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Rh vast structure raised by Caligula (xxxvi. 111), and probably witnessed the triumph of Claudius over Britain (iii. 119; 44). Under the influence of Seneca he became a keen student of philosophy and rhetoric, and began practising as an advocate. He saw military service under Corbulo in Lower Germany ( 47), taking part in the Roman conquest of the Chauci and the construction of the canal between the Maas and the Rhine (xvi. 2 and 5). As a young commander of cavalry (praefectus alae) he wrote in his winter-quarters a work on the use of missiles on horseback (de jaculatione equestri), with some account of the points of a good horse (viii. 162). In Gaul and Spain he learnt the meanings of a number of Celtic words (xxx. 40). He took note of sites associated with the Roman invasion of Germany, and, amid the scenes of the victories of Drusus, he had a dream in which the victor enjoined him to transmit his exploits to posterity (Plin. Epp. iii. 5, 4). The dream prompted Pliny to begin forthwith a history of all the wars between the Romans and the Germans. He probably accompanied his father’s friend, Pomponius, on an expedition against the Chatti ( 50), and visited Germany for a third time (57) as a comrade of the future emperor, Titus (Praef. § 3). Under Nero he lived mainly in Rome. He mentions the map of Armenia and the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea, which was sent to Rome by the staff of Corbulo in 58 (vi. 40). He also saw the building of Nero’s “golden house” after the fire of 64 (xxxvi. 111). Meanwhile he was completing the twenty books of his History of the German Wars, the only authority expressly quoted in the first six books of the Annals of Tacitus (i. 69), and probably one of the principal authorities for the Germania. It was superseded by the writings of Tacitus, and, early in the 5th century, Symmachus had little hope of finding a copy (Epp. xiv. 8). He also devoted much of his time to writing on the comparatively safe subjects of grammar and rhetoric. A detailed work on rhetoric, entitled Studiosus, was followed by eight books, Dubii sermonis ( 67). Under his friend Vespasian he returned to the service of the state, sewing as procurator in Gallia Narbonensis (70) and Hispania Tarraconensis (73), and also visiting the Provincia Belgica (74). During his stay in Spain he became familiar with the agriculture and the mines of the country, besides paying a visit to Africa (vii. 37). On his return to Italy he accepted office under Vespasian, whom he used to visit before daybreak for instructions before proceeding to his official duties, after the discharge of which he devoted all the rest of his time to study (Plin. Epp. 11i. 5, 9). He completed a History of his Times in thirty-one books, possibly extending from the reign of Nero to that of Vespasian, and deliberately reserved it for publication after his decease (N. H., Praef. 20). It is quoted by Tacitus (Ann. xiii. 20, xv. 53; Hist. iii. 29), and is one of the authorities followed by Suetonius and Plutarch. He also virtually completed his great work, the Naturalis historia. The work had been planned under the rule of Nero. The materials collected for this purpose filled rather less than 160 volumes in 23, when Larcius Licinus, the praetorian legate of Hispania Tarraconensis, vainly offered to purchase them for a sum equivalent to more than £3200. He dedicated the work to Titus in 77. Soon afterwards he received from Vespasian the appointment of praefect of the Roman fleet at Misenum. On the 24th of August 79 he was stationed at Misenum, at the time of the great eruption of Vesuvius, which overwhelmed Pompeii and Herculaneum. A desire to observe the phenomenon from a nearer point of view, and also to rescue some of his friends, from their perilous position on the shore of the Bay of Naples, led to his launching his galleys and crossing the bay to Stabiae (Castellamare), where he perished, in the fifty-sixth year of his age. The story of his last hours is told in an interesting letter addressed twenty-seven years afterwards to Tacitus by the Elder Pliny’s nephew and heir, the Younger Pliny (Epp. vi. 16), who also sends to another correspondent an account of his uncle’s writings and his manner of life (iii. 5):—

“He began to work long before daybreak ... He read nothing without making extracts; he used even to say that there was no book so bad as not to contain something of value. In the country it was only the time when he was actually in his bath that was exempted from study. When travelling, as though freed from every other care, he devoted himself to study alone ... In short, he deemed all time wasted that was not employed in study.”

