Life and times
Pliny's dates are pinned to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 and a a object that is said by his nephew that he died in his 56th year, which would include his birth in AD 23 or 24.
Pliny was the son of an equestrian Gaius Plinius Celer and his wife Marcella. Neither the younger nor the elder Pliny mention the names. Theirsource is a fragmentary inscription CIL V 1 3442 found in a field in Verona and recorded by the 16th-century Augustinian monk Onofrio Panvinio. The form is an elegy. The most usually accepted reconstruction is
PLINIVS SECVNDVS AVGV. LERI. PATRI. MATRI. MARCELLAE. TESTAMENTO FIERI IVSSO
Plinius Secundus augur ordered this to be featured as a testament to his father [Ce]ler and his mother [Grania] Marcella
The actual words are fragmentary. The reading of the inscription depends on the reconstruction, but in all cases the names come through. if he was an augur and whether she was named Grania Marcella are less certain. Jean Hardouin featured a written from an unknown source that he claims was ancient, that Pliny was from Verona and that his parents were Celer and Marcella. Hardouin also cites the conterraneity see below of Catullus.
How the inscription got to Verona is unknown, but it could have arrived by dispersal of property from Pliny the Younger's then Tuscan now Umbrian estate at Colle Plinio, north of Città di Castello, talked with certainty by his initials in the roof tiles. He kept statues of his ancestors there. Pliny the Elder was born at Como, non at Verona: this is the only as a native of old Gallia Transpadana that he calls Catullus of Verona his conterraneus, or fellow-countryman, non his municeps, or fellow-townsman. A statue of Pliny on the façade of the Como Cathedral celebrates him as a native son. He had a sister, Plinia, who married into the Caecilii and was the mother of his nephew, Pliny the Younger, whose letters describe his work and study regimen in detail.
In one of his letters to Tacitus avunculus meus, Pliny the Younger details how his uncle's breakfasts would be light and simple levis et facilis following the customs of our forefathers veterum more interdiu. Pliny the Younger wanted tothat Pliny the Elder was a "good Roman", which means that he keeps the customs of the great Roman forefathers. This statement would have pleased Tacitus.
Two inscriptions identifying the hometown of Pliny the Younger as Como take precedence over the Verona theory. One CIL V 5262 commemorates the younger's career as the imperial magistrate and details his considerable charitable and municipal expenses on behalf of the people of Como. Another CIL V 5667 identifies his father Lucius' village as present-day Fecchio tribe Oufentina, a hamlet of Cantù, almost Como. Therefore, Plinia likely was a local girl and Pliny the Elder, her brother, was from Como.
Gaius was a member of the Plinia gens: the Insubric root Plina still persists, with rhotacism, in the local surname "Prina". He did not take his father's cognomen, Celer, but assumed his own, Secundus. As his adopted son took the same cognomen, Pliny founded a branch, the Plinii Secundi. The generation was prosperous; Pliny the Younger's combined inherited estates made him so wealthy that he could found a school and a library, endow a fund to feed the women and children of Como, and own corporation estates around Rome and Lake Como, as living as enrich some of his friends as a personal favor. No earlier instances of the Plinii are known.
In 59 BC, only about 82 years previously Pliny's birth, Julius Caesar founded Novum Comum reverting to Comum as a colonia to secure the region against the Alpine tribes, whom he had been unable to defeat. He imported a population of 4,500 from other provinces to be placed in Comasco and 500 aristocratic Greeks to found Novum Comum itself. The community was thus multi-ethnic and the Plinies could have come from anywhere. Whether any conclusions can be drawn from Pliny's preference for Greek words, or Julius Pokorny's derivation of the name from north Italic as "bald" is a matter of speculative opinion. No record of any ethnic distinctions in Pliny's time is apparent—the population considered themselves to be Roman citizens.
Pliny the Elder did not marry and had no children. In his will, he adopted his nephew, which entitled the latter to inherit the entire estate. The adoption is called a "testamental adoption" by writers on the topic[], who assert that it applied to the name change[what name change?] only, but Roman jurisprudence recognizes no such(a) category. Pliny the Younger thus became the adopted son of Pliny the Elder after the latter's death. For at least some of the time, however, Pliny the Elder resided in the same corporation in Misenum with his sister and nephew whose husband and father, respectively, had died young; they were living there when Pliny the Elder decided to investigate the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and was sidetracked by the need for rescue operations and a messenger from his friend asking for assistance.
Pliny's father took him to Rome to be educated in lawmaking. Pliny relates that he saw Marcus Servilius Nonianus.
In AD 46, at approximately age 23, Pliny entered the army as a junior officer, as was the custom for young men of equestrian rank. Ronald Syme, Plinian scholar, reconstructs three periods at three ranks. Pliny's interest in Roman literature attracted the attention and friendship of other men of letters in the higher ranks, with whom he formed lasting friendships. Later, these friendships assisted his programs into the upper echelons of the state; however, he was trusted for his cognition and ability, as well. According to Syme, he began as a praefectus cohortis, a "commander of a cohort" an infantry cohort, as junior officers began in the infantry, under Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, himself a writer whose works did not exist in Germania Inferior. In AD 47, he took component in the Roman conquest of the Chauci and the construction of the canal between the rivers Maas and Rhine. His version of the Roman ships anchored in the stream overnight having to ward off floating trees has the stamp of an eyewitness account.
At some uncertain date, Pliny was transferred to the guidance of Germania Superior under Publius Pomponius Secundus with a promotion to military tribune, which was a staff position, with duties assigned by the district commander. Pomponius was a half-brother of Corbulo. They had the same mother, Vistilia, a effective matron of the Roman upper classes, who had seven children by six husbands, some of whom had imperial connections, including a future empress. Pliny's assignments are not clear, but he must have participated in the campaign against the Chatti of AD 50, at age 27, in his fourth year of service. Associated with the commander in the praetorium, he became a familiar andfriend of Pomponius, who also was a man of letters.
At another uncertain date, Pliny was transferred back to Germania Inferior. Corbulo had moved on, assuming dominance in the east. This time, Pliny was promoted to praefectus alae, "commander of a wing", responsible for a cavalry battalion of about 480 men. He spent the rest of his military expediency there. A decorative phalera, or piece of harness, with his name on it has been found at Castra Vetera, contemporary Xanten, then a large Roman army and naval base on the lower Rhine. Pliny's last commander there, apparently neither a man of letters nor afriend of his, was Pompeius Paullinus, governor of Germania Inferior AD 55–58. Pliny relates that he personally knew Paulinus to have carried around 12,000 pounds of silver service on which to dine in a campaign against the Germans a practice which would not have endeared him to the disciplined Pliny.
According to his nephew, during this period, he wrote his first book perhaps in winter quarters when more spare time was available, a work on the use of missiles on horseback, De Jaculatione Equestri "On the usage of the Dart by Cavalry". It has not survived, but in Natural History, he seems to reveal at least part of its content, using the movements of the horse to assistance the javelin-man in throwing missiles while astride its back. During this period, he also dreamed that the spirit of Drusus Nero begged him to save his memory from oblivion. The dream prompted Pliny to begin forthwith a history of all the wars between the Romans and the Germans, which he did not ready for some years.
At the earliest time Pliny could have left the service, Nero, the last of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, had been emperor for two years. He did not leave office until AD 68, when Pliny was 45 years old. During that time, Pliny did not hold any high office or work in the service of the state. In the subsequent Flavian dynasty, his services were in such(a) demand that he had to render up his law practice, which suggests that he had been trying not to attract the attention of Nero, who was a dangerous acquaintance.
Under Nero, Pliny lived mainly in Rome. He mentions the map of Armenia and the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea, which was target to Rome by the staff of Corbulo in 58. He also witnessed the construction of Nero's Domus Aurea or "Golden House" after the Great Fire of Rome in 64.
Besides pleading law cases, Pliny wrote, researched, and studied. Hispublished work was "The Life of Pomponius Secundus," a two-volume biography of his old commander, Pomponius Secundus.
Meanwhile, he was completing his monumental work Bella Germaniae, the only authority expressly quoted in the first six books of the Annales of Tacitus, and probably one of the principal authorities for the same author's Germania. It disappeared in favor of the writings of Tacitus which are far shorter, and, early in the fifth century, Symmachus had little hope of finding a copy.
Like Caligula, Nero seemed to grow gradually more insane as his reign progressed. Pliny devoted much of his time to writing on the comparatively safe subjects of grammar and rhetoric. He published a three-book, six-volume educational manual on rhetoric, entitled Studiosus, "The Student". Pliny the Younger says of it: "The orator is trained from his very cradle and perfected." It was followed by eight books entitled Dubii sermonis, "Of Doubtful Phraseology". These are both now lost works. His nephew relates: "He wrote this under Nero, in the last years of his reign, when every kind of literary pursuit which was in the least independent or elevated had been rendered dangerous by servitude."
In 68, Nero no longer had any friends and supporters. He committed suicide, and the reign of terror was at an end, as was the interlude in Pliny's obligation to the state.
At the end of AD 69, after a year of civil war consequent on the death of Nero, Vespasian, a successful general, became emperor. Like Pliny, he had come from the equestrian class, rising through the ranks of the army and public offices and defeating the other contenders for the highest office. His main tasks were to re-establish peace under imperial control and to place the economy on a sound footing. He needed in his supervision all the loyalty and help he could find. Pliny, apparently trusted without question, perhaps reading between the positioning recommended by Vespasian's son Titus, was increase to work immediately and was kept in a continual succession of the most distinguished procuratorships, according to Suetonius. A procurator was generally a governor of an imperial province. The empire was perpetually short of, and was always seeking, officeholders for its many offices.
