8S9 



PLINY THE YOUNGER. 



PLOT, ROBERT, LL.D. 



890 



others that he might have consulted) (Junius, ' De Pie. Vet,' ii. 3), the 

 volumes of Melanthius, Pamphilus, Protogenes, and others we cannot 

 help feeling surprise that he has given ua so little. However, out of 

 about one hundred artists of great celebrity, of whom more than the 

 third were painters, the rest sculptors, statuaries, and workers of gems, 

 &c., and more than twice that number of artists of less note, whose 

 names have been handed down to us, Pliny has scarcely omitted one 

 name of importance, but has on the other hand preserved notices of 

 the works of many artists of whom we have no mention whatever in 

 any other ancient writer. In his dates he seldom errs. 



The ' Geography ' of Pliny is an important part of his ' Natural 

 History,' but the same general remarks will apply to it that apply to 

 the whole compilation : it is the work of a man who had abundant 

 materials before him, but either knew not how to use them or did not 

 take pains enough. This geographical sketch, which comprehended 

 the then known world, is much too brief to be perspicuous ; so much 

 is crowded into a narrow compass, that it is often almost a bare 

 catalogue of names, and if we had no other guides it would continually 

 mislead us. Pliny's description of what he calls Graecia, which com- 

 mences with Attica, is a good example of his careless and confused 

 compilation ; and yet he has, even in his ' Geography,' preserved 

 many curious facts, and he must have often had access to excellent 

 materials. 



The number of editions that have been published of his work is 

 immense, and more than twenty appeared before the end of the 15th 

 century. However, only the most curious and the most valuable can 

 here be noticed. The first edition was published at Venice, 1469, 

 folio, by Joannes de Spira, which is a very beautiful example of 

 ancient typography, but of little critical value. The second edition, 

 a volume of great rarity, was printed by Sweynheym and Pannartz, 

 Roma?, 1470, folio. Those most worth mentioning for their critical 

 excellence are that by Hardouin, Paris, 1685, 4to, 5 vols., of which 

 a second edition was published. Paris, 1723, folio, 3 vols. ; that by 

 Franzius, 8vo, 10 vols., Lips., 1778-91 : and that published by Panck- 

 oucke, Paris, 8vo, 20 vola., 1829-33, with a new French translation 

 by Ajasson de Grandsagne, and copious notes by many of the most 

 eminent scientific men of France. The edition by Sillig, Lips., 1831- 

 36, 12mo, 5 vols., is particularly worth noticing on account of its 

 containing the various readings of a manuscript at Bamberg, which 

 had never before been collated, and which inserts words and clauses 

 in several pa-pages that had never been suspected of being unsound 

 (thus proving beyond a doubt that much of the obscurity of Pliny's 

 style may be attributed to the corrupt state of the text). Perhaps 

 the two most useful works in illustration of Pliny are the 'Exerci- 

 tationes Pliniana) ' of Salmasius, 2 vola. folio, Paris, 1629; and the 

 ' Disquisitiones 1'liuiante' of Latour-Rezzonico, 2 vols. folio, Parma;, 

 1763-67. It has been translated into almost all languages; into 

 Arabic by the famous Honain Ibn Ishak (better known perhaps 

 by his Latinised name ' Joannitius) ; into Italian by Landiuo, by Bruc- 

 cioli, and by Domenichi ; into German by Denso, and by Grosse ; 

 into Spanish by Huerta; into old French by Dupinet, Lyon, 1562, 

 Z vols. folio ; and into modern French by Poinsinet de Sivry. The 

 bent French translation is that in the edition by Panckoucke men- 

 tioned above. A Dutch translation was published at Arnheim, 4to, 

 1617. There is a pretty good old English translation by Holland, 

 1801, and a new translation, published in Bohn's ' Classical Library,' 

 by Boctock and Riley. 



