Secundius Gaisus Pliny the Elder - Natural history, a selection

NATURAL HISTORY: A SELECTION

PLINY THE ELDER, Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 2379), holds a place of exceptional importance in the tradition and diffusion of Western culture. Born at Novum Comum, in northern Italy, he was an outstanding example of a successful member of the Equestrian Order. Pliny began his career in the army in Germany and later held a number of procuratorships in Gaul, Africa and Spain (7075). On his return to Rome he devoted his talents to writing. Seven works are known but only one, the Natural History, survives. This encyclopedic account of the state of Roman scientific knowledge in the first century AD contains material from works no longer extant and is of unique value for our assessment of early imperial science and technology. The Natural History also reveals its authors personality and character, thus complementing what we learn from the Letters of his nephew, Pliny the Younger. Pliny describes his theme as unpromising and clearly underestimates his own achievement. While he was in charge of a Roman fleet at Misenum his scientific curiosity, ironically, led to his death. He lingered too long observing the eruption of Vesuvius and died on 24 August.

JOHN HEALY was an Exhibitioner and Senior Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge. During war service, in the Intelligence Corps in the Far East, he visited Mohenjodaro and Harappa, in the Indus valley, (Pakistan), sites which stimulated his early interest in archaeology. He subsequently became Lecturer in Classics and Classical Archaeology at Manchester University (195361), Reader in Greek at Bedford College, London (19616), Professor of Classics at Royal Holloway College, London (196385), and, after the merger of the two London colleges in 1985, the first Chairman of the combined Departments of Classics. His main interests are in Greek numismatics and the history of science and technology especially economic geology, mining and metallurgy. In 1983 Professor Healy was joint organizer of a colloquium on Pliny the Elder and Roman science, held at the Royal Institution. This encouraged a renewed interest in the Natural History and an ongoing reassessment of Plinys achievements. Much of his science has been validated as a result of modern laboratory experiments. His most recent books are Pliny the Elder on Science and Technology (Oxford, 1999) and Miniere e Metallurgia nel Mondo Greco e Romano, a revised and enlarged edition of his earlier work, Mining and Metallurgy. He has contributed numerous articles to classical, art and scientific journals.

PLINY THE ELDER

A SELECTION

Translated with an Introduction and notes by
JOHN F. HEALY

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First published 1991
Reprinted with revisions in Penguin Classics 2004
15

Copyright John F. Healy, 1991, 2004
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ISBN-13: 9780141913322

Studiorum otiosis

Pliny the Elder, Gaius Plinius Secundus, was born at Novum Comum, a town of mixed population in Transpadane Gaul (northern Italy), in AD 23 or 24 during the principate of Tiberius. This was a period of great political unrest, mutiny within the legions and rivalries in the struggle for imperial power. Pliny came from a wealthy family which belonged to the municipal governing class, and was of equestrian rank. This order was open to all Roman citizens who were at least eighteen years of age, of free birth, good character and with a property rating of 400,000 sesterces. Plinys preoccupation with his status and public image is very evident from his digression in the Natural History on the history of the order (XXXIII, 32 ff.) Tacitus, writing a generation later than Pliny, observes that men of municipal origin tended to favour stricter codes of behaviour than those characteristic of members of the imperial court and the Roman aristocracy of the middle of the first century AD. Plinys criticism, therefore, of extravagant life styles, luxury, avarice and greed is not surprising.

Pliny was introduced to Rome at an early age and writes as an eyewitness of events in the 30s AD. At Rome he found much to interest him in literary movements, oratory, philosophy and science. His formal education began there under the well-known soldier and tragic poet Publius Pomponius Secundus, whose biography he subsequently wrote as a debt to friend and, possibly, to ensure his patronage. Following the fashion of his time, an important part of Plinys training was in rhetoric, which greatly influenced his literary style.

The Emperor Augustus had encouraged the idea that equestrian status carried a certain obligation to seek at least one army posting. Not everyone, however, took this duty seriously and some found safe niches in administration, or in ceremonial and non-combatant roles. Some continued to live extravagantly, as an officer of Plinys acquaintance who carried an expensive dinner service with him on active service (XXXIII, 143). Pliny, by contrast, took his obligations seriously. When twenty-three or twenty-four years of age, he began his career in the army in the province of Germany a potentially dangerous posting taking part in a campaign against the Chauci, under Domitius Corbulo, governor of Upper Germany (4759). Later he served in Lower Germany, probably during the governorship of Pomponius Secundus (50/51). On yet a further tour of duty he was a fellow officer of Titus, son of the future Emperor Vespasian, to whom he dedicated his Natural History. In spite of the campaign against the Chauci, the frontier was relatively settled and Pliny had the opportunity of writing. His military experiences led to his first work, a treatise on the use of the javelin as a cavalry weapon (De iaculatione equestri), and his substantial history of Romes wars against the Germans (Bella Germaniae]. These monographs confirm his serious attitude to his military duties and his general interest in the province of Germany and its history.

In 59 Pliny returned to Rome with the intention of practising law. Several reasons have been advanced to explain why no procuratorship fell to him at this point in his career. Among those suggested by Syme, namely the loss of a patron, some minor indiscretion in society at Rome, a sudden distaste for affairs, or a prescience of the dangers which lurked in the path of industry and integrity, the last explanation would seem to have been the most likely. At any rate Pliny retired temporarily from public service, and, keeping a low profile, devoted his talents to the safer field of writing books on grammar.