127-519: Pytheas of Massalia ( / ˈ p ɪ θ i ə s / ; Ancient Greek : Πυθέας ὁ Μασσαλιώτης Pythéās ho Massaliōtēs ; Latin : Pytheas Massiliensis ; born c. 350 BC, fl. c. 320–306 BC) was a Greek geographer , explorer and astronomer from the Greek colony of Massalia (modern-day Marseille , France ). He made a voyage of exploration to Northern Europe in about 325 BC, but his account of it, known widely in antiquity , has not survived and
254-543: A pitch accent . In Modern Greek, all vowels and consonants are short. Many vowels and diphthongs once pronounced distinctly are pronounced as /i/ ( iotacism ). Some of the stops and glides in diphthongs have become fricatives , and the pitch accent has changed to a stress accent . Many of the changes took place in the Koine Greek period. The writing system of Modern Greek, however, does not reflect all pronunciation changes. The examples below represent Attic Greek in
381-444: A "familiarity with the provincia ", which, however, might otherwise be explained. For example, he says In the cultivation of the soil, the manners and civilization of the inhabitants, and the extent of its wealth, it is surpassed by none of the provinces, and, in short, might be more truthfully described as a part of Italy than as a province. denoting a general popular familiarity with the region. Pliny certainly spent some time in
508-527: A bath. In winter, he furnished the copier with gloves and long sleeves so his writing hand would not stiffen with cold (Pliny the Younger in avunculus meus ). His extract collection finally reached about 160 volumes, which Larcius Licinius, the Praetorian legate of Hispania Tarraconensis, unsuccessfully offered to purchase for 400,000 sesterces. That would have been in 73/74 (see above). Pliny bequeathed
635-555: A brother ( Domitian ) and joint offices with a father, calling that father "great", points certainly to Titus. Pliny also says that Titus had been consul six times. The first six consulships of Titus were in 70, 72, 74, 75, 76, and 77, all conjointly with Vespasian, and the seventh was in 79. This brings the date of the Dedication probably to 77. In that year, Vespasian was 68. He had been ruling conjointly with Titus for some years. The title imperator does not indicate that Titus
762-674: A campaign against the Germans (a practice which would not have endeared him to the disciplined Pliny). According to his nephew, during this period, he wrote his first book (perhaps in winter quarters when more spare time was available), a work on the use of missiles on horseback, De Jaculatione Equestri ("On the Use of the Dart by Cavalry"). It has not survived, but in Natural History , he seems to reveal at least part of its content, using
889-789: A class of insensate sea animal; specifically the halipleumon ("salt-water lung"). William Ogle, a major translator and annotator of Aristotle, attributes the name sea-lung to the lung-like expansion and contraction of the Medusae , a kind of Cnidaria , during locomotion. The ice resembled floating circles in the water. The modern English term for this phenomenon is pancake ice . The association of Pytheas' observations with drift ice has long been standard in navigational literature, including Nathaniel Bowditch's American Practical Navigator , which begins Chapter 33, Ice Navigation , with Pytheas. At its edge, sea, slush , and ice mix, surrounded by fog . Strabo said that Pytheas gave an account of "what
1016-453: A continuous succession. Consequently, Plinian scholars present two to four procuratorships, the four comprising (i) Gallia Narbonensis in 70, (ii) Africa in 70–72, (iii) Hispania Tarraconensis in 72–74, and (iv) Gallia Belgica in 74–76. According to Syme, Pliny may have been "successor to Valerius Paulinus", procurator of Gallia Narbonensis (southeastern France), early in AD 70. He seems to have
1143-521: A frigid zone, and temperate zones where the nights are very short in summer and the sun does not set at the summer solstice , was already known. Similarly, reports of a country of perpetual snow and darkness (the country of the Hyperboreans ) had reached the Mediterranean some centuries before. Pytheas introduced the idea of distant Thule to the geographic imagination, and his account of
1270-477: A lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period. They have the same general outline but differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek , but its relationship to the historical dialects and
1397-419: A lesser degree. Pamphylian Greek , spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence. Regarding the speech of the ancient Macedonians diverse theories have been put forward, but the epigraphic activity and the archaeological discoveries in
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#17327662230001524-634: A parallel 11500 stadia (1305 miles, or 16.4°) north of the mouth of the Borysthenes . The parallel running through that mouth also passes through Celtica and is Pytheas' base line. Using 3700 or 3800 stadia (approximately 420–430 miles or 5.3°–5.4°) north of Marseille for a base line obtains a latitude of 64.8° or 64.9° for Thule, well short of the Arctic Circle. It is in fact the latitude of Trondheim , where Pytheas may have reached land. A statement by Geminus of Rhodes quotes On
