Pliny the Elder mother Marcella
Life and times
Background
Pliny's dates are pinned to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 and a statement by his nephew that he died in his 56th year, which would put 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. Their ultimate source 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 commonly accepted reconstruction isPLINIVS SECVNDVS AVGV. LERI. PATRI. MATRI. MARCELLAE. TESTAMENTO FIERI IVSSO
Plinius Secundus augur ordered this to be made 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. Whether he was an augur and whether she was named Grania Marcella are less certain. Jean Hardouin presents a statement 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.
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