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7 results for: Pliny the Elder

Dictionary Entries (1 more entry. View all »)
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)Cite This Source
Plin·y    Audio Help   [plin-ee] Pronunciation Key
–noun
1.(“the Elder”; Gaius Plinius Secundus) a.d. 23–79, Roman naturalist, encyclopedist, and writer.
2.his nephew (“the Younger,” Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus) a.d. 62?–c113, Roman writer, statesman, and orator.
—Related forms
Plin·i·an, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Encyclopedia Articles (4 more entries. View all »)
Columbia Electronic EncyclopediaCite This Source


Pliny the Elder (Caius Plinius Secundus), c.A.D. 23-A.D. 79, Roman naturalist, b. Cisalpine Gaul. He was a friend and fellow soldier of Vespasian, and he dedicated his great work to Titus. He died of asphyxiation in the neighborhood of Vesuvius, having gone to investigate the eruption. His one surviving work is an encyclopedia of natural science (Historia naturalis). It is divided into 37 books and, after a preface, deals with the nature of the physical universe; geography; anthropology; zoology; botany, including the medicinal uses of plants; curatives derived from the animal world; and mineralogy, including an account of the uses of pigments and a history of the fine arts. Pliny's industry was immense and his knowledge of sources extensive, but his information is mostly secondhand and quite useless as science.

See Selections from the History of the World, ed. by P. Turner (1962).

His nephew and ward, Pliny the Younger (Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus), A.D. 62?-c.A.D. 113, was an orator and a statesman. He was quaestor (A.D. 89), tribune (A.D. 91), and praetor (A.D. 93) and subsequently held treasury posts. He was consul (A.D. 100) and died in his proconsular province of Pontus-Bithynia. His fame rests on his letters, written probably for publication, which are an excellent mirror of Roman life.

See his Letters and Panegyricus, tr. by B. Radice (2 vol., 1969); studies by S. E. Stout (1954) and A. N. Sherwin-White (1966).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004, Columbia University Press.
Licensed from Columbia University Press




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