1651-591: A personal favor. No earlier instances of the Plinii are known. In 59 BC, only about 82 years before Pliny's birth, Julius Caesar founded Novum Comum (reverting to Comum) as a colonia to secure the region against the Alpine tribes , whom he had been unable to defeat. He imported a population of 4,500 from other provinces to be placed in Comasco and 500 aristocratic Greeks to found Novum Comum itself. The community
1778-550: A prefix /e-/, called the augment . This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is added to the indicative of the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist). The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment
1905-464: A promotion to military tribune , which was a staff position, with duties assigned by the district commander. Pomponius was a half-brother of Corbulo. They had the same mother, Vistilia , a powerful matron of the Roman upper classes, who had seven children by six husbands, some of whom had imperial connections, including a future empress. Pliny's assignments are not clear, but he must have participated in
2032-608: A separate historical stage, though its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek , and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek . There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek; Attic Greek developed into Koine. Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language , divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic , Aeolic , Arcadocypriot , and Doric , many of them with several subdivisions. Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms in literature , while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms. Homeric Greek
2159-533: A severe winter killed the first crops planted by the Treviri; they sowed again in March and had "a most abundant harvest." The problem is to identify "this", the year in which the passage was written. Using 77 as the date of composition Syme arrives at AD 74–75 as the date of the procuratorship, when Pliny is presumed to have witnessed these events. The argument is based entirely on presumptions; nevertheless, this date
2286-630: A standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance . This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language, which are the best-attested periods and considered most typical of Ancient Greek. From the Hellenistic period ( c. 300 BC ), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek , which is regarded as
2413-474: A testament to his father [Ce]ler and his mother [Grania] Marcella The actual words are fragmentary. The reading of the inscription depends on the reconstruction, but in all cases the names come through. Whether he was an augur and whether she was named Grania Marcella are less certain. Jean Hardouin presents a statement from an unknown source that he claims was ancient, that Pliny was from Verona and that his parents were Celer and Marcella. Hardouin also cites
2540-461: A title refers to a section rather than the whole. Mainstream consensus is that there was only one work, "on the Ocean", which was based on a periplus , a type of navigational literature. Pliny said that Timaeus (born about 350 BC) believed Pytheas' story of the discovery of amber . First century BC Strabo said that Dicaearchus (died about 285 BC) did not trust the stories of Pytheas. That
2667-509: A total of 23,800, which in Nansen's view is consistent with 700 stadia per degree. Nansen later states that Pytheas must have stopped to obtain astronomical data. Presumably, the extra time was spent ashore. Using the stadia of Diodorus Siculus, one obtains 42.5 days for the time that would be spent in circumnavigating Britain. It may have been a virtual circumnavigation; see under Thule below. The perimeter, according to Nansen based on
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#17327662230002794-529: A venerable tradition outside Italy). In his next work, Bella Germaniae , Pliny completed the history which Aufidius Bassus left unfinished. Pliny's continuation of Bassus's History was one of the authorities followed by Suetonius and Plutarch . Tacitus also cites Pliny as a source. He is mentioned concerning the loyalty of Burrus , commander of the Praetorian Guard , whom Nero removed for disloyalty. Tacitus portrays parts of Pliny's view of
2921-461: A very ready sleeper, sometimes dropping off in the middle of his studies and then waking up again." A definitive study of the procuratorships of Pliny was compiled by the classical scholar Friedrich Münzer , which was reasserted by Ronald Syme and became a standard reference point. Münzer hypothesized four procuratorships, of which two are certainly attested and two are probable but not certain. However, two does not satisfy Suetonius' description of
3048-510: A vowel or /n s r/ ; final stops were lost, as in γάλα "milk", compared with γάλακτος "of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in both the inventory and distribution of original PIE phonemes due to numerous sound changes, notably the following: The pronunciation of Ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek . Ancient Greek had long and short vowels ; many diphthongs ; double and single consonants; voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops ; and
