Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus, (2379) better known as Pliny the Elder, was an ancient author and Natural philosopher of some importance who wrote Naturalis Historia.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.
Gaius Plinius Secundus, known as Pliny the Elder, was descended from a prosperous family, and he was enabled to complete his studies in Rome. At the age of 23, he began a military career by serving in Germany, rising to the rank of cavalry commander. He returned to Rome, where he possibly studied law. Until the end of Nero's reign Pliny lived in semiretirement, studying and writing. Upon the accession in AD 69 of Vespasian he returned to Rome and assumed various official positions.
Of his writings only the Natural History is extant. There survive, however, a few fragments of his earlier writings on grammar, a biography of Pomponius Secundus, a history of Rome, a study of the Roman campaigns in Germany, and a book on hurling the lance.
The Natural History, divided into 37 books, was completed in AD 77. In the preface, dedicated to Titus (who became emperor shortly before Pliny's death), Pliny justified the title as the study of "the nature of things, that is, life". Pliny adopted a plain style as best suited to his purpose. A novel feature of the Natural History is the care taken by Pliny in naming his sources, more than 100 of which are mentioned.
The Natural History is devoted to a great variety of subjects, such as cosmology, astronomy, geography, medicine, zoology, botany, agriculture, etc. His description of an ox-driven grain harvester in Gaul, long regarded by scholars as imaginary, was confirmed by the discovery in southern Belgium in 1958 of a 2nd-century stone relief depicting such an implement. By recording the Latin synonyms of Greek plant names, he made most of the plants mentioned in earlier Greek writings identifiable.
With the decline of the ancient world and the loss of the Greek texts on which Pliny had so heavily depended, the Natural History became a substitute for a general education. In the European Middle Ages many of the larger monastic libraries possessed copies of the work; these and many abridged versions ensured Pliny's place in European literature.
The study of science in classical times was done somewhat differently from the way it is today. Most modern scientists use the scientific method, in which they form an idea or hypothesis, design a controlled experiment to test the hypothesis, and record results. Ancient scientists preferred the direct observation method. They would observe a phenomenon with skill that comes from experience and write highly detailed notes about what they saw.
They did not usually employ a method in which they formally tested anything. This direct observation method worked well for Galen, a Roman physician who studied the bodies of gladiators, examined their wounds, and dissected their bodies after they were killed. His text on anatomy was the best available up until the beginning of modern times. The method often gave incorrect results, because there was no real investigation of why a particular phenomenon happened. The reasoning why was often supplied by a philosopher, who came up with a reasonable explanation based on what he saw as logical or obvious.
Pliny the Elder was one such scientist and writer who had a passion for directly observing phenomena and taking notes. He had already written an important work on natural history based on his observations of the world around him. In fact, his dedication to this method was directly responsible for his death. Like more than one modern volcano scientist, he got a little too close to his subject and was killed when the monster sneezed, so to speak.
Pliny was a Roman senator and the commander of the imperial fleet at the naval base of Misenum. Misenum on the Bay of Naples was one of two Roman naval bases protecting Italy. The other was at Aquileia on the Adriatic Sea which was on the East coast of Italy. On the morning of August 24, A. D. 79, Pliny’s wife noticed a strange cloud arising from the top of Mount Vesuvius across the bay, When she told her naturalist husband, he determined to go have a look for himself. As a boat was being prepared to take him to the mountain, a messenger brought an urgent plea from a friend’s wife who lived at the foot of Vesuvius. All escape routes on land were blocked and she was trapped. The scientific investigation began to take on the character of a rescue mission as Pliny ordered the sailors to make ready and warships to be launched.
As his ship approached closer to the erupting volcano, bits of ash and pumice floated down on the deck. This was followed by chunks of blackened rock as they drew closer to the beach at Pompeii, the peaceful Campanian town whose citizens were being buried alive by the sudden disaster that had befallen them. The boat was unable to land on the beach because it was blocked by debris. By this time, Pompeii was already buried and the woman undoubtedly dead. The sailors rowing the ship begged Pliny to return home, but instead he ordered them to make way for the harbor at Stabiae, a few miles further south.