PLINY THE YOUNGER. CAIUS PLINIUS C.ECILIUS SECUDUS 

 was born at Comum, a town on the Lake Larius in Insubria. The 

 date of his birth is A.D. 61 or 62 ; for he himself tells us (' Ep.,' vi. 20) 

 that he was in his eighteenth year when the extraordinary eruption 

 of Mount Vesuvius took place which occasioned the death of his 

 uncle; and this event was in 79. Of his father nothing is known, 

 except that his name was t.'aius Crecilius, that he was of equestrian 

 family, and that he died in the early days of his son. His mother 

 was Plinia, the sister of Pliny the Elder, at whose house, after losing 

 her husband, she, with her son, took up her abode. The young 

 Caecilius was adopted by Pliny (' Ep.,' v. 8), and was thenceforward 

 called by his name. 



His education commenced under the care of his mother and uncle. 

 Verginiu* Rufus, of whom his pupil hag left a grateful record (' Ep.,' 

 ii. 1), was left his tutor. His youthful attainments were of no ordi- 

 nary kind, for he composed a Greek tragedy in his fourteenth year. 

 After this he went to Rome and studied rhetoric under Quintilian and 

 Nicetes. At the age of nineteen he began to practise in the court of 

 the Centumviri, and he subsequently appeared as an advocate in 

 several cases before the senate ; but though he may have had a com- 

 petent knowledge of Jaw, it is clear from his own letters that he had 

 no great capacity for difficult legal questions. The following references 

 will show in what kind of cases he was chiefly employed: v. 8; 

 it 14 ; iv. 16 ; ii. 11, 12 ; iii. 4, 8 ; iv. 9, 16, 24 ; v. 20 ; vi. 5, 13, &c. 



In bis twenty-first year he went as military tribune into Syria, 

 where he met with Euphrates the stoic and Artemidorus, whose 

 society he made available to his improvement in the study of philo- 

 sophy. He seems, within the space of two years, to have returned 

 from Syria ; and we find him resident at Rome until, about the forty- 

 lecoixl year of his age, in 103, he was appointed by Trajan proconsul 

 of Bithynia, after be had, with the greatest honour to himself, dis- 



charged numerous other offices in the state, and had attained the 

 rank of senator, as is inferred from his letters, (iii. 20 ; iv. 25.) 



He cultivated a friendship with many eminent men, particularly 

 with Tacitus the historian, his senior by a few years, whom he strove 

 earnestly to imitate. Tacitus, on the other hand, held him in no leas 

 admiration, and entrusted him with the correction of his own works. 

 Indeed the friendship of Pliny and Tacitus became in a manner pro- 

 verbial ; and they were esteemed the most learned men of their time, 

 " the duumviri of letters," as Cellarius calls them. 



Pliny was a man of strict frugality and temperance ; he was affable 

 and kind to all men ; and being possessed of an ample fortune, he 

 was exceeded by none in acts of beneficence, whether public or 

 private. He was twice married, though his second wife only (Gal- 

 puraia) is mentioned by name, and she was a very accomplished woman. 

 He had no children. The time and other circumstances of Pliny's 

 death are uncertain. It is however generally believed that he died 

 about the end of Trajan's reign, which was in 116. 



Of many works written by Pliny we have only his ' Epistles,' in ten 

 books, and his ' Panegyric upon Trajan.' The latter has been always 

 admired as a composition of great excellence. The first nine books 

 of the ' Epistles ' are addressed to various persons ; the tenth book 

 consists of epistles addressed to Trajan only,, with a number of 

 Trajan's answers. 



The name of Pliny the Younger has, from the days of Tertullian, 

 been mentioned with peculiar interest by Christian writers on account 

 of the testimony which he bore concerning the Christians of his day 

 in Bithynia. They form the subject of a rather long letter (x. 97) to 

 Trajan, written about forty years after the death of St. Paul, and 

 followed by a short answer from Trajan. With all hia advantages of 

 education, Pliny was superstitious and credulous. Though a kind- 

 hearted man even to slaves (viii. 1, 16, 19), he was intolerant and 

 cruel to the Christians ; and, according to his own account, he put to 

 death the Christians of Bithynia who would not abjure their religion, 

 though he considered it only an innocent superstition. 