3175-575: A wing", responsible for a cavalry battalion of about 480 men. He spent the rest of his military service there. A decorative phalera , or piece of harness, with his name on it has been found at Castra Vetera , modern Xanten, then a large Roman army and naval base on the lower Rhine. Pliny's last commander there, apparently neither a man of letters nor a close friend of his, was Pompeius Paullinus , governor of Germania Inferior AD 55–58. Pliny relates that he personally knew Paulinus to have carried around 12,000 pounds of silver service on which to dine in
3302-585: A writer (whose works did not survive) in Germania Inferior . In AD 47, he took part in the Roman conquest of the Chauci and the construction of the canal between the rivers Maas and Rhine . His description of the Roman ships anchored in the stream overnight having to ward off floating trees has the stamp of an eyewitness account. At some uncertain date, Pliny was transferred to the command of Germania Superior under Publius Pomponius Secundus with
3429-577: Is 7,723 miles (12,429 km) (see Geography of the United Kingdom ). Pytheas could have travelled any perimeter between that number and Diodorus'. Polybius added that Pytheas said he traversed the whole of Britain on foot, of which he, Polybius, was skeptical. Despite Strabo's conviction of a lie, the perimeter said to have been given by Pytheas is not evidence of it. The issue of what he did say can never be settled until more fragments of Pytheas's writings are found. The first known written use of
3556-570: Is a literary form of Archaic Greek (derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic) used in the epic poems , the Iliad and the Odyssey , and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects. The origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of
3683-418: Is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with r , however, add er ). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel: Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e → ei . The irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of s between vowels, or that of the letter w , which affected
3810-548: Is all the information that survives concerning the date of Pytheas' voyage. Henry Fanshawe Tozer estimated that Pytheas' voyage occurred about 330 BC, derived from three main sources. Pytheas was the first documented Mediterranean mariner to reach the British Isles. The start of Pytheas's voyage is unknown. The Carthaginians had closed the Strait of Gibraltar to all ships from other nations. Some historians, mainly of
3937-596: Is beyond the Rhine as far as Scythia", which he, Strabo, thought was false. In the geographers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire, such as Ptolemy , Scythia stretched eastward from the mouth of the river Vistula ; thus Pytheas must have described the Germanic coast of the Baltic Sea ; if the statement is true, there are no other possibilities. As to whether he explored it in person, he said that he explored
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4064-666: Is called 'East Greek'. Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian Greek had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, as exemplified in the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar who wrote in Doric with a small Aeolic admixture. Thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to
4191-458: Is carried in spring by currents, being an excretion consisting of solidified brine. He adds that the inhabitants of the region use it as fuel instead of wood and sell it to the neighbouring Teutones . His belief is shared by Timaeus, who, [c. 356-260] however, calls the island Basilia. Philemon denies the suggestion that amber gives off a flame. Ancient Greek Ancient Greek ( Ἑλληνῐκή , Hellēnikḗ ; [hellɛːnikɛ́ː] ) includes
4318-448: Is considered by some linguists to have been closely related to Greek . Among Indo-European branches with living descendants, Greek is often argued to have the closest genetic ties with Armenian (see also Graeco-Armenian ) and Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ). Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and other Indo-European languages in certain ways. In phonotactics , ancient Greek words could end only in
4445-474: Is no way to tell which standard foot was in effect. The English foot is an approximation. Strabo wanted to discredit Pytheas on the grounds that 40,000 stadia is outrageously high and cannot be real. Diodorus Siculus gave a similar number: 42,500 stadia, about 4,830 miles (7,770 km), and explains that it is the perimeter of a triangle around Britain. The consensus has been that he probably took his information from Pytheas through Timaeaus . Pliny gave
4572-736: Is not known. From the time of the Roman Empire all the possibilities were suggested repeatedly by each generation of writers: Iceland , Shetland , the Faroe Islands , Norway and later Greenland . A manuscript variant of a name in Pliny has abetted the Iceland theory: Nerigon instead of Berrice , which sounds like Norway. If one sails west from Norway one encounters Iceland. Burton himself espoused this theory. The standard texts have Berrice presently, as well as Bergos for Vergos in
