IMPERIUM ROMANUM

Figures · Civil war the Flavians and the Antonine empire

RF-065 Pliny the Elder

Regional orientation map combining campaigns with a provincial arrangement around 200 CE.…
Regional orientation map combining campaigns with a provincial arrangement around 200 CE. It must not be read as one simultaneous political map of every dossier. Original cartographic credit is preserved in the plate.

Life and career

Pliny joined military and administrative service to an immense project of collecting knowledge about nature, geography, materials, art, and human societies. His Natural History presents an empire through its substances and marvels as well as its territories: minerals, plants, animals, medicines, luxury goods, and works of art all become objects of classification. Service under Vespasian connected intellectual labor with imperial administration. At the eruption of Vesuvius he commanded the fleet at Misenum and undertook a voyage associated with observation and attempted assistance.

Leadership and historical significance

His death was later narrated by his nephew, giving the episode an unusually influential family account. The dossier should preserve both intellectual ambition and the limits of compilation, including the coexistence of practical information, inherited error, moral criticism, and astonishing reports.

Landmarks

  • First century CE — military and procuratorial service.
  • 77 CE — dedication of Natural History.
  • 79 CE — death during the Vesuvius eruption.

Historical uncertainty

The mechanism of his death is uncertain. He is not Pliny the Younger, the correspondent of Trajan and narrator of the eruption.

Connected dossiers: Vespasian, Titus, Trajan, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus.