He shows no special aptitude for art criticism; in several passages, however, he gives proof of independent observation (xxxiv. 38, 46, 63, xxxv. 17, 20, 116 seq.) He prefers the marble Laocoon in the palace of Titus to all the pictures and bronzes in the world (xxxvi. 37); in the temple near the Flaminian Circus he admires the Ares and the Aphrodite of Scopas, “which would suffice to give renown to any other spot.” “At Rome indeed (he adds) the works of art are legion ; besides, one effaces another from the memory and, however beautiful they may be, we are distracted by the overpowering claims of duty and business; for to admire art we need leisure and profound stillness” ibid. 26–27).
Like many of the finest spirits under the early empire, Pliny was an adherent to the Stoics. He was acquainted with their noblest representative, Thrasea Paetus, and he also came under the influence of Seneca. The Stoics were given to the study of nature, while their moral teaching was agreeable to one who, in his literary work, was unselfishly eager to benefit and to instruct his contemporaries (Praef. 16, xxviii. 2, xxix. 1). He was also influenced by the Epicurean and the Academic and the revived Pythagorean school! But his view of nature and of God is essentially Stoic. It was only (he declares) the weakness of humanity that had embodied the Being of God in many human forms endued with human faults and vices (ii. 148). The Godhead was really one; it was the soul of the eternal world, displaying its beneficence on the earth, as well as in the sun and stars (ii. 12 seq., 154 seq.). The existence of a divine Providence was uncertain (ii. 19), but the belief in its existence and in the punishment of wrong-doing was salutary (ii. 26); and the reward of virtue consisted in the elevation to Godhead of those who resembled God in doing good to man (ii. 18, Deus est mortali juvare mortalem, et haec ad aeternam gloriam via). It was wrong to inquire into the future and do violence to nature by resorting to magical arts (ii. 114, xxx. 3); but the significance of prodigies and portents is not denied (ii. 92, 199, 232). Pliny’s view of life is gloomy; he regards the human race as plunged in ruin and in misery (ii. 24, vii. 130). Against luxury and moral corruption he indulges in declamations, which are so frequent that (like those of Seneca) they at last pall upon the reader; and his rhetorical flourishes against practically useful inventions (such as the art of navigation) are wanting in good sense and good taste (xix. 6).
With the proud national spirit of a Roman he combines an admiration of the virtues by which the republic had attained its greatness (xvi. 14, xxvii. 3, xxxvii. 201). He does not suppress historical facts unfavourable to Rome (xxxiv. 139), and while he honours eminent members of distinguished Roman houses, he is free from Livy’s undue partiality for the aristocracy. The agricultural classes and the old landlords of the equestrian order (Cincinnatus, Curius Dentatus, Serranus and the Elder Cato) are to him the pillars of the state; and he bitterly laments the decline of agriculture in Italy (xviii. 21 and 35, latifundia perdidere Italiam) . Accordingly, for the early history of Rome, he prefers following the prae-Augustan writers; but he regards the imperial power as indispensable for the government of the empire, and he hails the salutaris exortus Vespasiani (xxxiii. 51). At the conclusion of his literary labours, as the only Roman who had ever taken for his theme the whole realm of nature, be prays for the blessing of the universal mother on his completed work.
In literature he assigns the highest place to Homer and to Cicero (xvii. 37 seq.); and the next to Virgil. He takes a keen interest in nature, and in the natural sciences, studying them in a way that was then new in Rome, while the small esteem in which studies of this kind were held does not deter him from endeavouring to be of service to his fellow countrymen (xxii. 15). The scheme of his great work is vast and comprehensive, being nothing short of an encyclopaedia of learning and of art so far as they are connected with nature or draw their materials from it. With a view to this work he studied the original authorities on each subject and was most assiduous in making excerpts from their pages. His indices auctorum are, in some cases, the authorities which he has actually consulted (though in this respect they are not exhaustive); in other cases, they represent the principal writers on the subject, whose names are borrowed second-hand for his immediate authorities. He frankly acknowledges his obligations to all his predecessors in a phrase that deserves to be proverbial (Praef. 21, plenum ingenui pudoris fateri per quos profeceris). He had neither the temperament for original investigation, nor the leisure necessary for the purpose. It is obvious that one who spent all his time in reading and in writing, and in making excerpts from his predecessors, had none left for mature and independent thought, or for patient experimental observation of the phenomena of nature. But it must not be forgotten that it was his scientific curiosity as to the phenomena of the eruption of Vesuvius that brought his life of unwearied study to a premature end; and any criticism of his faults of omission is disarmed by the candour of the confession in his preface: nec dubitamus multa esse quae et nos praeterierint; homines enim sumus et occupati officiis.
