Post by Christopher Martin on Oct 1, 2016 20:16:32 GMT
THE CONTEXT OF PLINY THE ELDER
Virgil, Livy, and Pliny the Elder were all roughly contemporary with each other, their collective texts being composed between 32 and 78 A.D. For quick reference, this is the early imperial age: Julius' Caesar's coup had by then replaced the Republic, and his death had merely meant that other emperor's would follow. While we're still some weeks away from tracing the history of that period, suffice for now to say that we'll get there, and progress more with the history of Rome next week (if you flip back to last week's history lecture, we left off in the 200s BC, with Rome being the newly minted masters of Italy).
THE LIFE OF PLINY THE ELDER (23-79 AD)
Gaius Plinius Secundus was a successful Roman administrator of the equestrian order, as well as a writer of a boundless, indeed reckless, curiosity that finally killed him. Although he also wrote a history of the German wars, the work which has survived is his Natural History.
It consists of 37 volumes that represent an encyclopedia of Graeco-Roman knowledge of the universe, humanity, animals, trees, birds and plants, while also covering in detail medicine and the arts. Pliny claimed to have recorded over 20,000 noteworthy facts in the immense work. The historian Edward Gibbon later described it as "An immense register of the discoveris, the arts and the errors of mankind," for Pliny sometimes seems credulous to modern eyes. In books III to VI, Pliny deals with geography and later volumes cover his views on biology and botany. His views, like those of many Latin writers, came to be regarded as almost infallible in the Middle ages.
As a commander of the fleet at Misenum near Naples during Vesuvius' eruption in AD79, Pliny tried without success to investigate it and to organize relief efforts but was probably asphyxiated on shore by volcanic gasses.
As always, please feel free to ask questions.
Virgil, Livy, and Pliny the Elder were all roughly contemporary with each other, their collective texts being composed between 32 and 78 A.D. For quick reference, this is the early imperial age: Julius' Caesar's coup had by then replaced the Republic, and his death had merely meant that other emperor's would follow. While we're still some weeks away from tracing the history of that period, suffice for now to say that we'll get there, and progress more with the history of Rome next week (if you flip back to last week's history lecture, we left off in the 200s BC, with Rome being the newly minted masters of Italy).
THE LIFE OF PLINY THE ELDER (23-79 AD)
Gaius Plinius Secundus was a successful Roman administrator of the equestrian order, as well as a writer of a boundless, indeed reckless, curiosity that finally killed him. Although he also wrote a history of the German wars, the work which has survived is his Natural History.
It consists of 37 volumes that represent an encyclopedia of Graeco-Roman knowledge of the universe, humanity, animals, trees, birds and plants, while also covering in detail medicine and the arts. Pliny claimed to have recorded over 20,000 noteworthy facts in the immense work. The historian Edward Gibbon later described it as "An immense register of the discoveris, the arts and the errors of mankind," for Pliny sometimes seems credulous to modern eyes. In books III to VI, Pliny deals with geography and later volumes cover his views on biology and botany. His views, like those of many Latin writers, came to be regarded as almost infallible in the Middle ages.
As a commander of the fleet at Misenum near Naples during Vesuvius' eruption in AD79, Pliny tried without success to investigate it and to organize relief efforts but was probably asphyxiated on shore by volcanic gasses.
As always, please feel free to ask questions.