally curious man.
Pliny the Elder: Biography
Works
Historia Naturalis
Pliny's Approach to His Work
Excerpts from Historia Naturalis
Bibliography of Secondary Sources
Pliny the Elder: Biography
Gaius Plinius Secundus
Pliny was born in Northern Italy in 23 CE into a wealthy, equestrian family. He studied philosophy and rhetoric under Seneca the Younger, among other teachers. Pliny was a Stoic by philosophy, and sought to live a life of virtue in accordance with natural law. To do this, one must understand natural law, and this led to his study of nature.
Pliny served a military career, and started as a commander of cavalry unit, stationed in Germania. He included observations on working horses in his Historia Naturalis. After traveling the empire from Spain and France to North Africa, Pliny returned to Rome and worked directly for the emperor Vespasian. It was during his time of working for Vespasian that he wrote Historia Naturalis.
Vespasian gave to Pliny command of the naval fleet at Misenum, north of modern Naples. While there, he saw the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius on August 24, 79 CE. The day after the eruption, he took a boat across the bay to rescue some friends at Stabiae, three miles south of Pompeii. On the beach there, he collapsed and died, possibly as a result of the fumes and asthma or perhaps of a heart attack. He was 56 years old.
His nephew, Pliny the Younger, described the Elder Pliny as a man consumed with a thirst for knowledge, who read in every moment and stopped only to bathe or to work. He was carried rather than walked in order to create more time for reading and writing.
Works
- Historia Naturalis – Natural History or Natural Research, 37 books, although notes and research filled 160 books. Dedicated in 77 CD to Emperor Titus. The only extant work from the Elder Pliny.
- 20 volume history of the German wars
- Studiosus on rhetoric
- Dubii Sermonis on grammar
- History from Nero to Vespasian in 31 volumes
Pliny’s only extant work covered everything in the natural world, from the history of art to mining techniques.
Historia Naturalis was the most complete first encyclopedia of natural history. The boundaries of the subject matter encompass anything that belongs to the natural world, with forays into the creations of men, like the discussion of the history of art.
The first book is a list of sources and authorities and includes a table of contents. The following books are dedicated to subject such as astronomy, geography, human physiology, zoology, botany, medicinal uses of plants and animal products, metallurgy, and mineralogy. It is a compendium of lore and commentary, and there is almost no primary research. Pliny includes the rumors as well as the attested facts concerning the natural world, such as that frogs melt away into slime mold in the fall and come back in the spring as frogs.
Historia Naturalis constituted the single most significant and used encyclopedia until the revival of learning in the Renaissance.
Pliny’s Approach to His Work
Pliny was not trained in science or philosophy, so his summaries of others’ works are not always correct. His history of art arose from his descriptions of the natural minerals and biological materials used in art; it is the only ancient Rome source on the history of art. Historia Naturalis also includes descriptions of contemporary technology, such as the construction of the aqueducts. He wove Stoic philosophy and the importance of human beings as the central masterpiece of nature throughout the work.
Pliny was continually employed as an adult, and he wrote his works in the evening, after work hours. He wrote a letter to Vespasian reassuring him that his prodigious literary output was not an indication of neglect of his official duties.
Excerpts from Historia Naturalis
Minerals and Man’s Abuse of Nature
Pliny uses the description of the minerals that can be obtained from the earth to also include a condemnation of the restlessness and discontent of humanity, which is not satisfied with gathering the abundant gifts of nature available on the surface and insists of scraping out the inside of the earth. He also attributes geothermal activity such as volcanoes and earthquakes to protests from the anthropomorphized Earth against mining activity. This passage illustrates Pliny’s interest in nature, in contemporary technology, and in the moralizing myths that surround natural phenomena.
33.1-3
Metalla nunc ipsaeque opes et rerum pretia decentur, tellurem intus exquirente cura multiplici modo, quipped alibi diuitiis foditur quaerente uita aurum, argentums, electrum, aes, alibi deliciis gemmas et parietum lignorumque pigmenta, alibi temeritati ferrum, auro etiam gratius inter bella caedesque. Persequimur omnes eius fibras uiuimusque super excauatam, mirantes dehiscere aliquando aut intremescere illam, ceu uero non hoc indignation sacrae perantis exprimi possit.
