A version of the Phaenomena of Aratus is extant, the author of which is called in the MSS. ‘Claudius Caesar,’ or ‘Germanicus.’ He is generally identified with Germanicus, the adopted son of Tiberius (so Jerome and Lactantius), though in modern times the poem has been ascribed to Domitian, who had the title of ‘Germanicus’ from A.D. 84. There are also fragments of Prognostica, which are independent of Aratus.
PLINY THE ELDER.
(1) LIFE.
There is a very brief life of Pliny by Suetonius, but most of our information about him is derived from his own writings and the letters of his nephew (Plin. Ep. iii. 5; v. 8; vi. 16; vi. 20).
C. Plinius Secundus was born A.D. 23 or 24, for at the time of his death in A.D. 79 he was in his fifty-sixth year (Plin. Ep. iii. 5, 7, ‘decessisse anno sexto et quinquagesimo’). His birthplace was Comum in Cisalpine Gaul, according to Sueton. vit. Plin. In an anonymous Life he is styled ‘Veronensis,’ probably on account of the phrase in N.H. praef. 1, ‘Catullum conterraneum meum,’ where, however, terra means Gallia, the province, not the city.
Pliny was the son of an eques, and had a sister married to L. Caecilius of Novum Comum (see [p. 139]). He came to Rome not later than A.D. 35 (N.H. xxxvii. 81, ‘Servilii Noniani quem consulem vidimus’), and was trained in poetry and literature, probably by P. Pomponius Secundus[82]; his instructors in rhetoric are not known, but he mentions as rhetoricians Remmius Palaemon (xiv. 49) and Arellius Fuscus (xxxiii. 152). In botany he learned much from Antonius Castor (xxv. 9).
At the beginning of the reign of Claudius, Pliny was an eye-witness of the building operations at the harbour of Ostia, A.D. 42 (ix. 14): in 44 he practised in the law courts. Having decided on a military career, he would begin, according to the regulation of Claudius (Sueton. Claud. 25), with the command of a cohort of infantry. He was next praefectus alae (Plin. Ep. iii. 5, 3) under Corbulo, who was legatus of Germania Inferior, A.D. 47, in his campaign against the Chauci: cf. N.H. xvi. 2, ‘Sunt vero in septemtrione visae nobis Chaucorum [gentes]’; and in A.D. 50 fought under Pomponius against the Chatti. His ‘castrense contubernium’ with Titus (born A.D. 41) was probably in 55 or 56, when he was in the army of Pompeius Paulinus: cf. xxxiii. 143, ‘Pompeium Paulinum XII pondo argenti habuisse apud exercitum ferocissimis gentibus oppositum scimus.’ Personal knowledge of Germany appears in several passages of the N.H., e.g. xii. 98, ‘extremo in margine imperii, qua Rhenus adluit, vidi’; xxii. 8, ‘quem morem etiam nunc durare apud Germanos scio.’
Pliny was present at the festivities at Lake Fucinus in A.D. 52 (xxxiii. 63). During Nero’s reign he spent some time in Campania (ii. 180) and Cisalpine Gaul (xxxv. 20), was a spectator at the Vatican games in A.D. 59, and saw the building of Nero’s golden house after the fire of A.D. 64 (xxxvi. iii).
Under Vespasian Pliny was procurator in Italy, and in several of the provinces: Sueton. vit., ‘Procurationes splendidissimas et continuas summa integritate administravit.’ (a) Hispania Tarraconensis: Plin. Ep. iii. 5, 17, ‘cum procuraret in Hispania’; (b) Gallia Narbonensis: N.H. ii. 150, ‘ego vidi in Vocontiorum agro’; (c) Gallia Belgica: xviii. 183, ‘nec recens subtrahemus exemplum in Treverico agro tertio ante hoc anno compertum’; (d) Africa: vii. 36, ‘ipse in Africa vidi.’ For his intimacy with Vespasian cf. Plin. Ep. iii. 5, 9, ‘ante lucem ibat ad Vespasianum imperatorem ... inde ad delegatum sibi officium.’
In A.D. 79 Pliny was in command of the fleet at Misenum, when his scientific interest in the eruption of Vesuvius led him to approach too near the volcano, with the result that he was suffocated by the ashes (24th August). For a detailed account of his death, see Plin. Ep. vi. 16 (to Tacitus). Cf. Sueton. vit., ‘Periit clade Campaniae. Cum enim Misenensi classi praeesset, et flagrante Vesuvio ad explorandas propius causas liburnica pertendisset, neque adversantibus ventis remeare posset, vi pulveris ac favillae oppressus est, vel, ut quidam existimant, a servo suo occisus, quem aestu deficiens ut necem sibi maturaret oraverit.’