4699-592: Is now known only through the writings of others. On this voyage, he circumnavigated and visited a considerable part of the British Isles . He was the first known Greek scientific visitor to see and describe the Arctic, polar ice , and the Celtic and Germanic tribes. He is also the first person on record to describe the midnight sun . The theoretical existence of some Northern phenomena that he described, such as
4826-472: Is probably the same as the topoi ("places") mentioned in Strabo's apparent description of spring drift ice, which would have stopped his voyage further north and was for him the ultimate limit of the world. Strabo says: Pytheas also spoke of the waters around Thule and of those places where land properly speaking no longer exists, nor sea nor air, but a mixture of these things, like a "marine lung", in which it
4953-603: Is required to achieve Suetonius' continuity of procuratorships, if the one in Gallia Belgica occurred. Pliny was allowed home (Rome) at some time in AD 75–76. He was presumably at home for the first official release of Natural History in 77. Whether he was in Rome for the dedication of Vespasian's Temple of Peace in the Forum in 75, which was in essence a museum for display of art works plundered by Nero and formerly adorning
5080-455: Is trained from his very cradle and perfected." It was followed by eight books entitled Dubii sermonis ( Of Doubtful Phraseology ). These are both now lost works . His nephew relates: "He wrote this under Nero, in the last years of his reign, when every kind of literary pursuit which was in the least independent or elevated had been rendered dangerous by servitude." In 68, Nero no longer had any friends and supporters. He committed suicide, and
5207-708: The Greek region of Macedonia during the last decades has brought to light documents, among which the first texts written in Macedonian , such as the Pella curse tablet , as Hatzopoulos and other scholars note. Based on the conclusions drawn by several studies and findings such as Pella curse tablet , Emilio Crespo and other scholars suggest that ancient Macedonian was a Northwest Doric dialect , which shares isoglosses with its neighboring Thessalian dialects spoken in northeastern Thessaly . Some have also suggested an Aeolic Greek classification. The Lesbian dialect
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5334-726: The Pisonian conspiracy to kill Nero and make Piso emperor as "absurd" and mentions that he could not decide whether Pliny's account or that of Messalla was more accurate concerning some of the details of the Year of the Four Emperors . Evidently Pliny's extension of Bassus extended at least from the reign of Nero to that of Vespasian. Pliny seems to have known it was going to be controversial, as he deliberately reserved it for publication after his death: It has been long completed and its accuracy confirmed; but I have determined to commit
5461-598: The Sicilian Wars with a treaty defining their mutual interests. Rome could use Sicilian markets, Carthage could buy and sell goods at Rome, and slaves taken by Carthage from allies of Rome were to be set free. Rome was to stay out of the western Mediterranean, but these terms did not apply to Massalia, which had its own treaty. During the second half of the 4th century BC, the time of Pytheas' voyage, Massaliotes were presumably free to operate as they pleased; there is, at least, no evidence of conflict with Carthage in any of
5588-463: The Skagerrak . If this is his route, in all likelihood he did not actually circumnavigate Britain, but returned along the coast of Germany, accounting for his somewhat larger perimeter. Concerning the location of Thule, a discrepancy in data caused subsequent geographers some problems, and may be responsible for Ptolemy 's distortion of Scotland . Strabo reported that Eratosthenes places Thule at
5715-516: The circuitus reported by Pytheas as 4,875 Roman miles . The explorer Fridtjof Nansen explained this apparent fantasy of Pytheas as a mistake of Timaeus. Strabo and Diodorus Siculus never saw Pytheas' work, says Nansen, but they and others read of him in Timaeus. Pytheas reported only days' sail. Timaeus converted days to stadia at the rate of 1,000 per day, a standard figure of the times. However, Pytheas only sailed 560 stadia per day for
5842-501: The present , future , and imperfect are imperfective in aspect; the aorist , present perfect , pluperfect and future perfect are perfective in aspect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice. The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually, at least)
5969-522: The tides is the earliest one known that suggests the moon as their cause. Pytheas described his travels in a work that has not survived; only excerpts remain, quoted or paraphrased by later authors. Much of what is known about Pytheas comes from commentary written by historians during the classical period hundreds of years after Pytheas's journeys occurred, most familiarly in Strabo 's Geographica (late 1st century BC, or early 1st century AD), passages in
