Pliny (GAIUS PLINIIUS SECUNDUS), called the Elder, to distinguish him from his nephew, came of a North Italian stock possessing estates at Novum Comum (Como), where he was born 23 A.D. He claimed to be a compatriot of Catullus, but the reference is too vague to warrant the assumption that their common birthplace was Verona. His education was carried on in Rome, under every advantage of wealth and family connection, till, when about twenty-three years old, he entered the army, serving on the staff of L. Pomponius Secundus, then conducting a campaign in Germany. He became colonel of his regiment (a cavalry one), and while attentive enough to his military duties to make a special study of the throwing of missiles from horseback, on which he wrote a treatise (De Jaculatione Equestri), and to compile a history (afterwards published in twenty books) of the Germanic wars, he gratified his thirst for miscellaneous knowledge by a series of scientific tours, investigating the region between the Ems, the Elbe, and the Weser, and the sources of the Danube. Returning to Rome in 52 with Pomponius, he studied for the bar, at which he practised just long enough to satisfy himself that his aptitudes were not of the forensic order. Accordingly he withdrew to his native Como, and there, during the greater part of Nero's reign, devoted himself to reading and authorship encyclopaedic in their range. Apparently for the guidance of his nephew he wrote in three books his Studiosus, a treatise defining the culture necessary for the orator before entering on his career, and also for his nephew the grammatical work, Dubius Sermo, in eight books. About the close of Nero's life he was appointed procurator (collector of the imperial revenues) in Spain, where in 71 he heard of his brother-in-law's death, by which he became guardian of his sister's son, Pliny the Younger, whom, on his return to Rome two years after, he adopted. Vespasian, by this time emperor, whom he had known in the German campaign, was henceforth his most intimate friend, but court favour did not wean him from study, and so we find him bringing down to his own time, in thirty-one books, the history of Rome, by Aufidius Bassus. A model student, amid metropolitan distraction, he began work by candle-light, in autumn before the day was spent, and in winter by 1 or 2 A.M. Ere dawn he would wait on the emperor and discharge the imperial commissions imposed on him, after which he returned home once more to his books. A slight repast intervening, he resumed work, in summer lying in the sunshine while he took notes or extracts from what was read to him. True to his maxim that no book was so bad but some information might be got from it, he seized every opportunity of jotting down all that interested him either as reader or auditor. A cold bath, followed by a slender meal and a brief siesta, preceded the next spell of work, at which he continued till cena, the Roman dinner, at 3 P.M. Even then he listened to the reading of some book, on which he commented. Such was his life when at court; but at his country seat his studies were uninterrupted—an attendant reading to him even in the bath, or writing to his dictation while he was under the masseur or anointer (aliptas). On his journeys by land or water his secretary with book and tablets was always at hand. By this lifelong application he amassed materials enough to fill the 160 volumes of manuscript written very small on both sides which, after using them for his Historia Naturalis (published 77), he bequeathed to his nephew. His life, uneventful and studious, was quite dramatic in its ending. In 79 he was in command of the Roman fleet stationed off Misenum when the great eruption of Vesuvius was at its height. Eager to witness the phenomenon as closely as possible, he landed at Stabiae (Castellamare), but had not gone far when his frame, corpulent and asthmatic as his nephew tells us, succumbed to the stifling vapours rolling down the hill.
His Historia Naturalis alone of his many writings survives. Under that title the ancients classified everything of natural or non-artificial origin—not only botany, zoology, and mineralogy, but geography, meteorology, and astronomy. Pliny, however, extends even this elastic definition, and adds to his work by digressions on human inventions and institutions, devoting two books to a very valuable, if misplaced, history of fine art. He dedicates the whole to Titus, in a turgid, ill-composed epistle, the low literary level of which is maintained throughout. Nor is his inartistic, sometimes obscure, style redeemed by much scientific faculty in handling his theme. He did not pretend to original research, but the philosophical method which sometimes distinguishes the mere compiler is equally foreign to his pages. His observations, made at second-hand, are presented with no discrimination between the true and the manifestly false, between the probable and the simply marvellous. He can even be convicted of having misunderstood the authorities on whom he relies. But with every deduction made from it as to matter and form, his compilation is a praiseworthy monument of reading at once extensive and minute, and supplies us with information on an immense variety of subjects as to which, but for him, we should have remained in the dark.
The most convenient text for the student is that of Jan and Mayhoff (6 vols. Leip. 1857-75), which embodies the best results of the recensions by Sillig and Detlefsen. The Chrestomathia Pliniana (Berlin, 1857) of the great archæologist Ulrichs is particularly valuable for its comments on fine art; while of translations the soundest and most readable is that of Littre, in French, published along with the original Latin (Paris, 1848-50).