694 
P L I 
much in favour with that emperor, who raifed him fuc- 
ceflively to the offices of queftor, tribune of the people, 
and praetor. At length his free fpirit gave umbrage to 
the tyrant, and his life would have been endangered if 
that reign had lafted much longer. This circumftance 
endeared him to Nerva, and to his adopted lucceffor 
Trajan ; and during the ffiort reign of the former, he 
was appointed to the office of prefect of the Saturnian 
treafury. In the third confulate of the emperor Trajan, 
Pliny was one of the honorary confuls termed fuffetti, of 
that year. On that occnlion he returned public thanks 
to the emperor in an oration which he afterwards en¬ 
larged to the Panegyric of Trajan, as tranfmitted to our 
times. The care of the channel and banks of the Tyber 
was next conferred upon him, with the augurate. In 
fine, he was entrulted with the government of Bithynia 
in quality of pro-prsetor, which office he exercifed for 
two years with great credit. He was in thisftation when 
he wrote that celebrated Epiftle to Trajan, in which he 
confults the emperor refpefting the conduct to be ob- 
ferved towards the Chriftians of the province who then 
lay under perfecution, and bears an honourable teftimony 
to their principles and morals. 
After his return to Rome he feems to have pafled his 
time chiefly in literary retirement at his villas, two of 
which, the Laurentian and Tufcan, he has particularly 
defcribed in his letters. He appears to have been highly 
efteemed by all the mod virtuous and diftinguifhed Ro¬ 
mans who w'ere his cotempcraries; and among his corre- 
fpondents we meet with the names of Corellius Rufus, 
Arulenus Rulticus, Junius Mauricus, L. Helvidius, Vir- 
ginius Rufus, and thecelebrated hillorianTacitus. He was 
con tinuallycccupied in writing and reading,and maintained 
an intimacy with all the eminent men of letters of his time, 
to fome of whom, as Quintilian and Martial, he was a 
munificent patron. To his fellow-citizens of Como he 
was Angularly kind and liberal. He contributed largely 
to the maintenance of a public profeffor for the inftruc- 
tion of their youth, affigned an annual revenue for the 
maintenance of children of both fexes whofe parents had 
been reduced to poverty, and founded a public library. 
He compofed much in profe and verfe, and in the Greek 
and Latin languages, and took extraordinary pains in 
correcting and polifhing his works. None, however, have 
reached our times except his Panegyric above mentioned, 
and a collection of Letters. The time of his death is un¬ 
certain, but it is inferred from a paffage of Caffiodorus 
to have been in the 15th year of Trajan, and the 51 ft or 
5ad of his age. 
Pliny’s “ Panegyric” is an elaborate piece of eloquence, 
chiefly of value as containing enlarged views of the du¬ 
ties of a fovereign. As it was compofed at the very be¬ 
ginning of Trajan’s reign, it has little weight as a tefti¬ 
mony to the merits of that excellent emperor. His 
“Epiltles,” in ten books, are much to be prized for the 
anecdotes with which they abound of the characters and 
incidents of thofe times, and likevvife for the purity and 
elevation of their moral fentiments, which imprefs a 
highly favourable idea of the writer. It is obvious, how¬ 
ever, that they were written for the purpofe of being 
made public, and of difplaying to the world the author’s 
generous actions and literary honours. They ftrongly 
mark that love of applaufe which was his ruling paflion, 
and afford fome curious facts relative to the modes of 
feeding a writer’s vanity in thofe times. They exhibit 
Pliny as a profefled rhetorician, entertaining, and per¬ 
haps wearying, his friends with long and laboured ora¬ 
tions and recitations, commanding conftant plaudits by 
virtue of his rank, his wealth, and his truly eftimable 
qualities, but probably in fome inftances the dupe of 
adulation. The ftyle of his Epiltles is elegant and highly 
poliflied, but without the eafe and nature proper in fami¬ 
liar letters, and fo confpicuous in thofe of Cicero. Of 
the editions of Pliny the Younger, fome of the mod va¬ 
luable are the Variorum by Veenhufius, Lugd.B. 1669; 
2 
P L O 
that of Longolius, Amft. 1734; Gefner’s, Lipf. 1769, 
1770; and Lallemand’s, Par. 1769. His Epiltles have 
been tranflated into Englilh by lord Orrery and Mr, 
Mel moth w the verfion of the latter is Angularly ele¬ 
gant. 