6096-476: The world history written by Diodorus of Sicily between 60 and 30 BC, and Pliny's Natural History (AD 77). Diodorus did not mention Pytheas by name. The association is made as follows: Pliny reported that "Timaeus says there is an island named Mictis … where tin is found, and to which the Britons cross." Diodorus said that tin was brought to the island of Ictis , where there was an emporium . The last link
6223-427: The 19th century tended to interpret these titles as the names of distinct works covering separate voyages; for example, Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology hypothesizes a voyage to Britain and Thule written about in "Ocean" and another from Cadiz to the river Don , written about in "Sail Around". As is common with ancient texts, multiple titles may represent a single source, for example, if
6350-405: The 23,800 stadia, was 2,375 miles (3,822 km). This number is in the neighborhood of what a triangular perimeter ought to be, but it cannot be verified against anything Pytheas may have said, nor was Diodorus Siculus very precise about the locations of the legs. The "perimeter" is often translated as "coastline", but this translation is misleading. The coastline, following all the bays and inlets,
6477-1031: The 5th century BC. Ancient pronunciation cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but Greek from the period is well documented, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general nature of the sounds that the letters represent. /oː/ raised to [uː] , probably by the 4th century BC. Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages , is highly inflected. It is highly archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European forms. In ancient Greek, nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases ( nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , and vocative ), three genders ( masculine , feminine , and neuter ), and three numbers (singular, dual , and plural ). Verbs have four moods ( indicative , imperative , subjunctive , and optative ) and three voices (active, middle, and passive ), as well as three persons (first, second, and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of tenses and aspect (generally simply called "tenses"):
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#17327662230006604-495: The Archaic period of ancient Greek (see Homeric Greek for more details): Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή· ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. The beginning of Apology by Plato exemplifies Attic Greek from
6731-753: The Classical period of ancient Greek. (The second line is the IPA , the third is transliterated into the Latin alphabet using a modern version of the Erasmian scheme .) Ὅτι [hóti Hóti μὲν men mèn ὑμεῖς, hyːmêːs hūmeîs, Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24–79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( / ˈ p l ɪ n i / PLIN -ee ),
6858-691: The Domus Aurea, is uncertain, as is his possible command of the vigiles (night watchmen), a lesser post. No actual post is discernible for this period. On the bare circumstances, he was an official agent of the emperor in a quasiprivate capacity. Perhaps he was between posts. In any case, his appointment as commander of the imperial fleet at Misenum took him there, where he resided with his sister and nephew. Vespasian died of disease on 23 June 79. Pliny outlived him by four months. During Nero's reign of terror, Pliny avoided working on any writing that would attract attention to himself. His works on oratory in
6985-546: The Elder decided to investigate the eruption of Mount Vesuvius , and was sidetracked by the need for rescue operations and a messenger from his friend asking for assistance. Pliny's father took him to Rome to be educated in lawmaking. Pliny relates that he saw Marcus Servilius Nonianus . In AD 46, at about age 23, Pliny entered the army as a junior officer, as was the custom for young men of equestrian rank. Ronald Syme , Plinian scholar, reconstructs three periods at three ranks. Pliny's interest in Roman literature attracted
7112-632: The Firth of Clyde is now northern Scotland. To get this country south of Britain to conform to Strabo's interpretation of Pytheas, Ptolemy has to rotate Scotland by 90°. The 5000 stadia must be discounted: it crosses the Borysthenes upriver near Kyiv rather than at the mouth. It does place Pytheas on the Arctic Circle, which in Norway is south of the Lofoten islands . It seems that Eratosthenes altered
7239-568: The Greeks in the Trojan War . Opposite Europe in Diodorus is the promontory ( akrōtērion ) of Kantion ( Kent ), 100 stadia, about 11 miles (18 km), from the land, but the text is ambiguous: "the land" could be either Britain or the continent. Four days' sail beyond that is another promontory, Belerion , which can only be Cornwall , as Diodorus is describing the triangular perimeter and
7366-558: The Mediterranean outside floor of sun-baked mud and manufactured a drink, possibly mead . After mentioning the crossing ( navigatio ) from Berrice to Tyle , Pliny made a brief statement that: A Tyle unius diei navigatione mare concretum a nonnullis Cronium appellatur . [One day's sail from Thule is the frozen ocean, called by some the Cronian Sea.] The mare concretum appears to match Strabo's pepēguia thalatta and
