The Boys' and Girls' Pliny

The Boys' and Girls' Pliny - Being parts of Pliny's "Natural History" edited for boys and girls, with an Introduction

In the little village of Como, in that province of Northern Italy called by the Romans Gaul-this-side-the-Alps, was born, twenty-three years after the coming of our Lord, Caius Plinius Secundus, known to us by the shorter name of Pliny. His boyhood was spent in his native province, but we find him in Rome in his sixteenth year attending the lectures of Apion, the grammarian. Like Herodotus he became a great traveller for those days, visiting Africa, Egypt and Greece, and in his twenty-third year he served in Germany under Pomponius Secundus, by whom he was greatly beloved, and was soon promoted to the command of a troop of cavalry. He appears to have remained in the army, journeying about extensively in Germany and Gaul, until he was twenty-eight years old, when he returned to Rome and devoted himself to the study of law. But his natural taste for literary work speedily developed itself, and, abandoning his forensic pursuits, he set to work upon a life of his friend Pomponius and an account of The Wars in Germany, which filled twenty books when completed, no part of which is now extant. In the reign of Nero, Pliny was appointed procurator, or comptroller of the revenue, in Nearer Spain. During his absence upon this mission his brother-in-law, Caius Ccilius, died, leaving one son, a boy ten years of age, Caius Plinius Ccilius Secundusafterwards a famous lawyer and the author of the Letterswhom he adopted immediately upon his return from Spain, A.D. 70. To this nephew we are indebted for nearly all we know of Plinys personal character and mode of life, a very entertaining description of which he gives in a letter to his friend, Baebius Macer: It gives me great pleasure to find you such a reader of my uncles works as to wish to have a complete collection of them, and to ask me for the names of them all. I will act as index then, and you shall know the very order in which they were written, for the studious reader likes to know this. The first work of his was a treatise in one volume, On the Use of the Dart by Cavalry; this he wrote when in command of one of the cavalry corps of our allied troops. It is drawn up with great care and ingenuity. Next came The Life of Pomponius Secundus, in two volumes. Pomponius had a great affection for him, and my uncle thought he owed this tribute to his memory. The History of the Wars in Germany was in twenty books, in which he gave an account of all the battles we were engaged in against that nation. A dream he had while serving in the army in Germany first suggested the design of this work to him. He imagined that Drusus Nero, who extended his conquests very far into that country, and there lost his life, appeared to him in his sleep, and entreated him to rescue his memory from oblivion. Next comes a work entitled The Student, in three parts, which from their length spread into six volumes: a work in which is discussed the earliest training and subsequent education of the orator. His Questions of Latin Grammar and Style, in eight books, was written in the latter part of Neros reign, when the tyranny of the times made it dangerous to engage in literary pursuits requiring freedom and elevation of tone. He completed the history which Aufidius Bassus left unfinished, and added to it thirty books. And lastly he has left thirty-seven books on Natural History, a work of great compass and learning, and as full of variety as nature herself. You will wonder how a man as busy as he was could find time to compose so many books, and some of them, too, involving such care and labor. But you will be still more surprised when you hear that he pleaded at the bar for some time, that he died in his fifty-sixth year, and that the intervening xv time was employed partly in the execution of the highest official duties, and partly in attendance upon those emperors who honored him with their friendship. But he had a quick apprehension, marvellous power of application, and was of an exceedingly wakeful temperament. He always began to study at midnight at the time of the feast of Vulcan, not for the sake of good luck, but for learnings sake; in winter generally at one in the morning, but never later than two, and often at twelve. He was a most ready sleeper, insomuch that he would sometimes, whilst in the midst of his studies, fall off and then wake up again. Before day-break he used to wait upon Vespasian, who also used his nights for transacting business in, and then proceed to execute the orders he had received. As soon as he returned home, he gave what time was left to study. After a short and light refreshment at noon, agreeably to the good old custom of our ancestors, he would frequently in the summer, if he was disengaged from business, lie down and bask in the sun; during which time some author was read to him, while he took notes and made extracts, for out of every book he read he made extracts; indeed it was a maxim of his, that no book was so bad but some good might be got out of it. When this was over, he generally took a cold bath, then some slight refreshment and a little nap. After this, as if it had been a new day, he studied till supper-time, when a book was again read to him, from which he would take down running notes. I remember once when his reader had mis-pronounced a word, one of my uncles friends at the table made him go back to where the word was and repeat it; upon which my uncle said to his friend, You understood it, didnt you? Yes, said the other. Why then, said he, did you make him go over it again? We have lost more than ten lines by this interruption. Such an economist he was of time! In the summer he used to rise from supper by daylight, and in winter as soon as it was dark: a rule he observed as strictly as if it had xvi been a law of the state. Such was his manner of life amid the bustle and turmoil of the town: but in the country his whole time was devoted to study, except only when in the bath. When I say in the bath I mean while he was in the water, for all the while he was being rubbed and wiped, he was employed either in hearing some book