Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE)
As well as being one of the greatest natural historians of his era, Gaius Plinius Secundus was also a lawyer, military commander and author. He was born in Como (or possibly Verona) to a wealthy family, and educated as a lawyer in Rome.
He joined the army in his early twenties as a junior infantry officer, and later served in Germania under the legatus Pomponius Secundus, the governor of Germania Superior, who became a friend and ally.31 He was subsequently promoted to command a cavalry battalion and would have fought in military campaigns in the region.After leaving the army at the age of 29, he returned to Rome and combined a literary career with a return to law. He wrote the twenty-volume History of the German Wars, a narrative history of Rome, and a biography of his friend Pomponius, none of which have survived.
After Nero’s death in 68 CE, instability in Rome followed in the Year of the Four Emperors (69 CE), the last of these being Vespasian. Pliny had been appointed procurator in Nearer Spain by Nero at some unknown date, but returned to Rome on the death of his brother and adopted his nephew (Pliny the Younger) in 70 CE. He was known to, and trusted by, Vespasian since the Germanic wars and was appointed to a number of procuratorships. At some stage in the mid-to-late 70s CE, he was given the post of Prefect of the Roman fleet at Misenum in Italy, which set the scene for Pliny’s dramatic death.
His sole surviving literary work is the Natural History; it is a huge encyclopaedia of the natural sciences written in thirty-seven books and was a tremendous achievement by any standards. The subjects cover astronomy, meteorology, geography, geology, ethnography, anthropology, physiology, zoology, botany, agriculture, pharmacology, medicine, metals, mineralogy and the arts. Books of relevance to spices are Book VI (covering Asia geographically), Books XII and XIII (trees), Book XIX (garden plants), Book XX (remedies from garden plants), Book XXI (flowers), Book XXIII (remedies from cultivated trees) and Book XXIV (remedies from forest trees).
Natural History was probably started during his period of procuratorships under Vespasian and continued up to his death in 79 CE, the book later published by his nephew. His enormous productivity was enabled by his strong motivation and aided by his ability to work at all hours, and especially through the night; he wasted no time and focused all his efforts on his achievements. His nephew (in an epistle to the Roman senator Baebius Macer) observed that ‘he looked upon every moment as lost which was not devoted to study’.He quoted over 470 earlier or contemporary Greek and Roman authors and authorities. For all that, he was not perfect: errors were frequent, myths were perpetuated, but the work is unrivalled in scope from the era of classical antiquity.
Pliny died at age 56 in suitably dramatic circumstances. He was based at Misenum near Pompeii, where he was in command of the fleet during the cataclysmic eruption of nearby Vesuvius in 79 CE. He sailed to help evacuate his friends but was overwhelmed by a cloud of toxic gases and was asphyxiated.