Pliny the Elder

      Roman writer, scientist, and statesman. Adoptive father of Pliny the Younger.

      Born in the Roman town of Como. No information has survived about his parents and upbringing.

      It is known that Pliny the Elder was an indefatigable reader and collector of knowledge. He was interested in everything: from the structure of the Universe to baking different types of bread. He devoted most of his time, free from official duties, to the collection and systematization of this knowledge. “Pliny Secundus from New Como served the required military service for the equestrians with remarkable honesty, held several brilliant procuratorships in succession, and finally dedicated himself so zealously to noble sciences that hardly anyone, even in complete leisure, wrote more than he did,” wrote Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, pp. 321-322).

     Pliny rarely attended banquets, avoided gladiatorial contests, and opposed such legalized murder; many prominent Romans disliked him, and according to contemporary accounts, they even attempted to poison him several times.   

     Pliny the Elder served as the commander of the cavalry in Germany, was procurator of Spain in 67 AD, served in Gaul, Africa, and then was the commander of the fleet stationed at Misenum.

      He perished during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius while commanding the fleet at Misenum. On August 24, 79 AD, to better observe the terrifying natural phenomenon, Pliny the Elder approached the site of the disaster too closely by ship, and in Stabiae, already on land, he fell victim to his curiosity and desire to help people, succumbing to sulfurous fumes.

       The details of this event are recounted by his adoptive son, Pliny the Younger, in a long letter to Tacitus.
     Here is what Pliny the Younger writes: “Pliny wished to observe this extraordinary spectacle up close and therefore boarded a ship at Misenum and set out for Stabiae. This was on August 24. Suddenly, a terrible black cloud appeared from the crater of the mountain cone, flames burst forth from it, and lightning flashed, much stronger than usual. Then it seemed that the cloud was lowering and covering the entire sea. Soon this cloud obscured our view of the island of Capri and Cape Misenum. A rain of ash began to fall, initially not very thick, but soon thicker and thicker. The fugitives turned to Pliny and began to ask him not to go further. But all was in vain. “Fortune favors the brave!” he exclaimed and ordered the trembling oarsmen to row towards Stabiae. At the time when everyone who could flee was fleeing, he calmly slept at his friend’s side. But the slaves who remained outside woke him, fearing that the ever-increasing ash might block the sea exit or that the walls, shaking from the earthquake, might collapse. They went out and headed towards the sea. To protect themselves from the falling pumice, they placed pillows on their heads. The thick darkness was illuminated only by torches; the air was so suffocating that they could barely breathe. Suddenly, Pliny fell dead to the ground” (Becker K. Myths of the Ancient World, pp. 674-675).

    Pliny the Elder is the author of “Natural History” (“Historia Naturalis”) in 37 books – a kind of encyclopedia of natural science knowledge of antiquity.
      In the dedication to Emperor Titus, Pliny states that he wanted to touch upon everything that the Romans and Greeks understand by the word “Encyclopedia” (from Greek en – in; kyklos – circle and paideia – education; literally: “in the circle of education”).
     This work contains information on astronomy, geography, meteorology, ethnography, anthropology, zoology, botany, agriculture and forestry, medicine, mineralogy, metallurgy, etc. Descriptions are interspersed with fantastic tales, fables, superstitions, and anecdotes.

     The content of the 37 books of “Natural History” is as follows: 1 – general introduction; 2 – mathematical description of the Universe; 3–6 – geography; 7 – anthropology; 8–11 – zoology; 12–27 – botany; 28–32 – medical zoology; 33–37 – mineralogy and the use of minerals in art.

     “Natural History” – a grand, encyclopedic work – is the pinnacle of ancient culture. In writing it, Pliny consciously set himself the almost fantastical task of studying all the books of the world, selecting the most informative ones, condensing the information contained in them to the limit, and systematically presenting all of this compactly for the education of future generations, so that they would not waste time on repetitions and “secondary” books. Even more fantastical is the fact that this plan was successfully realized.

From the boundless ocean of ancient texts, he selected about two thousand “volumes” (at the beginning of his summarizing work, he provides a list of these books with the names of their authors and expresses gratitude to his predecessors and “informants”). Pliny himself speaks of 100 authors and 20,000 scientific publications (“facts”) included in the book. Modern researchers identify about 35,000 publications (“facts”), more than 160 Roman, 350 Greek, as well as foreign authors – from Homer to Pliny’s contemporaries.

     The authority of “Natural History” as a source of knowledge about nature was unquestionable for the following 12–14 centuries, and perhaps no other work of antiquity, except the Bible, has had such an impact on the views of people in late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance.

     Unfortunately, “Natural History” has not yet been published in full in Ukrainian. There are about 20 partial editions of individual books, while the complete text is absent.
     A trivial explanation for this gap may be that there was no encyclopedist in Ukraine who knew Latin to such an extent, covering all the sciences addressed in Pliny the Elder’s book.
     The text of “Natural History” occupies about 1000 pages of large format in editions in modern European languages (plus the text of the Latin original). But the most complex and voluminous part is the commentary on the books of “Natural History.”
     Foreign editions, depending on the extent of the commentary, range from 3 to 10 volumes. The texts and fragments published in Russian about art occupy 124 pages, accompanied by 800 pages of auxiliary text (commentary, index, etc.). So even nearly 2000 years after its appearance, “Natural History” awaits its great translators into Russian and grateful readers…

    The historical writings of Pliny have not survived to our time. These include “The German Wars in 20 Books” (the history of Roman conquests along the Rhine and Danube); “Continuation of the History of Aufidius Bassus in 31 Books” – a narrative of events from 41 to 71 AD: the reign of Claudius, Nero, the civil war after Nero’s death; “Life of Pomponius Secundus in 2 Books” – the biography of Pliny’s patron and military commander.