read to him or in dictating himself. In going about anywhere, as though he were disengaged from all other business, he applied his mind wholly to that single pursuit. Always by his side was a short-hand[1] writer, with book and tablets, who, in the winter, wore a particular sort of warm gloves, that the sharpness of the weather might not occasion any interruption to my uncles studies: and for the same reason, when in Rome, he was always carried in a chair. I recollect his once taking me to task for walking. You need not, he said, lose these hours. For he looked upon every hour as lost that was not given to study. Through this extraordinary application he found time to compose the several treatises I have mentioned, besides one hundred and sixty volumes of extracts which he left me in his will, consisting of a kind of common-place, written on both sides, in a very small hand, which renders the collection doubly voluminous. He used himself to tell us that when he was comptroller of the revenue in Spain, he could have sold these manuscripts to Largius Licinus for four hundred thousand sesterces ($16,000), and then the collection was not so extensive as now. When you consider the books he has read, and the volumes he has written, are you not inclined to suspect that he never was engaged in public duties or was ever in the confidence of his prince? On the other hand, xvii when you are told how indefatigable he was in his studies, are you not inclined to wonder that he read and wrote no more than he did? For, on one side, what obstacles would not the business of a court throw in his way? and on the other, what might not such intense application effect? It amuses me when I hear myself called a studious man, who in comparison with him am the merest idler. But why do I mention myself, who am diverted from these pursuits by numberless affairs both public and private? Who among those whose whole lives are devoted to literary pursuits would not blush and feel himself the most confirmed of sluggards by the side of him? I see I have run out my letter farther than I had originally intended, which was only to let you know, as you asked me, what works he had left behind him. But I trust this will be no less acceptable to you than the books themselves, as it may, possibly, not only excite your curiosity to read his works, but also your emulation to copy his example, by some attempts of a similar nature. Farewell. In his great work of thirty-seven books upon Natural Historythe only one which has come down to usPliny has compiled a vast encyclopdia of all human knowledge of his time, comprising more than twenty thousand subjects, and necessitating, as he himself states, the perusal of two thousand volumesalmost all of which have perishedthe works of five hundred authors, to which he has added countless matters derived from his personal enquiry, experience and observation. Among his enthusiastic admirers in modern times are the eminent naturalists, Cuvier and Buffon. The former in less extravagant but equally appreciative terms accords to Pliny a high place among the writers of classical antiquity. The work of Pliny, he says, is one of the most precious monuments that have come down to us from ancient times, and affords proof of an astonishing amount of erudition in one who was a warrior and a statesman. To appreciate with justice this vast and celebrated composition, it is necessary xviii to regard it in several points of viewwith reference to the plan proposed, the facts stated, and the style employed. The plan proposed by the writer is of immense extentit is his object to write not simply a Natural History in our restricted sense of the term, not an account merely, more or less detailed, of animals, plants, and minerals, but a work which embraces astronomy, physics, geography, agriculture, commerce, medicine, and the fine artsand all these in addition to natural history properly so called; while at the same time he continually interweaves with his narrative information upon the arts which bear relation to man considered metaphysically, and the history of nations,so much so indeed, that in many respects this work was the Encyclopdia of its age. It was impossible in running over, however cursorily, such a prodigious number of subjects, that the writer should not have made us acquainted with a multitude of facts, which, while remarkable in themselves, are the more precious from the circumstance that at the present day he is the only author extant who relates them. It is to be regretted however that the manner in which he has collected and grouped this mass of matter, has caused it to lose some portion of its value, from his mixture of fable with truth. But if Pliny possesses little merit as a critic, it is far otherwise with his talent as a writer, and the immense treasury which he opens to us of Latin terms and forms of expression: these, from the very abundance of the subjects upon which he treats, render his work one of the richest repositories of the Roman language. Wherever he finds it possible to give expression to general ideas or to philosophical views, his language assumes considerable energy and vivacity, and his thoughts present to us a certain novelty and boldness which tend in a very great degree to relieve the dryness of his enumerations, and, with the majority of his readers, excuse the insufficiency of his scientific indications. He is always noble and serious, full of the love of justice and virtue, detestation of cruelty and baseness, xix of which he had such frightful instances before his eyes, and contempt for that unbridled luxury which in his time had so deeply corrupted the Roman people. For these great merits Pliny cannot be too highly praised, and despite the faults which we are obliged to admit in him when viewed as a naturalist, we are bound to regard him as one of the most meritorious of the Roman writers, and among those most worthy to be reckoned in the number of the classics who wrote after the reign of Augustus. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 58589
Author: Pliny, the Elder
Release Date: Jan 1, 2019
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Editor: White, John S. (John Stuart), 1847-1922