Pliny

Pliny is a name associated with two prominent Roman writers of the first century CE: Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger. They were uncle and nephew, both named Gaius Plinius with the family surname Secundus. Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus) was a Roman author, naturalist, and administrator born in 23 CE in Novum Comum (modern Como). He held various positions in the Roman administration and wrote Naturalis Historia, a comprehensive encyclopedia compiled into 37 books, covering fields such as astronomy, geography, zoology, botany, mineralogy, and art. The work sought to record the knowledge of the natural world and was widely used in antiquity and the Middle Ages as a reference.

Pliny the Younger (Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus) was born around 61 CE in Comum. He became a lawyer, magistrate, and author whose surviving letters, collected as Epistulae, provide detailed portraits of Roman administrative practices, social life, and contemporary politics. He corresponded with emperors, notably Trajan, and his Panegyric to Trajan is among the best-known pieces praising the emperor. He also wrote memoirs and other literary works, and his style influenced later Latin prose.

The name Pliny thus refers to both figures and is used in modern scholarship to distinguish Pliny the Elder, the naturalist and encyclopedist, from Pliny the Younger, the letter-writer and imperial administrator. The Younger’s account of the 79 CE eruption of Vesuvius, described in his letters, contributed to the term Plinian to describe the most explosive style of volcanic eruption. His works, along with his uncle’s, shaped classical literature and the transmission of Roman knowledge.