The materials for Pliny's life may be collected from his ' Epistles, 

 from which a brief notice has been drawn up by Cellarius, and one 

 more elaborate by Masson ; there is also a very complete Life of 

 Pliny, with abundant references to his letters, prefixed to E. Thier- 

 feld's German translation of the ' Epistlea and Panegyric,' Munich, 

 1828. But the reader is referred to the ' Epistles ' themselves for the 

 most gratifying notice of Pliny the Younger, every epistle being, as 

 Melmoth observes, " a kind of historical sketch, wherein we have 

 view of him in some striking attitude either of active or contempla- 

 tive life." Pliny's ' Epistles ' have been translated into English by 

 Lord Orrery and Mr. Melmoth. The best edition of Pliny's ' Epistles' 

 is that of Cortius and Longolius, 4to, Amst., 1734. Of the editions 

 of the ' Epistlea and Panegyric ' together may be recommended those 

 of Christopher Cellarius, 12mo, Leipzig, 1693; Hearne, with Life by 

 Masson prefixed, 8vo, Oxford, 1703 ; Gierig, 2 vols. 8vo, Leipzig, 1806 ; 

 and Gesuetan and Schaefer, Leipzig, 1805. 



PLOOS VAN AMSTEL, CORNELIS, a celebrated Dutch amateur 

 engraver and designer, was born at Amsterdam, in 1726. He is 

 chiefly distinguished for his imitations of the drawings of old masters, 

 of which he possessed one of the best collections known, amounting 

 to 5000 drawings by celebrated Italian, German, French, Flemish, and 

 Dutch masters, from Giotto to his own time. Born of a good and 

 wealthy family, he had every opportunity for improving his taste and 

 advancing his pursuits. Being acquainted with all the principal 

 collectors of Amsterdam, he commenced making his own valuable 

 collection at a very early age. He had likewise a very valuable collec- 

 tion of prints and etchings, especially of the works of Lucas van 

 Leyden, Albert Durer, Golzius, Cornells and Jan Visser, N. Berchem, 

 and especially Rembrandt. 



Ploos van Amstel's own works consist chiefly of imitations of 

 drawings of old masters, in chalk, washed, and coloured ; the coloured 

 imitations were accomplished by printing with several plates. In 

 1765 he published a collection of forty-six such imitations in various 

 styles, after drawings by A. Vandevelde, Rembrandt, Ostade, Gerard 

 Dow, Backhuysen, Metzu, Berchem, A. Bloemart, Wouvermann, 

 Mieris, Terburg, and others. There are altogether upwards of one 

 hundred imitations of drawings by Ploos van Amstel, and many of these 

 are published in various stages of progress, but very few impressions 

 were taken of any. They are enumerated and described by Weigel 

 in the ' Kunst Katalog,' and in Nagler's ' Kiinstler Lexicon.' A col- 

 lection of one hundred of Van Anistel's and some additional similar 

 imitations, with a portrait of Van Amstel, was published by C. Josi, 

 hi London, in 1821, royal folio; but only one hundred copies were 

 printed, and at the enormous price of forty guineas per copy. 



Ploos van Amstel died at Amsterdam, December 20, 1798, and on 

 March 3rd, 1800, his valuable collection, with tha exception of the 

 etchings of Rembrandt, was sold by auction, and realised the large 

 sum of 109,406 florins. 



(Van Eynden en Vander Willigen, Qeschiedenis der Vaterlandsche 

 Schilddunstsedert de helft der XVIII. Eenw. 1816-42.) 



PLOT, ROBERT, LL.D., was the son of Robert Plot, of Sutton- 

 Barne in Kent, and born in that county in 1641. He had his early 

 education in the school at Wye, from which he passed to Magdalen 

 Hall, Oxford. He took his Master's degree in arts and both his 



