PLINY, C. PLINIUS SECUNDUS, often called Pliny the elder, and author of the cele brated llistoria Naturals, was b. in the n. of Italy, either at Novum Comum (Como) or Verona, 23 A.D. "Whether it was his birthplace or not the former town was certainly his family's place of residence, since he had estates in its neighborhood; his nephew, the younger Pliny, was born there, and inscriptions relating to members of his family have been found near it. While still young he was sent to Home, where his ample means and high connections secured him the best education. At the age of 23 he entered the army. and served in Germany as commander of a troop of cavalry under L. Pomponius Secundus, of whom. in later life, he wrote a memoir. He traveled over nearly all the frontier of that extensive province, visited the Cauci and the sources of the Danube, composed during the intervals of military duty his treatise .De Jaculatione Eqvestri, and commenced a history (afterward completed in twenty books) of the Ger manic wars. On his return to Home in 52 with Pomponius, he entered on the study of jurisprudence; but his practice as a pleader proved hint to have no great capacity for the legal profession; and, accordingly, he rethul to his native place, where he spent the greater part of the reign of Nero in miscellaneous authorship. It was during this period that he wrote his Studioses, a treatise in three hooks on the training of is young orator from the nursery to his entrance. on public life, and apparently intended to guide the education of his nephew; also his granunatical work, Dubius Serino, in eight books. Shortly before Nero's death we find him it procurator in Spain, where, in 71. Ile heard of his brother-in-law's decease, and of his being intrusted with the guardianship of his nephew, Pliny the younger, whom he adopted on his return to Borne before 73. Yes pasian, the reigning emperor, whom he had known while serving in Germany, received him as one of his most intimate friends; and it was at this period that he completed, in 31 books, and brought down to his own time the Boman history of Anfidius Bassus. His mode of study at this time was a model of systematic assiduity. When living in the busy world of Rome, be would begin his studies by candle-light in autumn at a late hour of the night, and in winter at one or two in the morning. Before daybreak he would call on the emperor, for whom he would proceed to execute various commissions; this done he would return home and resume his studies. A slender meal would follow; after which he would, in summer weather, lie in the sunshine. and take notes or extracts from the books which were read to him. The practice of jotting down important facts or observations was habitual with him, and he was often heard to say that there was no book, however bad, from which some good could not be got. A cold bath, followed by a light meal and a short sleep occupied another interval, after which he would study till the coma, or dinner-time. Even at this meal some book was read to him on which he would make comments. When in his country residence ice studied nearly all the
time, except when in the bath; and even then, while his attendants were performing the duties incident to that luxury, lie would be listening to some one who read to him, or he would be dictating; to his amenuensis. When on a journey, again, he was never without a secretary nt his elbow, provided with a book and tablets. By this mode of life he collected an immense mass of materials, from which he compiled his great Ills toria Naturalk published about 77. No fewer than 160 volufnina of notes were found :It his death, two years afterward. The great eruption which, in 79, submerged Hercu laneum and Pompeii was at its height when he was stationed off Misenum, in command of the Roman fleet, Eager to examine the phenomenon more closely, lie landed at Stalthr, where he was suffocated by the vapors caused by the eruption. lie was, as his nephew tells us. corpulent and asthmatic, and sank the more readily. None of his attendants shared his fate.
Of all his works, only his Metoria Naturals has come down to us. It comprehends a greater variety of subjects than we now regard as included under that title. Astron omy, meteorology, geography, mineralogy, zoology, botany, everything, in short, which. is a natural or non-artificial product, finds a place in Pliny's Natural History. Even to this elastic interpretation of the term lie by no means rigidly adheres, the work being interspersed with digressions on such subjects as human institutions and inventions, ;Ind the history of the fine arts. It is divided into 37 books—the first of them being a dedica tory epistle to Titus, with a table of contents of the remaining books, and embraces, as we are told in the preface, 20,000 matters of importance, extracted from about 2,000, volumes. Its scientific. merit is not great. There is little attempt at philosophical arrangement; the observations lure nearly all taken at second-hand, and show small dis crimination in separating the true from the false. or the probable from the marvelous. His meaning is often obscure, from his writing of things with which he was personally unacquainted, and from his having missed the true sense of the authors whom he cites or translates. But it cannot be denied that the work is a great monument of industry and research—most praiseworthy as having been constricted and completed amid the labor of other onerous undertakings, and amid the distractions of a life engaged in an active official employment; and most valuable as supplying us with details on a great variety of subjects, as to which we have no other means of information. The best critical editions of the text are those of Sillig (8 vols., 1851-57), Ian (1854-63; new ed., 1873), and Detlefsen (1867-75). There are several editions of the text with French notes, one by Grandsagne, with notes by envier and others (1829), and one by Littre (1848-50). Pliny's work ;las been translated into almost all European languages.