Pliny the Elder

Unlike many of the prominent figures in Greek medicine, Pliny the Elder was a Roman. He was born in late AD 23, during the principate of Tiberius, a period of great political unrest, mutiny within the legions, and rivalries in the struggle for imperial power. His birthplace Novum Comum, a town mixed population in Transpadane Gaul.

He went to Rome at an early age. When he was about 23 years old he entered the army, serving in a campaign in Germany. Returning to Rome, he devoted himself to scholarly study and writing.

He complied an encyclopedic work dealing with around 900 herbs, The Natural History. It was published in AD 77, is the best surviving example of the genre.

Its contents are much broader than we might expect since for him ‘natural history; encompassed all of life – not only the natural world of plants and animals but also astronomy, meteorology, medicine, geology, geography and much about human beings.

Written with somewhat less rigour and care for detail than was De Materia Medica, it reflected the use of folk medicines by those who could not afford the services of a physician and was more readable that the herbal of Dioscorides.

Though he was not a physician, he gave much attention to medical studies an as a compiler, has materially contributed to human knowledge of the profession among the ancients.

Pliny was less selective than Dioscorides and like Theophrastus, had no hesitation in incorporating magical and superstitious material.

For aver 500 years after the fall of Rome it was the principal source of medical knowledge in many parts of Europe.

Pliny’s death date is well known since he was killed in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE.
Pliny the Elder