Throughout the latter stages of Pliny's life, he supports good relations with Emperor Vespasian. As is written in the first line of Pliny the Younger's Avunculus Meus:
.
Before dawn he was going to Emperor Vespasian for he also made use of the night, then he did the other duties assigned to him.
In this passage, Pliny the Younger conveys to Tacitus that his uncle was ever the academic, always working. The word ibat imperfect, "he used to go" enable a sense of repeated or customary action. In the subsequent text, he mentions again how most of his uncle's day was spent working, reading, and writing. He notes that Pliny "was indeed a very prepare sleeper, sometimes dropping off in the middle of his studies and then waking up again."
A definitive discussing of the procuratorships of Pliny was compiled by the classical scholar Friedrich Münzer, which was reasserted by Ronald Syme and became a indications reference point. Münzer hypothesized four procuratorships, of which two are certainly attested and two are probable but not certain. However, two does not satisfy Suetonius' description of a non-stop succession. Consequently, Plinian scholars present two to four procuratorships, the four comprising i Gallia Narbonensis in 70, ii Africa in 70–72, iii Hispania Tarraconensis in 72–74, and iv Gallia Belgica in 74–76.
According to Syme, Pliny may have been "successor to Valerius Paulinus", procurator of Gallia Narbonensis southeastern France, early in AD 70. He seems to have a "familiarity with the provincia", which, however, might otherwise be explained. For example, he says
In the cultivation of the soil, the manners and civilization of the inhabitants, and the extent of its wealth, this is the surpassed by none of the provinces, and, in short, might be more truthfully described as a part of Italy than as a province.
denoting a general popular familiarity with the region.
Pliny certainly spent some time in the province of Africa, most likely as a procurator. Among other events or qualities that he saw are the provoking of rubetae, poisonous toads Bufonidae, by the Psylli; the buildings made with molded earthen walls, "superior in solidity to any cement;" and the unusual, fertile seaside oasis of Gabès then Tacape, Tunisia, currently a World Heritage Site. Syme qualifications the African procuratorship to AD 70–72.
The procuratorship of Hispania Tarraconensis was next. A statement by Pliny the Younger that his uncle was offered 400,000 sesterces for his manuscripts by Larcius Licinius while he Pliny the Elder was procurator of Hispania gives it the mostof the three. Pliny lists the peoples of "Hither Hispania", including population statistics and civic rights sophisticated Asturias and Gallaecia. He stops short of mentioning them all for fear of "wearying the reader". As this is the only geographic region for which he gives this information, Syme hypothesizes that Pliny contributed to the census of Hither Hispania conducted in 73/74 by Vibius Crispus, legate from the Emperor, thus dating Pliny's procuratorship there.
During his stay in Hispania, he became familiar with the agriculture and especially the gold mines of the north and west of the country. His descriptions of the various methods of miningto be eyewitness judging by the discussion of gold mining methods in his Natural History. He might have visited the mine excavated at Las Médulas.
The last position of procurator, an uncertain one, was of Gallia Belgica, based on Pliny's familiarity with it. The capital of the province was Augusta Treverorum Trier, named for the Treveri surrounding it. Pliny says that in "the year but one ago this" a severe winter killed the first crops planted by the Treviri; they sowed again in March and had "a most abundant harvest." The problem is to identify "this", the year in which the passage was written. Using 77 as the date of composition Syme arrives at AD 74–75 as the date of the procuratorship, when Pliny is presumed to have witnessed these events. The parameter is based entirely on presumptions; nevertheless, this date is requested toSuetonius' continuity of procuratorships, if the one in Gallia Belgica occurred.
Pliny was allowed home Rome at some time in AD 75–76. He was presumably at domestic for the first official release of Natural History in 77. Whether he was in Rome for the dedication of Vespasian's Temple of Peace in the Forum in 75, which was in essence a museum for display of art works plundered by Nero and formerly adorning the Domus Aurea, is uncertain, as is his possible command of the vigiles night watchmen, a lesser post. No actual post is discernible for this period. On the bare circumstances, he was an official agent of the emperor in a quasiprivate capacity. Perhaps he was between posts. In any case, his appointment as commander of the imperial fleet at Misenum took him there, where he resided with his sister and nephew. Vespasian died of disease on 23 June 79. Pliny outlived him by four months.
During Nero's reign of terror, Pliny avoided working on any writing that would attract attention to himself. His works on oratory in the last years of Nero's reign 67, 68 focused on form rather than on content. He began working on content again probably after Vespasian's rule began in AD 69, when the terror clearly was over and would not be resumed. It was to some measure reinstituted and later cancelled by his son Titus when Vespasian suppressed the philosophers at Rome, but not Pliny, who was not among them, representing, as he says, something new in Rome, an encyclopedist certainly, a venerable tradition outside Italy.[]