Imus in uiscere et in sede manium opes quaerimus, tamquam parum benigna fertilique qua calcatur. Et inter haec minimum remediorum gratia scrutamur; quoto enim cuique fodiendi cause medicina est? Quamquam et hoc summa sui parte tribuit ut fruges, larga facilisque in omnibus quaecumque prosunt. Illa nos peremunt, illa nos ad inferos agunt, quae occultauit atque demersit, illa quae non nascuntur repente, ut mens ad inane euolans reputet, quae deinde futura sit finis omnibus saeculis exhauriendi eam, quo usque penetratura auaritia. Quam innocens, quam beata, immo uero etiam delicata esset uita, si nihil aliunde quam supra terras concupisceret breuiterque, nisi quod secum est.
Now we go on to deal with metals/mining, the riches that are inherent in them and their value. In many different ways the innards of Earth are being explored. In one place, there is excavation for the sake of riches, where Man searches for gold, silver, electrum and copper, in another for pleasure when gems and colors for wall or wood are demanded and in a third place for the sake of ferocity, where iron is searched for. For in war and in killing it is valued even more highly than gold. We pursue all the veins in the body of the Earth and live upon a hollow shell that we have made, and even so we are surprised that it yawns or beings to tremble, as if our holy Mother Earth should not express her indignation in this way. We penetrate her innards and search for riches in the abode of the spirits of the dead as if the Earth on which we walk were not sufficiently giving and fertile. And among all that the least part of our searching is that which has to do with remedies for sickness. For those are the few for whom medicine is the reason for digging. However, Earth also provides that kind on her surface as she does crops. For she is generous, helpful and easily accessible in all matters that may be of assistance to us. But what brings us to perdition and leads us to the realm of the dead is that which is concealed far below, that which does not come out without further ado. Therefore in our souls, which strive for the void, we must try to realize when--after all these centuries--there is an end of draining her and how far we will go in our avarice. What an innocent, happy, indeed even choice life we could live if we only strove for that which was above the Earth, that, in short, which is ready to hand.(tr. Zehnacker, Hubert. Pline l’Ancien, Histoire Naturelle, Livre XXXIII. Paris, 1983.)
The Breech Birth of Nero
Pliny the Elder had been alive to witness the degradation of both Caligula and Nero. In this description of childbirth, he includes details about the birth of Nero and is our only source for this. He excerpted sections for the autobiography of Agrippina for this passage, and the detail may be have been included there. Like with the passage on mineralogy, Pliny mixes observable scientific detail with folk wisdom and contemporary issues.
7.45-46
In pedes procidere nascentem contra naturam est, quo argumento eos appellavere Agrippas ut aegri partus, qualiter et M. Agrippam ferunt genitum, unico prope felicitatis exemplo in omnibus ad hunc modum genitis. quamquam is quoque adversa pedum valitudine, misera iuventa, exercito aevo inter arma mortesque ac noxia accessu, infelici terris stirpe omni, sed per utrasque Agrippinas maxime, quae Gaium, quae Domitium Neronem principes genuere totidem faces generis humani,
praeterea brevitate aevi, quinquagensimo uno raptus anno in tormentis adulteriorum coniugis socerique praegravi servitio, luisse augurium praeposteri natalis existimatur. Neronem quoque, paulo ante principem et toto principatu suo hostem generis humani, pedibus genitum scribit parens eius Agrippina. ritus naturae hominem capite gigni, mos est pedibus efferri.
It is unnatural to be born feet first. For this reason, those who are born in this manner are called ‘Agrippa’, meaning ‘born with difficulty’. It is said that Marcus Agrippa was one such person and his was almost the only instance of a fortunate destiny among all those born in this way. Yet even he is thought to have suffered the misfortune predicted by his unnatural birth, since he was plagued by lameness, had a miserable childhood, passed his adult life amidst strife and death and left a legacy of destruction since his progeny all brought misfortune on the world; in particular, the two Agrippinas, mother and daughter, who gave birth respectively to the emperors Gaius and Domitius Nero, both of them destructive firebrands of the human race. In addition, his life was cut short and he was snatched away in his fifty-first year, tormented the adulteries of his wife and oppressed by his subjection to his father-in-law. Nero, too, who was until recently emperor and whose reign proved him to be an enemy of the human race, is said by his mother Agrippina in her memoirs to have been born feet first. It is the law of nature for a human being to be born head first and it is the custom for him to be carried to his grave feet first. (Mary Beagon. The Elder Pliny on the Human Animal: Natural History, Book 7. Oxford: Clarendon, 2005.)
Dyeing Fleeces with Shellfish
This section on dyeing techniques illustrates the practical and useful instructions that Pliny also included in his encyclopedia.
