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Home  »  library  »  BIOS  »  Pliny the Elder (23–79 A.D.)

C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Pliny the Elder (23–79 A.D.)

Pliny the Elder, or the Naturalist (Caius Plinius Secundus) (plin’ē). A celebrated Roman compiler of encyclopædic knowledge; born at Novum Comum, the modern Como, 23 A.D.; died 79 A.D. He wrote a ‘Natural History’ in 37 books, compiled, as the author states in the preface, from more than 2,000 volumes. He begins with physics and astronomy, which occupy books 1 and 2; books 3–6 treat of geography; books 7–19 treat of man, the animal kingdom, and plants; in books 20–32 the author notes the medicinal properties of plants; the remaining books are devoted to mineralogy and the medicinal uses of minerals, and to fine art and anecdotes of artists. (See Critical and Biographical Introduction).