Roman encyclopedic writer whose extant writing lies on the boundary between the science and the pseudoscience of his times. He was born into a wealthy equestrian family and died during the eruption of Vesuvius by breathing in sulfurous fumes while making scientific observations at too-close quarters. Pliny was a man of great industry and thirst for knowledge; he always found time to read, write, and collect information during his crowded career (first, he practiced at the bar, then he was on military service, and finally he was an administrator to the state). Most of what he observed, heard, or read was commented upon in his wide-ranging writing: on military science, oratory, grammar, biography, the German Wars, and contemporary Roman history unfortunately now all lost. But fortunately his major work Historia naturalis, the greater part of which was published posthumously, has survived.
The term historia naturalis must be explained: Historia can mean either “history” or “enquiry” as in research; naturalis can mean “belonging to nature” or “to the nature of things.” So although we may translate the title as Natural History, a better title might be Researches into the World. Thus, questions about Pliny’s taxonomy, the strange way in which he seems to categorize his material, should take into account the meaning we today read into his title. Furthermore, the whole text must be seen in the context of his times, when the divisions between the arts, science, and technology were not hard drawn. For example, in the part on minerals and metallurgy, Pliny included information on their use in medicine and in the arts, with a digression at one point on the history of painting. Likewise in the section on geology, he discusses the making of marble statues and the beauty of the works of Phidias.