The only fruit of all this unwearied industry that has survived to our own times is the Naturalis historia, a work which in its present form consists of thirty-seven books, the first book including a characteristic preface and tables of contents, as well as lists of authorities, which were originally prefixed to each of the books separately. The contents of the remaining books are as follows: ii., mathematical and physical description of the world; iii.–vi., geography and ethnography; vii., anthropology and human physiology; viii.–xi., zoology; xii.–xxvii., botany, including agriculture, horticulture and materia medica; xxviii.–xxxii., medical zoology; xxxiii.–xxxvii, mineralogy, especially in its application to life and art, including chasing in silver (xxxiii. 154-157), statuary in bronze (xxxiv.), painting (xxxv. 15–149), modelling (151–158), and sculpture in marble (xxxvi.).

He apparently published the first ten books himself in 77, and was engaged on revising and enlarging the rest during the two remaining years of his life. The work was probably published with little, if any, revision by the author’s nephew, who, when telling the story of a tame dolphin, and describing the floating islands of the Vadimonian Lake, thirty years later (viii. 20, ix. 33), has apparently forgotten that both are to be found in his uncle’s work (ii. 209, ix. 26). He describes the Naturalis historia, as a Naturae historia, and characterizes it as a “work that is learned and full of matter, and as varied as nature herself.” The absence of the author’s final revision may partly account for many repetitions, and for some contradictions, for mistakes in passages borrowed from Greek authors, and for the insertion of marginal additions at wrong places in the text.

In the preface the author claims to have stated 20,000 facts gathered from some 2000 books and from 100 select authors. The extant lists of his authorities amount to many more than 400, including 146 of Roman and 327 of Greek and other sources of information. The lists, as a general rule, follow the order of the subject matter of each book. This has been clearly shown in Heinrich Brunn’s Disputatio (Bonn, 1856).

Pliny’s principal authority is Varro. In the geographical books Varro is supplemented by the topographical commentaries of Agrippa which were completed by the emperor Augustus; for his zoology he relies largely on Aristotle and on Juba, the scholarly Mauretanian king, studiorum claritate memorabilior quam regno (v. 16). Juba is also his principal guide in botany. Theophrastus is also named in his Indices. In the History of Art the original Greek authorities are Duris of Samos (born c. 340 ), Xenocrates of Sicyon (fl. 280), and Antigonous of Carystus (born c. 295 ). The anecdotic element has been ascribed to Duris (xxxiv. 61, Lysippum Sicyonium Duris negat ullius fuisse discipulum &c.); the notices of the successive developments of art, and the list of workers in bronze and painters, to Xenocrates; and a large amount of miscellaneous information to Antigonus. The last two authorities are named in connexion with Parrhasius (xxxv. 68, hanc ei gloriam concessere Antigonus et Xenocrates, qui de pictura scripsere), while Antigonus is named in the Indices of xxxiii.-xxxiv. as a writer on the “toreutic” art. Greek epigrams contribute their share in Pliny’s descriptions of pictures and statues. One of the minor authorities for books xxxiv.-xxxv. is Heliodorus (fl. 150 ), the author of a work on the monuments of Athens. In the Indices to xxxiii.–xxxvi. an important place is assigned to Pasiteles of Naples (fl. 88 ), the author of a work in five volumes on famous works of art xxxvi. 40), probably incorporating the substance of the earlier Greek treatises; but Pliny s indebtedness to Pasiteles is denied by Kalkmann, who holds that Pliny used the chronological work of Apollodorus, as well as a current catalogue of artists. Pliny’s knowledge of the Greek authorities was probably mainly due to Varro, whom he often quotes (e.g. xxxiv. 56, xxxv. 113, 156, xxxvi. 17, 39, 41). Varro probably dealt with the history of art in connexion with architecture, which was included in his Disciplinae. For a number of items relating to works of art near the coast of Asia Minor, and in the adjacent islands, Pliny was indebted to the general, statesman, orator and historian, Gaius Licinius Mucianus, who died before 77. Pliny mentions the works of art collected by Vespasian in the Temple of Peace and in his other galleries (xxxiv. 84), but much of his information as to the position of such works in Rome is due to books, and not to personal observation. The main merit of his account of ancient art, the only classical work of its kind, IS that it is a compilation ultimately founded on the lost textbooks of Xenocrates and on the biographies of Duris and Antigonus.