PLINY THE ELDER. 



PLINY THE ELDER. 



rode : they were HkewU in danger not only of being aground by the 

 sudden retreat of the , but also from the vait fragment* which 

 rollrd do*n from the mountain, nJ obstructed all the shore. Hera 

 he (topped to consider whether he should return, to which the pilot 

 dvisrd him : " Fortune," tayi he, " befriends the brave ; carry me to 

 Pompon:anus." Pomponianus waa then at Subur, a town separated 

 by a gulf which the sea, after seTeral winding*, forms upon that shore. 

 He found him in the greatest consternation, but exhorted him to keep 

 up bis rpirita ; and the more to disxipate his fear*, he ordered, with an 

 air of unconcern, the baths to be got ready. After having bathed, he 

 pat down to rapper with apparent cheerfulness. In the meanwhile 

 the eruption from Vesuvius flamed out in several places with much 

 violence, which the darkness of the night contributed to render still 

 more visible and dreadful. Pliny, to soothe the apprehensions of his 

 friend, assured him it was only the burning of the villages which tlie 

 country-people had abandoned to the flames : after this he retired, 

 and had some sleep. The court which led to his apartment being in 

 the meantime almost filled with stones and ashes, if he bad continued 

 there any longer it would have been impossible for him to have made 

 his way out ; it was therefore thought proper to awaken him. He got 

 up, and went to Pomponianus and the rest of the company, who were 

 not sufficiently unconcerned to think of going to bed. They consulted 

 together whether it would be most prudent to trust to the houses, 

 which now shook from side to side with frequent and violent rockinga, 

 or to fly to the open fields, where the calcined stones and cinders, 

 though light indeed, yet fell in largo showers and threatened destruc- 

 tion. In this distress they resolved for the fields, as the less dangerous 

 situation of the two; and went out, having pillows tied upon their 

 heads with napkins, which was all their defence against the storms of 

 stones that fell around them. They thought proper to go down 

 farther upon the shore, to observe if they might safely put out to sea ; 

 but they found the waves still running extremely high and boisterous. 

 There Pliny, taking a draught or two of water, threw himself down 

 upon a cloth that was spread for him ; when immediately the flames, 

 and a strong smell of sulphur which was the forerunner of them, 

 dispersed the rest of the company, and obliged him to arise. He 

 raised himself, with the assistance of two of his servants (for he was 

 corpulent), and instantly fell down dead, suffocated, as his nephew 

 conjectures, by some gross and noxious vapour ; for he had always 

 weak lung*, and was frequently subject to a difficulty of breathing. As 

 soon as it was light again, which was not till the third day after, his 

 body was found entire, and without any marks of violence upon it, 

 exactly in the same posture that he fell, and looking more like a man 

 asleep than dead. 



Such is the interesting account given by the younger Pliny, in a 

 letter to Tacitus (' Epit.,' vl 16), of the death of this remarkable 

 man. The titles of several of bis works are given by his nephew 

 !.,' iii. 5); of these the only one that is still extant is his 

 'Natural History,' which may well be called "a work of great compass 

 and erudition, and as varied as nature herself." (Ibid.) To give any- 

 thing like a complete critical analysis of this work would require the 

 immense and multifarious learning of Pliny himself, and a thorough 

 knowledge not only of all that the ancienta have written on the same 

 subjects, but also of all the improvements and discoveries of modern 

 times. Accordingly in the great French translation, published by 

 Panckoucke, the assistance of a great number of scientific men wus 

 secured, each of whom laboured to illustrate Pliny's opinions on his 

 own particular branch of knowledge. The work consists of thirty- 

 seven books, all of which are still extant, though the text is in many 

 places in a very corrupt state, and several passages are quite lost. 

 The first book is a table of the contents of the other thirty-six ; the 

 Koond treat* of the world, the elements, the stars, the winds, &<x; 

 the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth contain a geographical account of 

 the whole of the then known world ; the seventh treats of the gene- 

 ration and organisation of man, the most remarkable characters that 

 have ever lived, and the most useful inventions ; the eighth, ninth, 

 tenth, and eleventh contain a system of zoology, and treat of beast*, 

 fishes, birds, and insects, and of human and comparative anatomy ; 

 sixteen books, from the twelfth to the twenty- seventh, are given up to 

 botany, and give an account of trees, herbs, fruit, corn, &c., and the 

 medicines which they furui.-h ; five books, from the twenty-eighth to 

 the thirty-second, treat of medicines derived from different animals ; 

 the thirty-third and thirty-fourth, of different kinds of metals, Ac, ; 

 the thirty-fifth, of colours and paintings; the thirty-sixth, of stones 

 and Fculpture; and the thirty-seventh, of different kinds of gems, Ac. 



