240 



PLINY 



for the orator before entering on his career, and 

 also for his nephew the grammatical work, Dubitta 

 Sermo, in eight books. About the close of Nero's 

 life he was appointed procurator ( collector of the 

 imperial revenues) in Spain, where in 71 he heard of 

 his brother-in-law's death, by which he became 

 guardian of his sister's son, Pliny the Younger, 

 whom, on his return to Koine two years after, lie 

 adopted. Vespasian, by this time emperor, whom 

 he had known in the German campaign, was 

 henceforth his most intimate friend, hut court 

 favour did not wean him from study, and so we 

 find him bringing down to his own time, in thirty- 

 one books, the history of Koine, by Aulidius 

 H.-issus. A model student, amid metropolitan 

 distraction, he began work by candle-light, in 

 autumn before the day was spent, and in winter 

 by 1 or 2 A.M. Ere dawn he would wait on the 

 emperor and discharge the imperial commissions 

 imposed on him, after which he returned home 

 once more to his books. A slight repast interven- 

 ing, he resumed work, in summer lying in the sun- 

 shine while he took notes or extracts from what 

 was read to him. True to his maxim that no book 

 was so bail but some information might begot from 

 it, he seized every opportunity of jotting down all 

 that interested him either as reader or auditor. A 

 cold bath, followed by a slender meal and a brief 

 siesta, preceded the next spell of work, at which he 

 continued till retia, the Roman dinner, at 3 r. M. 

 Even then he listened to the reading of some book, 

 on which he commented. Such was his life when 

 at court ; but at his country seat his studies were 

 uninterrupted an attendant reading to him even 

 in the bath, or writing to his dictation while he 

 was under the masseur or anointer (aliptas). On 

 his journeys by land or water his secretary with 

 book and "tablete was always at hand. By this 

 lifelong application he amassed materials enough 

 to fill the 160 volumes of manuscript written very 

 small on both sides which, after using them for his 



XaiurtilJs (published 77), he bequeathed 

 to his nephew. His life, uneventful and studious, 

 was quite dramatic in its ending. In 79 he was 

 in command of the Roman fleet stationed off 

 Misenum when the great eruption of Vesuvius 

 was at its height. Eager to witness the pheno- 

 menon as closely as possible, he landed at BttUn 

 (Castellamare), but hod not gone far when his 

 frame, corpulent and asthmatic as his nephew tells 

 us, succumbed to the stifling vapours rolling down 

 the hill. 



His Historia Naturalis alone of his many writ- 

 ings survives. Under that title the ancients 

 classified everything of natural or non artificial 

 origin not only botany, zoology, and mineralogy, 

 but geography, meteorology, and astronomy. 

 Pliny, however, extends even this elastic delini 

 tion, and adds to his work by digressions on 

 human inventions and institutions, devoting two 

 books to a very valuable, if misplaced, history 

 of tine art. He dedicates the whole to Titus, in 

 a turgid, ill-composed epistle, the low literary 

 level of which is maintained throughout. Nor 

 is his inartistic, sometimes olwcure, style re- 

 deemed hv much scientific faculty in handling liis 

 theme. He did not pretend to original research, 

 hut the philosophical method which sometimes 

 distinguishes the mere compiler is equally foreign 

 to his pages. His observations, made at second 

 hand, are presented with no discrimination lietween 

 the true and the manifestly false, between the proh- 

 able and the simply marvellous. He can even lie 

 convicted of having misunderstood the authorities 

 on whom he relies. Hut with every deduct ion made 

 from it as to matter and form, his compilation is a 

 praiseworthy monument of reading at once exten- 

 sive and minute, and supplies us with information 



on an immense variety of subjects as to which, but 

 for him, we should have remained in the dark. 



The most convenient text for the student in that of 

 Jan and Mayhoff(ti voU. Leip. 1857-75), which emlxidiei 

 the best results of the recensions by Sillic and 1 >etJt-f sen. 

 The Chrttlomatkia Pliniana ( Berlin, 1857) of the j;ret 

 archajologist Urlichu in particularly valuable for it* com- 

 ments on fine art ; while of tranilationi the roundest and 

 most readable is that of Littre, in French, published along 

 with the original Latin (Paris, 1848-50). 



Pliny (GAIUS PLINIUS CJRCILIVS SBCUNDUS), 

 the Younger, was l>orn at Novum Comum, 62 A.D. 

 His education, after his tenth year, when his 

 father died, was conducted under the eve of his 

 mother, Plinia, of his tutor Virginius Kufus, of 

 hose worth, intellectual and moral, he has left a 

 beautiful memorial, and of his uncle who adopted 

 him. He early displayed high literaryaptitude, wrote 

 a Greek tragedy in his fourteenth year, and made 

 such progress under Quintilian that, like hia friend 

 Tacitus, lie became noted as one of the most accom- 

 plished men of his time. His proficiency as an 

 orator enabled him, when not more than eighteen, 

 to plead in the Forum, and brought him much 

 practice, not only at the Centnniviral bar, chiefly 

 in will-cases, but also l>efore the senate. Official 

 appointments came to him in quick succession. 

 Then, still young, he served as military tribune in 

 Syria, where he frequented the schools of the Stoic 

 Knphrates, and of Artemidorus ; at twenty-five, 

 the earliest possible age, he was quaestor Gttarit, 

 then pra-tor, and afterwards consul in 100 A.H., in 

 which year he wrote his laboured panegyric of 

 the Emperor Trajan. In 103 he became pro- 

 pra-tor of the Provincia Pontica, but vacated the 

 post in two years, and, among other offices, held 

 that of curator of the Tiber, chiefly for the preven- 

 tion of Hoods. He married I wire ; his .second wife, 

 Calpurnia, granddaughter of Calpumiufi Fabatus, 

 is fondly referred to in one of his most charming 

 letters for the many gifts and accomplishments with 

 which she sweetened his rather invalid life. He 

 died without issue, but in what year is unknown. 



It is to his letters that Pliny owes his assured place 

 in literature as one of the masters of the epistolary 

 style. An avowed imitator of Cicero, he has 

 caught much of the charm of his model, while his 

 l.;i i init y is hardly, if at all, inferior in purity and 

 ease. His meaning, though never obscure, is 

 generally fuller than his expression, and, reading 

 lietween the lines, we discern the features of a 

 duly lovable man, quite aware of his strong as of 

 his weak points, much given to hospitality, and 

 always pleased to help a less favoured brother, 

 Mieh as Suetonius or Martial. We derive from him 

 not a few of our distinctest impressions of the 

 public and private life of the upper class in the 

 1st century ; above all, it is from his correspondence 

 with Trajan tliat we get our clearest knowledge .if 

 how even the most enlightened of the Koinons 

 regarded the then obscure sect of the Christians. 

 1 1 appears that a person acknowledging himself a 

 Christian was liable to punishment, even to death. 

 When under examination, however, no Christian 

 would admit anything further than his practice 

 of meeting with his co religionists on an appointed 

 day before it was light ; singing a hymn to Christ 

 as God (or ' as to a Cod 'yntixi il<-<> ) ; and taking 

 an oath which hound him to no crime, but never 

 to commit theft, robbery, adultery, and malfeas- 

 ance, and never to deny a deposit. Even when 

 put to the torture, two female slaves, said to be 

 deaconesses, confessed nothing more to Pliny, who 

 thereupon consulted the emi>cror as to how he 

 might stop the spread of what he could only call 

 ' a depraved and extravagant superstition.' Trajan 

 declined to lay down a general rule for dealing with 

 the Christians; he recommended that they should 



