Caius Plinius Secundus, CE 23-79, Roman naturalist.
Pliny the Elder was the author of Historia naturalis, the principal compendium of
scientific knowledge for the original Augustan age, a work to which Percy Bysshe Shelley
was introduced at Eton. He claimed there to have, for the most part, translated the
encyclopedic work on metallurgy, pharmacology, zoology, anthropology, and psychology
into English.
The Natural History is the only one of Pliny's seven writings to survive antiquity
entire. That work in thirty-seven books was an attempt to survey all natural knowledge
systematically in an unadorned style, and his methodical approach and careful regard
for citation make it a model of ancient scientific research, in spite of Pliny's superstitious
beliefs in magic. Book 1 is an introduction to the entire work. Book 2 addresses cosmology
and astronomy; books 3 through 6 are on geography. The next thirteen books treat biology:
zoology in books 7 through 11, botany in books 12 through 19. Books 20 through 22
address medicine; books 23 through 37 are concerned with metals, minerals, and precious
stones.
Pliny's authority was comparable to Aristotle's throughout the Middle Ages; only in
1492 did he come under attack in Niccolò Leoniceno's catalogue of his errors. From
then on its influence waned by degrees, and few regarded it seriously as science after
the end of the seventeenth century.
Pliny died in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in CE 79, famously described in letters
by his nephew.