page_title: Pliny the Elder
section_title: Senior officer
hierarchical_section_title: Pliny the Elder / Life and times / Senior officer
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Porta Nigra in Trier, besterhaltenes römisches Bauwerk nördlich der Alpen, UNESCO Weltkulturerbe, English: Porta Nigra (Black Gate) in Trier, Germany, best preserved Roman building north of the Alps, and World Heritage Site of UNESCO Français&#160;: La Porta Nigra («&#160;Porte Noire&#160;») de Trèves, en Allemagne, est le bâtiment romain le mieux préservé au nord des Alpes, et un site classé au Patrimoine mondial de l'UNESCO. Español: La Porta Nigra (Puerta Negra) de Tréveris (Alemania) es la construcción romana mejor conservada al norte de los Alpes. Pertenece al Patrimonio mundial de la UNESCO.
context_page_description: Gaius Plinius Secundus, called Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, a naturalist and natural philosopher, a naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic Naturalis Historia, which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. He spent most of his spare time studying, writing, and investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field.
  His nephew, Pliny the Younger, wrote of him in a letter to the historian Tacitus:
  For my part I deem those blessed to whom, by favour of the gods, it has been granted either to do what is worth writing of, or to write what is worth reading; above measure blessed those on whom both gifts have been conferred. In the latter number will be my uncle, by virtue of his own and of your compositions.
  Pliny the Younger refers to Tacitus’s reliance upon his uncle's book, the History of the German Wars.
  Pliny the Elder died in AD 79 in Stabiae while attempting the rescue of a friend and his family by ship from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which had already destroyed the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
context_section_description: 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 administration all the loyalty and assistance he could find. Pliny, apparently trusted without question, perhaps (reading between the lines) recommended by Vespasian's son Titus, was put to work immediately and was kept in a continuous 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, office holders for its numerous offices.
  Throughout the latter stages of Pliny's life, he maintained good relations with Emperor Vespasian. As is written in the first line of Pliny the Younger's avunculus meus:
  Ante lucem ibat ad Vespasianum imperatorem (nam ille quoque noctibus utebatur), deinde ad officium sibi delegatum.
  Before dawn he was going to the 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") gives 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 ready sleeper, sometimes dropping off in the middle of his studies and then waking up again."
  A definitive study of the procuratorships of Pliny was compiled by the classical scholar Friedrich Münzer, which was reasserted by Ronald Syme and became a standard 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 continuous 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, it is 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 Africa Province, most likely as a procurator. Among other events or features 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 assigns 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 makes it the most certain of the three. Pliny lists the peoples of "Hither Hispania", including population statistics and civic rights (modern 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
caption: The Porta Nigra Roman gate, Trier, Germany
exif: {"Image Make": "PENTAX Corporation", "Image Model": "PENTAX K10D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "96", "Image YResolution": "96", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "K10D Ver 1.30", "Image DateTime": "2008:06:18 06:54:05", "Image Artist": "Berthold Werner", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "Public Domain", "Image ExifOffset": "46782", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 0, 33, 0, 1, 0, 22, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "96", "Thumbnail YResolution": "96", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "47250", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5382", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/350", "EXIF FNumber": "8", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:06:18 06:54:05", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:06:18 06:54:05", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-1", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "26", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3728", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2548", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "47220", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Bracket", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "39", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "3"}