At Stabiae they were able to beach the ships. Pomponianus, another friend of Pliny’s had a house there and had also been unable to escape by land. By now, the sea was too rough to launch the ships, but Pliny did not appear to be concerned. He ate, bathed, and went to bed while his friends stayed up throughout the night, watching the ash piling up higher and higher outside the door. As dawn approached, they woke Pliny as it looked like the ash was going to trap him in his bedroom.
They headed for the beach where the ships waited to take them to safety, but the poisonous gases were beginning to take their toll on the stalwart old admiral. Pliny lay down to rest on a sheet his friends laid out for him on the beach. When he tried to rise, he was overcome by the fumes and collapsed. He died in the arms of two slaves who were helping the old man to his feet. By this time, the falling rock and choking fumes caused Pliny’s friends to flee. After two days, the eruption had subsided and Pliny’s body was recovered.
This account of Pliny the Elder's last hours comes from a letter his nephew wrote to the historian Cornelius Tacitus. This nephew, Pliny the Younger, was also a writer who was later the governor of Bithynia under the emperor Trajan.
Pliny the Elder had made detailed notes on almost everything he observed during his life. In addition to his Natural History, he left 160 volumes of his notes on all kinds of scientific and antiquarian subjects.
Pliny's last assignment was that of commander of the fleet in the Bay of Naples. Learning of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius Pliny went ashore to ascertain the cause and to reassure the terrified citizens. He was overcome by the fumes resulting from the volcanic activity and died on August 24, 79.
"Here we must mention the awe felt for this plant by the Gauls. The Druids - for so their magicians are called - held nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the tree that bears it, always supposing that tree to be the oak. But they choose groves of oaks for the sake of the tree alone, and they never perform any of their rites except in the presence of a branch of it; so that it seems probable that the priests themselves may derive their name from the Greek word for that tree. In fact, they think that everything that grows on it has been sent from heaven and is a proof that the tree was chosen by the god himself." - Pliny XVI, 249.
At the time of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79 the Roman fleet under the command of Pliny the Elder was stationed across the Bay of Naples at Misenum. Pliny launched ships and sailed toward the erupting volcano for closer observation and to attempt a rescue. No rescue was possible and Pliny himself died during the eruption, not in the streets of Pompeii, but across the bay at Stabiae.
Pliny's nephew, whom we know as Pliny the Younger, was with him at Misenum, but did not venture out on the ships with his uncle. He stayed back at Misenum and observed the events from there. He also received first-hand reports from those who had been with his uncle at his death. Based on this information Pliny the Younger wrote two letters to the historian Tacitus that recount the events surrounding the eruption of Vesuvius and the death of Pliny the Elder. The letters survive and provide a vivid account of the events.
Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (63-ca. 113), better known as Pliny the Younger, was a lawyer, author and a natural philosopher of Ancient Rome.
Born in Como, Italy, Pliny the Younger was the nephew of Pliny the Elder, who is considered by many to be the greatest naturalist of antiquity.
Pliny was orphaned at an early age. He had Virginius Rufus (an important man and general in the Roman army) as his tutor. He was later adopted by his uncle Pliny the Elder, who brought him to study in Rome, where his teachers were Quintilian and Nices Sacerdos.
He started his legal career at the age of nineteen and his reputation grew rapidly. Pliny was considered an honest and moderate man and rose through a series of Imperial civil and military offices, the cursus honorum.He was flamen Divi Augusti (priest in the cult of the Emperor) in 81, then decemvir litibus iudicandis (a sort of civil judge), military tribune of Legio III Gallica in Syria (where he met the philosophers Artemidorus and Euphrates), sevir equitum Romanorum (commander of a cavalry squadron) in 84, and quaestor imperatoris and urban quaestor in 89-90.
He was named a tribunus plebis in 91, praetor in 93, praefectus (of the military treasury first, and of the treasury of Saturn later), and consul in 100. He then became a member of the college of Augurs (103-104 - publicly elected), the responsible director (superintendens) for the Tiber river and finally a legatus (ambassador) of the Emperor in Bithynia, where he is supposed to have died.
