PLINIUS Secundus, C., a celebrated Roman writer, but who is to be distinguished from his nephew, Pliny the younger. He was born a. d. 23, in the tenth year of Tiberius, and died on the 2d of November, a. d. 80, the first year of the Emperor Titus, and the day after the eruption of Mount λ r esuvius. Two cities contend for the honour of giving birth to him; but the inhabitants of Novum Comum, now Como, seem to have a better claim to him as their fellow-citizen than those of Verona. His earlier years were spent under the profligate reign of Caligula and Claudius, but he does not appear to have mingled in the dissolute scenes of those times. Though he devoted himself to the study of literature, he did not withdraw himself from the active business of life. It appears that he served his first military campaign in Africa, probably about his twenty-third year, and that he afterwards spent some time in Germany, under his friend and commander L. Pomponius Secundus, whom we find in Tacitus to have triumphed over the Catti. It was about this time, a. d. 48, that he published his work entitled De Jaculatione Equestri ; and as Pomponius died shortly after his triumph, Pliny performed the mournful though pleasing duty of transmitting to posterity the transactions of his friend, in a work entitled Pomponii Vita. He next devoted himself to forensic duties, and displayed the same activity and zeal in defending the causes of his fellow-citizens, as he had before done in maintaining the honour of his country by arms. It seems probable that at this time he published his work Studiorum Tres Libri, divided into six volumes, which was a manual for the formation of an orator, a subject which was subsequently treated by Quintilian. He also published another work, Germanica Della, in which he gave a detailed account of the wars of Drusus and Germanicus. In the reign of Nero, Pliny was employed in Spain as Procurator Caesaris; an equestrian dignity, but with the duties of which we are by no means well acquainted. He employed his leisure hours in making a selection of passages from various authors, called Electorum Commentarii, which on his death he left, to the number of one hundred and sixty, to his nephew. He also published, about a. d. 67, a grammatical work, Dubii Sermonis Libri Octo ; and thirty-one books of History, which was a continuation of that of Aufidius Bassus, who seems to have written an account of the civil wars. Pliny became the intimate friend of Vespasian and his son Titus; and it was in the reign of the former, a. d. 77, that he published his celebrated work, Historia Naturalis, in thirty-seven books. Two years afterwards, Pliny was stationed at Misenum, in Campania, in command of the fleet; and when the eruption of Vesuvius broke out, he hurried towards it, to assist bis friends, and to examine more minutely this wonderful phenomenon of nature. But he fell a victim to his thirst for knowledge; being suffocated by the sulphureous exhalations, as he was approaching the mountain from the side of Stabiae, now Castellarnare.

The work for which he is most distinguished is his Natural History, the materials for which he has drawn from upwards of two thousand authors, which have generally disappeared. It was divided into thirty-six books, with a dedication to Titus, and a kind of index of the whole; but these are now considered as the first book. The second book contains introductory remarks on astronomy and meteorology; and from the third to the sixth inclusive we have a description of the earth, the lands and their inhabitants, being a sort of universal geography, though it is frequently nothing more than a simple enumeration of names. Then follows the Natural History, beginning with the animal kingdom, which occupies from the seventh to the eleventh books; then botany from the twelfth to the nineteenth. With the twentieth begins his account of the medicinal qualities of various herbs, which extends to the twenty-seventh; and then of the medicines which may be prepared from animals, to the thirty-second. The remaining books are occupied with the mineral kingdom, in which he takes occasion to introduce much curious information respecting the fine arts, sculpture, painting, &c.; and concludes with an account of the most celebrated artists and their works. Cuvier, who was so well able to judge of the value of such a work, thus expresses himself. “Ce grand ouvrage est le scule de Pline qui soit arrivé jusqu’à nous. Il est en même temps l’un des monumens les plus précieux que l’antiquité nous ait laissés, et la preuve d’une érudition bien étonnante dans un homme de guerre et un homme d’état. Pour apprécier avec justice cette vaste et célèbre composition, il est nécessaire d’y distinguer le plan, les faits, et le style. Le plan en est immense. Pline ne se propose point d’écrire sculement one Histoire Naturelle dans le sens restreint où nous prenons aujourd’hui cette science, c’est-à-dire, [7:18:59]un traité, plus ou moins détaillé, des animaux, des plantes, et des minéraux; il embrasse l’astronomie, la physique, la géographie, l’agriculture, le commerce, la médecine, et les arts, aussi bien que l’Histoire Naturelle proprement dite; et il mêle sans cesse à ce qu’il en dit des traits relatif, à la connaissance morale de Thomme, et à Thistoire des peuples, en sorte qu’à beaucoup d’égards on a pu dire de cet ouvrage qu’il était l’Encyclopédie de son temps Pline n’a point été un observateur tel qu’Aristote; encore moins un homme de génie, capable, comme ce grand philosophe, de saisir les lois et les rapports d’après lesquels la nature a co-ordonné ses productions. Il n’est en général qu’un compilateur, et même le plus souvent un compilateur qui, n’ayant point par lui-même d’idée des choses sur lesquelles il rassemble les témoignages des autres, n’a pu apprécier la vérité de ces témoignages, ni même toujours comprendre ce qu’ils avaient voulu dire Si Pline a pour nous au jourd’hui peu de mérite comme critique et comme naturaliste, il n’en est pas de même de son talent comme écrivain, ni du trésor immense de termes et de locutions Latines dont l’abondance des matières l’a obligé de se servir, et qui ont fait de son ouvrage l’un des plus riches dépôts de la langue des Romains. Malgré les défauts que nous sommes obligés de lui reconnaitre quand nous le considérons comme naturaliste, nous ne le regardons pas moins comme l’un des auteurs les plus recommandables et les plus dignes d’être placés au nombre des classiques parmi ceux qui ont écrit après le règne d’Auguste.”

The best edition of Pliny is that edited by Cuvier, assisted by other learned men in France, and published by Lemaire, Paris, 1827-1832, ten vols.