This will give some idea of the miscellaneous nature of the content* 

 of this extraordinary work ; and if the judgment of the writer bad 

 been equal to hi* industry and learning, it might well have been con- 

 sidered as one of the greatest monuments of human ability. The 

 contrary however is notoriously the case. Cuvier (' Biog. Culvers.,' 

 tome xxxv.) give* the following character of it : " Pliny's great work 

 U at the same tune one of the most precious monuments left us by 

 antiquity, and a proof of the astonishing learning of a warrior and a 

 statesman. In order justly to appreciate this vast and celebrated 

 coui|aitioD, it is nvcecaary to consider the plan, the facts, and the 

 style. The plan is immense," Ac. Ac. " It waa impossible but that 

 the author, in treating of this prodigious number of object*, however 

 rapidly, should record a multitude of remarkable facts, which are to 



us the more valuable as he is the only extant author who mentions 

 them. Unhappily the way in which he has collected and arranged 

 them causes them to lose much of their value by the mixture of truth 

 and falsehood which is met with in almost equal proportions, snd 

 especially by the difficulty (and in most cases the impossibility) of 

 recognising the precise creatures that he means to describe, Pliny 

 was not an observer, like Aristotle ; still lea* was he a man of penius, 

 capable, like that great philosopher, of seizing the laws and relation* 

 which have guided nature in her productions. In general he i* only a 

 compiler, and indeed for the most part a compiler who ha* not himself 

 any idea of the subject* on which he collects the testimonies of others, 

 and therefore cannot appreciate the truth of there testimonies, nor 

 even always understand what they mean. In short he is an author 

 devoid of criticism, who, after having spent a great deal of tin:.' in 

 making extracts, has ranged them under certain chapter*, to which lie 

 has added reflections that have no reference to science properly so 

 called, but display alternately either the mod superstitious credulity 

 or the declamations of a discontented philosophy, which finds fault 

 continually with mankind, with nature, and with the gods themselvc*. 

 ... A comparison of his extracts with such of the original authors 

 as are still extant, and especially with Aristotle, shows us that Pliny 

 waa far from selecting either what was most important or most exact. 

 In general he prefers whatever is singular and marvellous, whatever 

 helps him in establishing the contrasts he so much delights in, or the 

 reproaches he is so fond of uttering against Providence, It is true 

 that he does not give the same degree of faith to everything that he 

 mentions, but it ia quite by chance that he believe* or doubts; and 

 it is by no means the most childish stories that always provoke his 

 incredulity. . . . Another great fault in Pliny is, that be does not 

 always give the true sense of the authors that he translates, especially 

 iu the designation of different species of animals ; and though we have 

 BO few materials remaining to enable us to judge of this kind of error 

 with any degree of certainty, it is easy to prove that in several instances 

 he has mistranslated the names of the animals mentioned by Aristotle. 

 ... It must then be confessed that, as for as his facts are concerned, 

 the only part of his work which has any real interest for us in the 

 present day is that which relates to the manners and customs of the 

 ancients, and to their proficiency in different arts, besides some histo- 

 rical and geographical details, which are to be found nowhere eke. 

 . . . With respect to his style, wherever he introduces general ideas 

 or philosophical views, bis language assumes an energy aud vivacity, 

 and his thoughts acquire an unexpected boldness, which make some 

 amends for his dry enumerations, and excuses him, in the opinion of 

 many of his readers, for the deficiencies of his scientific information. 

 He is perhaps too fond of point, and contrast, and emphasis ; and 

 there is in some places an obscurity, which results less from the nature 

 of his subject than from a desire of expressing himself with a pregnant 

 brevity and conciseness; but be is always grave and noble, and every- 

 where shows a love of justice and respect for virtue, a horror of the 

 cruelty and meanness of which he had before his eyes such terrible 

 examples, and a contempt for the unbridled luxury which had in his 

 time so deeply corrupted the Roman people. In these respects he 

 cannot be too much commended ; and in spite of the defects which we 

 cannot but recognise in him when we consider him as a naturalist, wo 

 must nevertheless allow that of all the authors who wrote after the 

 Augustan age, he deserves to be regarded as one of the most valuable 

 and most worthy to be ranked among the classics." 



Not the least important part of Pliny's work U his compendious 

 history of the art* amongst the Greeks, in books xxxiv., xxxv., and 

 xxxvi. ; for though so often minute and circumstantial in his details 

 of unimportant matters, and often negligent and careless about subjects 

 of the highest interest, Pliny's account is upon the whole clear and 

 succinct, and evidently contains many extract* from the writings of 

 ancient artists themselves. The errors that we have to reproach him 

 with are either unimportant inaccuracies inseparably connected with 

 so great an undertaking a* his ' Natural History,' or some few miscon- 

 ceptions owing to his want of a practical acquaintance with the arts, 

 and which may be ea-ily remedied by an artii-t. At the same time it 

 cannot be denied that he is frequently credulous and his matter 

 irrelevant, and his accounts are occasionally such a confusion of 

 tradition and legend that it is almost impossible to distinguish what 

 is authentic from what Is fabulous ; such is his account of the origin 

 of the imitative arts (xxxv. 12, 43). It is also evident that he fre- 

 quently did not clearly understand what he ho* endeavoured to convey 

 to others, and the consequence is that he is sometimes unintelligible. 

 He also lavishes encomiums upon the most trivial object* and example* 

 of purely mechanical excellence, and passe* cursorily over the greatest 

 works. 



Pliny commences hi* historical sketch, but more particularly that 

 of painting, from the time of Polygnotus and Phidias ; everything that 

 took place before that time he very summarily terms the " incunabula," 

 or first effort* of art. Hi* immediate authorities probably gave him 

 no satisfactory account of an earlier period. Concerning this period 

 however ho has given us many valuable though unconnected remarks. 

 Yet, when we consider the original sources that he appears to have 

 consulted the writings of ancient painters and sculptor*, tho works of 

 Apelles, Eunhranor, Antigonus, Xenocrates, Pasiteles, and Mcmiecbmus, 

 all of which ore mentioned by Pliny himself (and there were many 