His career is commonly considered as a sort of summary of all the main Roman public charges, and effectively he crossed all the principal fields of the organization of the Roman state of the early Empire.His moderate character is displayed in his many letters, the Epistulae. In one of the most famous (Letters, Book X, 96), he asks the Emperor about the way he ought to judge Christians, since he had always condemned those who did not deny Christianity and discharged those who offered the prescribed sacrifices to the Roman gods.
He said in his letter:
I then thought it the more needful to get at the facts behind their statements. Therefore I placed two women, called "deaconesses," under torture, but I found only a debased superstition carried to great lengths, so I postponed my examination, and immediately consulted you.
Trajan answered approving his conduct and ordering Pliny not to pursue anonymous accusations.
Pliny had three wives but no sons. Only his last wife, Calpurnia, occasioned emotional words in the letters. He was quite wealthy and owned several villas in Italy; the two villas in Como, his native town, were named "Tragedy" and "Comedy".
As a litterateur, Pliny started writing at the age of fourteen, with a tragedy in Greek, and in the course of his life he wrote a quantity of poetry, most of which was lost despite the great affection he had for it. Also known as a notable orator, he professed himself a follower of Cicero, but his prose was certainly more magniloquent and less direct than Cicero's.
He took part in some famous trials, but the only oration that we have now is the Panegiricus Trajani. This was pronounced in 100 and is a description of Trajan's figure and actions in an adulatory and emphatic form. It is, however, a relevant document that allows us to know many details about the Emperor's actions in several fields of his administrative power like taxes, justice, military discipline, and commerce. Pliny defined it as an essay about the optimus princeps (the perfect ruler).
These letters are a unique testimony of Roman administrative history and everyday life in the 1st century. The style is very different from the one used in the Panegyricus and some commentators affirm that Pliny was the initiator of a new particular genre, the letter written for publication.In the younger Pliny's Letters, he describes the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the death of his uncle and mentor, Pliny the Elder.
Volcanic eruptions of this type are referred to as Plinian. This letter was addressed to his friend Tacitus, who was one of the greatest Roman historians. So as the Letters begin, Pliny the Younger is telling Tacitus that the following words are meant to be used as an accurate history (probably in one of the lost books of Tacitus' Histories) of the death of Pliny the Elder and of the eruption itself, which destroyed Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Pompeii.
Other famous letters are the first one (I,1), directed to Septicius Clarus, which is practically a sort of poem, the letters about the Vesuvius' eruption (see below), the ones about his villas and about Martial's death.He presumably died in Bithynia.
Pliny: Letters and Panegyricus I, Letters Books I-VII by Pliny the Younger (VI, 16 and VI, 20) - Summary
One of the first things that Pliny the Younger writes about, is how great his uncle was. He states that his uncle (Pliny the Elder) had the unusual ability to be able to write "something worth reading" and be able to do "something worth recording".
The document then turns to the first appearance of a strange phenomenon occurring over Mt. Vesuvius. Specifically, a large dark cloud that was shaped like a pine tree emanating from the mountain. After some time the cloud rushed down the flanks to the mountain and covered everything around it (this is known today as a pyroclastic flow ‹ which is a cloud of superheated gas, ash, and rock that erupts from a volcano).
The description then turned to the fact that the sun was blocked out by the eruption and the daylight hours were in darkness. His uncle had already taken several ships to investigate the phenomenon. However, during his stay on the other shore, Pliny the Elder became tired and lay down on the ground.
At that point he died (this was probably due to CO2 poisoning - if that were the case, then lying down would have been the worst thing to do, since CO2 is heavier than air and therefore hugs the ground).
After receiving this letter from Pliny the Younger, Tacitus sends a reply that he would like to know what happened to him during the catastrophe. Pliny the Younger responds, even though he states what he would write would not be of historical interest.
Pliny the Younger states that several earth tremors were felt at the time of the eruption and were followed by a very violent shaking of the ground. He also states that ash was falling in very thick sheets and the village had to be evacuated. He also mentions that the "sea was sucked away" and apparently forced back by an "earthquake" - which modern geologists call a tsunami.
Pliny the Younger then states that the large dark cloud suspended above Mt. Vesuvius fell to earth and covered the sea.
References:
Encyclopedia Britannica
Pliny the Elder Wikipedia
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