9.131f, 133f-134f
Calculense appellatur a calculo in mari mire aptum conchylliis; et longe optimum purpuris dialutense, id iest vario soli genere pastum...
eximitur postea vena quam diximus, cui addi salem necessarium, sextarios ferme centenas in libras; macerari triduo iustum, quippe tanto maior vis, quanto recentior, fervere in plumbo, singulasque amphoras [centenas] aquae, quingentenas medicaminis libras aequali ac modico vapore torreri et ideo longinquae fornacis cuniculo. ita despumatis subinde carnibus, quas adhaesisse venis necesse est, decimo ferme die liquata cortina vellus elutriatum mergitur in experimentum et, donec spei satis fiat, uritur liquor. rubens color nigrante deterior.
quinis lana potat horis rursusque mergitur carminata, donec omnem ebibat saniem.
The pebble purple, named after a pebble in the sea, is remarkably suitable for purple dyes; and far the best of these is the melting purple that is, the one fed on a varying kind of mud...
The vein is removed and to this salt has to be added in the proportion of about one pint for every hundred pounds. It should be left to dissolve for three days, since the fresher the salt the stronger. The mixture is then heated in a lead pot, with about seven gallons of water to every fifty pounds and kept at a moderate temperature by a pipe connected to a furnace some distance away. This separates the flesh, which will have adhered to the veins, and, after about nine days, the cauldron is filtered and a washed fleece is dipped by way of trial. Then the dyers heat the liquid until they feel confident of the result. A red color is inferior to black. The fleece is soaked for five hours, cared, and again dipped until it absorbs all the dye. (Healy, John F. Pliny the Elder on Science and Technology. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999.)
Bibliography of Secondary Sources Concerning Pliny the Elder
Baldwin, Barry. "Pliny the Elder and Mucianus." Emerita 63.2 (1995): 291-301. Print.
Baldwin, Barry. "Stylistic Notes on the Elder Pliny's Preface." Latomus 64.1 (2005): 91-95. Print.
Beagon, Mary. Roman Nature: the Thought of Pliny the Elder. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992. Print.
Bergmann, Bettina. "Greek Masterpieces and Roman Recreative Fictions." Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 97 (1997): 79-120. Print.
Conte, Gian Biagio. Genres and Readers: Lucretius, Love Elegy, Pliny's Encyclopedia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1994. Print.
Eichholz, D. E. "The Style of the Elder Pliny." The Classical Review, New Series 8.1 (1958): 51-53. Print.
Fögen, Thorsten. "Pliny the Elder's Animals : Some Remarks on the Narrative Structure of Nat. Hist. 8-11." Hermes 135.2 (2007): 184-98. Print.
French, R. K., and Frank Greenaway. Science in the Early Roman Empire: Pliny the Elder, His Sources and Influence. Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble, 1986. Print.
Healy, John F. Pliny the Elder on Science and Technology. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999. Print.
Henderson, John. "Knowing Someone through Their Books : Pliny on Uncle Pliny (Epistles 3.5)." Classical Philology 97.3 (2002): 256-84. Print.
Hershkowitz, Debra. "Pliny the Poet." Greece & Rome, Second Series 42.2 (1995): 168-81. Print.
Hutchinson, G. O. "The Moralizing of the Elder Pliny." The Classical Review, New Series 43.1 (1993): 61-63. Print.
Isager, Jacob, and Pliny. Pliny on Art and Society: the Elder Pliny's Chapters on the History of Art. London: Routledge, 1991. Print.
Lipscomb, Herbert C., and Richard M. Haywood. "The Strange Death of the Elder Pliny." The Classical Weekly 47.5 (1954): 74. Print.
Murphy, Trevor M. Pliny the Elder's "Natural History": The Empire in the Encyclopedia. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004. Print.
Nauert, C. G. "Humanists, Scientists, and Pliny. Changing Approaches to a Classical Author." American Historical Review 84 (1979): 72-85. Print.
Nicols, John. "Pliny and the Patronage of Communities." Hermes 108.3 (1980): 365-85. Print.
Pliny, The Elder, and Mary Beagon. The Elder Pliny on the Human Animal: Natural History, Book 7. Oxford: Clarendon, 2005. Print.
Rives, James B. "Magic in Roman Law: The Reconstruction of a Crime." Classical Antiquity 22.2 (2003): 313-39. Print.
Schenkeveld, Dirk M. "The Idea of Progress and the Art of Grammar." American Journal of Philology 119.3 (1998): 443-59. Print.
Steiner, G. "The Skepticism of the Elder Pliny." The Classical World 48 (1955): 137-43. Print.
Sutton, David. "Pliny the Elder: Collector of Knowledge." The Great Naturalists. London: Thames & Hudson, 2007. 38-43. Print.
Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew. "Pliny the Elder and Man's Unnatural History." Greece and Rome 37 (1990): 80-96. Print.
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