Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23 – August 25, AD 79), better known as Pliny the Elder (/ˈplɪni/), was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian. Spending most of his spare time studying, writing or investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field, he wrote an encyclopedic work, Naturalis Historia, which became a model for all other encyclopedias. Pliny the Younger, his nephew, wrote of him in a letter to the historian Tacitus: For my part I deem those blessed to whom, by favour of the gods, it has been granted either to do what is worth writing of, or to write what is worth reading; above measure blessed those on whom both gifts have been conferred. In the latter number will be my uncle, by virtue of his own and of your compositions. Pliny is referring to the fact that Tacitus relied on his uncle's now missing work on the History of the German Wars. Pliny the Elder died on August 25, AD 79, whilst attempting to rescue Pomponianus (a friend of Pliny's) and his family from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that had just destroyed the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. When Pliny arrived, Pomponianus had packed his bags ready for a swift getaway, but having arrived, Pliny merely commanded a bath to be drawn. It is subtly implied in Pliny the Younger's letter to Tacitus (The death of my Uncle), that Pliny drew this bath to allow time for him to decide what to do next. However, it is also implied that he felt the necessity to bath because he thought it would help his asthma. For in his letter, Pliny the Younger describes how anybody walking past the room in which Pliny was bathing (the door was closed) could hear his wheezing. Therefore, it is thought that Pliny commanded a bath not only to gather a revised plan, but furthermore to recuperate himself somewhat. From this we know that the toxic gas was already beginning to take effect on Pliny. It is known that when the pumice stones began to fall seemingly 'from the sky', Pliny the Elder and the entire team on his ship, tied pillows to their heads and fastened them with thin strips of linen. Pliny the Younger makes sure to detail this, which implies that he wanted his uncle's meticulous, creative and perhaps even thoughtful (as he provided pillows to his slaves too) to be conveyed properly. The unfavourable prevailing wind would not allow his ship to leave the shore, and thus away from the toxic fumes. His companions attributed his collapse and death on the beach at Stabiae to toxic fumes, but they were unaffected by the fumes, as Pliny had asthma and therefore was affected more severely. Pliny's dates are pinned to the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 and a statement of his nephew that he died in his 56th year, which would put his birth in AD 23 or 24. Pliny was the son of an equestrian, Gaius Plinius Celer, and his wife, Marcella. Neither the younger nor the elder Pliny mention the names. Their ultimate source is a fragmentary inscription (CIL V 1 3442) found in a field in Verona and recorded by the 16th-century Augustinian monk Onofrio Panvinio at Verona. The reading of the inscription depends on the reconstruction, but in all cases the names come through. Whether he was an augur and whether she was named Grania Marcella are less certain. Jean Hardouin presents a statement from an unknown source that he claims was ancient, that Pliny was from Verona and that his parents were Celer and Marcella. Hardouin also cites the conterraneity of Catullus. Additional efforts to connect Celer and Marcella with other gentes are highly speculative. Hardouin is the only scholar to use his unknown source. How the inscription got to Verona is a mystery, but it could have arrived by dispersion of property from Pliny the Younger's then Tuscan (now Umbrian) estate at Colle Plinio, north of Città di Castello, identified for certain by his initials in the roof tiles. He kept statues of his ancestors there. Pliny the Elder was born in Como, not at Verona: it is only as a native of old Gallia Transpadana that he calls Catullus of Verona his conterraneus, or fellow-countryman, not his municeps, or fellow-townsman. A statue of Pliny on the facade of the Duomo of Como celebrates him as a native son. He had a sister, Plinia, who married into the Caecilii and was the mother of his nephew, Pliny the Younger, whose letters describe his work and study regimen in detail.

• published: 26 Apr 2015
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