PLI'SA, a town of Lithuania, in the palatinate of 
Minlk : twenty-one miles eaft of Minflc. 
PLIS'THENES, a fon of Atreus king of Argos, father 
of Menelaus and Agamemnon, according to Heliod and 
others. Homer, however, calls Menelaus and Agamemnon 
fons of Atreus, though they were in reality the children 
of Piifthenes. The father died very young ; and the two 
children were left in the houfe of their grandfather, who 
took care of them and inftrufted them. From his atten¬ 
tion to them, therefore, it feems probable, that Atreus 
was univerfally acknowledged their prote&or and father, 
and thence their furname of Atriclce. 
PLI'VA, a river of Bofnia, which runs into the Verbas. 
PLIU'SA, a river of Ruffia, which runs into the Baltic 
between Nerva and Ivangorod. 
PLIUSKPNA, a town of Ruffia, in the government of 
Irkutfk: twenty miles north-call of Verchnei-Udinlk. 
PLOB'SHEIM, a town of France, in the department of 
the Lower Rhine, with 900 inhabitants. 
PLOC'AMA, /. [lo named by Dr. Solander from the 
Gr. wAox-ct/zo;, a lock of hair, in allufion to its long pen¬ 
dulous entangled branches.] In botany, a genus of the 
clafs pentandria, order monogynia, natural order of ru- 
biaceae, (JuJJ.) Generic characters— Calyx : perianthium 
luperior, of one leaf, minute, five-toothed, permanent. 
Corolla of one petal, bell-lhaped, in five deep oblong feg- 
ments. Stamina : filaments five, fliort, inferted into the 
tube; antherae linear, eredt, fomewhat incumbent. Pif- 
tillum: germen inferior, globofe; ftyle thread-fnaped, 
fwelling upwards, longer than the llarr.ens; ftigma obtufe, 
undivided. Pericarpium: berry nearly globofe, of three 
cells. Seeds folitary, linear-oblong.— Ejfential Chara&er, 
Calyx fuperior, with five teeth ; corolla bell-lhaped, five- 
cleft ; berry of three cells ; feeds folitary. 
Plocama pendula, or drooping proclama, the only fpe- 
cies. It is a native of the Canary-iflands, from , which 
country it was fent to Kew by Mr. MalTon in 1779; and 
of the Cape of Good Hope, from whence a fpecimen was 
communicated by Mr. Lambert. It is, or was, kept in 
the greenhoufe at Kew ; but, no time of flowering being 
mentioned, the plant is perhaps now loft, without having 
ever been figured, or fully defcribed. The item is llirub- 
by, ereit, two or three feet high, roundiffi, lmooth, with 
generally alternate branches, of which the uppermoft are 
extremely numerous, drooping or pendulous, flender, ob- 
fcurely quadrangular, roughilh, leafy. Leaves oppofite, 
on fliort ftalks, linear, acute, entire, very narrow, lmooth, 
fomewhat flefliy. Flowers terminal, axillary, or from the 
upper forks of the branches, fmall, on fliort Ample rough- 
iffi ftalks, either folitary or two or three together. Berry 
not half the fize of a currant. The whole plant, except 
the old Jlem, turns'black in drying. 
PLO'CE, J. [from the Gr. wXoy.vi, a twilling.] A figure 
in rhetoric, by which a word is repeated, by way of em- 
phafis; in fuch manner, as not only to exprefs the fub- 
jefft, but fome particular character or property of it. The 
following are inftances:—“Cruelty ! yes, cruelty beyond 
all example. His wife’s a wife indeed ! Young Cato 
wants experience, but yet he is Cato.” 
FLOCH'INGEN, a town of Germany, in Wirtemberg, 
at the jundtion of the Fils and Neckar, with 1400 inhabi¬ 
tants. Thirteen miles eall-fouth-eall of Stutgard. 
PLOCK, one of the eight palatinates into which the 
prelent kingdom of Poland was divided by the Ruffian 
government, fubfequently to 1815. It comprifes the 
north and north-well of the kingdom, and lies entirely 
to the right of the Viltula and the Bug, extending from 
the Ruffian frontier to the neighbourhood of Thorn. Its 
area is calculated at about 7400 fquare miles, with 320,000 
inhabitants, It includes the ancient palatinate of the 
fame 