His style betrays the unhealthy influence of Seneca. It aims less at clearness and vividness than at epigrammatic point. It abounds not only in antitheses, but also in questions and exclamations, tropes and metaphors, and other mannerisms of the silver age. The rhythmical and artistic form of the sentence is sacrificed to a passion for emphasis that delights in deferring the point to the close of the period. The structure of the sentence is also apt to be loose and straggling. There is an excessive use of the ablative absolute, and ablative phrases are often appended in a kind of vague “apposition” to express the author’s own opinion of an immediately previous statement, e.g. xxxv. 80, dixit (Apelles) ... uno se praestare, quod manum de tabula sciret tollere, memorabili praecepto nocere saepe nimiam diligentiam.
About the middle of the 3rd century an abstract of the geographical portions of Pliny’s work was produced by Solinus; and, early in the 4th, the medical passages were collected in the Medicina Plinii Early in the 8th we find Bede in possession of an excellent MS. of the whole work. In the 9th Alcuin sends to Charles the Great for a copy of the earlier books (Epp. 103, Jaffé); and Dicuil gathers extracts from the pages of Pliny for his own Mensura orbis terrae (c. 825). Pliny’s work was held in high esteem in the middle ages. The number of extant MSS. is about 200; but the best of the more ancient MSS., that at Bamberg, contains only books xxxii.–xxxvii. Robert of Cricklade, prior of St Frideswide at Oxford, dedicated to Henry II. a Defloratio consisting of nine books of selections taken from one of the MSS. of this class, which has been recently recognized as sometimes supplying us with the only evidence for the true text. Among the later MSS. the codex Vesontinus, formerly at Besançon (11th century), has been divided into three portions, now in Rome, Paris and Leiden respectively, while there is also a transcript of the whole of this MS. at Leiden.
In modern times the work has been the theme of a generous appreciation in several pages of Humboldt’s Cosmos (ii. 195–199, E. T., 1848). Jacob Grimm, in the first paragraph of c. 37 of his Deutsche Mythologie, writing with his own fellow-countrymen in view, has commended Pliny for condescending, in the midst of his survey of the sciences of botany and zoology, to tell of the folklore of plants and animals, and has even praised him for the pains that he bestowed on his style. It may be added that a special interest attaches to his account of the manufacture of the papyrus (xiii. 68–83), and of the different kinds of purple dye (ix. 130), while his description of the notes of the nightingale is an elaborate example of his occasional felicity of phrase (xxix. 81 seq.). Most of the recent research on Pliny has been concentrated on the investigation of his authorities, especially those which he followed in his chapters on the history of art—the only ancient account of that subject which has survived.
A carnelian inscribed with the letters C. Plin. has been reproduced by Cades (v. 211) from the original in the Vannutelli collection. It represents an ancient Roman with an almost completely bald forehead and a double chin; and is almost certainly a portrait, not of Pliny the Elder, but of Pompey the Great. Seated statues of both the Plinies, clad in the garb of scholars of the year 1500, maybe seen in the niches on either side of the main entrance to the cathedral church of Como. The elder Pliny’s anecdotes of Greek artists supplied Vasari with the subjects of the frescoes which still adorn the interior of his former home at Arezzo.
Bibliography.— Editions by Hermolaus Barbarus (Rome, 1492); Dalccampius (Lyons, 1587); Gronovius (Leiden, 1669); Hardouin (Paris, 1685); Franz (Leipzig, 1778–1791); Sillig. with index by O. Schneider (Gotha, 1853–1855); L. von Jan (Leipzig, 1854–1865); D. Detlefsen (Berlin, 1866–1873). and critical edition of the geographical books (Berlin, 1905); Mayhoff (Leipzig, 1906–); Eng. trans., Philemon Holland (London, 1601); French, Littré (1855); Chrestomalhia Pliniana, L. Urlichs, with excellent Einleitung (Berlin, 1857); The Elder Pliny’s Chapters on the History
