PLINIO IL VECCHIO — P. in his study and depiction of the world according to the author himself. Miniature from the Historia naturalis, cod. Vat. lat. 1956, fol. 30 (15th cent.) — Vatican Library.
“do you condemn them because you do not have them tried? and if you do not try them, why do you not acquit them?”) but it was practically understandable, given the spread of Christianity in Asia Minor at the dawn of the 2nd century; this rule restricted cases of persecution, placing their burden upon individual and non-anonymous accusers.
Nicola Turchi
PLINY the ELDER (Caius Plinius Secundus). - Scholar, born in Como in 23 A.D., died near Misenum on 24 August 79 A.D. during the eruption of Vesuvius that buried Stabiae, Herculaneum, and Pompeii. He studied in Rome under the rhetorician and tragedian Pomponius Secundus, fought in Germany, held various positions in public administration, and was ultimately prefect of the fleet at Misenum.
A typical representative of the Flavian era, averse to political struggles, a devoted official to authority, and a spirit enamored of erudition, he wrote on a wide variety of subjects: military technique (De iaculatione equestri), rhetoric (Studiosi libri III and Dubii sermonis libri VIII), history (De vita Pomponii Secundi [his teacher]; Bellorum Germaniae libri XX and A fine Aufidii Bassi libri XXXI [a work that connected to the lost one by Aufidius Bassus, perhaps from the end of Tiberius' reign to at least 71]; but his most important work, and the only one preserved, is the Naturalis historia, dedicated to Emperor Titus, published in 36 books in 77 and later posthumously reissued by his nephew Pliny the Younger in 37 books (this is the version handed down to us). It is an immense compendium of information, drawn, according to Pliny himself, from 2000 volumes (scrolls, that is, books: the works would have been little more than a hundred), by a hundred different authors (Pliny cites, however, about 500, evidently at second hand): it treats cosmography and astronomy (bks. II), geography (bks. III-IV), anthropology (bk. VII), zoology (bks. VIII-IX), botany (bks. XII-XIX), medicine (bks. XX-XXXII), mineralogy and the figurative arts in relation to the materials they used (bks. XXXIII-XXXVII).
Pliny surpasses his predecessors (Cato, Varro, Cornelius Celsus) in the mass of materials collected, but lacks organic systematization: in him there is the curiosity of the scholar, not the genius of the thinker (indeed, diverse doctrines converge in him without blending), so that his work, far from the powerful synthesis of the Aristotelian encyclopedia, is valuable essentially as a source of information, though one cannot deny the author a certain personality, especially in style. Despite the professed disdain for transcendence, the Naturalis historia exerted, more or less directly, a very broad influence on ancient culture from Solinus (late 3rd century) to the anonymous author of the so-called Medicina Plinii (4th century), and throughout the Middle Ages, perhaps on Cassiodorus (v.), certainly on Isidore of Seville (v.) and the various Treasuries of the following centuries.