7493-521: The Ocean as saying: ... the Barbarians showed us the place where the sun goes to rest. For it was the case that in these parts the nights were very short, in some places two, in others three hours long, so that the sun rose again a short time after it had set. Nansen claimed that according to this statement, Pytheas was there in person and that the 21- and 22-hour days must be the customary statement of latitude by length of longest day. He calculates
7620-550: The aorist. Following Homer 's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in poetry , especially epic poetry. The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below. Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. (A few irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) The three types of reduplication are: Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, lambanō (root lab ) has
7747-430: The astronomical author Geminus of Rhodes (1st century BC) mentions τὰ περὶ τοῦ Ὠκεανοῦ ( ta peri tou Okeanou ), literally "things about the Ocean", sometimes translated as "Description of the Ocean", "On the Ocean" or "Ocean"; Marcianus , the scholiast on Apollonius of Rhodes (4th century AD) mentions περίοδος γῆς ( periodos gēs ), a "trip around the earth" or περίπλους ( periplous ), "sail around" . Scholars of
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#17327662230007874-449: The attention and friendship of other men of letters in the higher ranks, with whom he formed lasting friendships. Later, these friendships assisted his entry into the upper echelons of the state; however, he was trusted for his knowledge and ability, as well. According to Syme, he began as a praefectus cohortis , a "commander of a cohort " (an infantry cohort, as junior officers began in the infantry), under Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo , himself
8001-558: The attention of Nero, who was a dangerous acquaintance. Under Nero, Pliny lived mainly in Rome. He mentions the map of Armenia and the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea , which was sent to Rome by the staff of Corbulo in 58. He also witnessed the construction of Nero's Domus Aurea or "Golden House" after the Great Fire of Rome in 64. Besides pleading law cases, Pliny wrote, researched, and studied. His second published work
8128-419: The augment when it was word-initial. In verbs with a preposition as a prefix, the augment is placed not at the start of the word, but between the preposition and the original verb. For example, προσ(-)βάλλω (I attack) goes to προσ έ βαλoν in the aorist. However compound verbs consisting of a prefix that is not a preposition retain the augment at the start of the word: αὐτο(-)μολῶ goes to ηὐ τομόλησα in
8255-542: The base line to pass through the northern extreme of Celtica. Pytheas, as related by Hipparchus, probably cited the place in Celtica where he first made land. If he used the same practice in Norway, Thule is at least somewhere on the entire northwest coast of Norway from Møre og Romsdal to the Lofoten Islands. In his study of Thule, the explorer Richard Francis Burton stated that it had had many definitions over
8382-469: The campaign against the Chatti of AD 50, at age 27, in his fourth year of service. Associated with the commander in the praetorium , he became a familiar and close friend of Pomponius, who also was a man of letters. At another uncertain date, Pliny was transferred back to Germania Inferior. Corbulo had moved on, assuming command in the east. This time, Pliny was promoted to praefectus alae , "commander of
8509-438: The center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. One standard formulation for the dialects is: West vs. non-West Greek is the strongest-marked and earliest division, with non-West in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-West
8636-450: The centuries. Many more authors have written about it than remembered Pytheas. The question of the location of Pytheas' Thule remains. The latitudes given by the ancient authors can be reconciled. The missing datum required to fix the location is longitude : "Manifestly we cannot rely upon the longitude." Pytheas crossed the waters northward from Berrice, in the north of the British Isles, but whether to starboard, larboard, or straight ahead
8763-529: The charge of it to my heirs, lest I should have been suspected, during my lifetime, of having been unduly influenced by ambition. By this means I confer an obligation on those who occupy the same ground with myself; and also on posterity, who, I am aware, will contend with me, as I have done with my predecessors. Pliny's last work, according to his nephew, was the Naturalis Historia ( Natural History ), an encyclopedia into which he collected much of
8890-499: The colonization of Iceland and Greenland by European agriculturalists makes them less likely candidates, as he stated that Thule was populated and its soil was tilled. Concerning the people of Thule Strabo says of Pytheas, but grudgingly: ... he might possibly seem to have made adequate use of the facts as regards the people who live close to the frozen zone, when he says that, ... the people live on millet and other herbs, and on fruits and roots; and where there are grain and honey,
9017-572: The conterraneity (see below) of Catullus . How the inscription got to Verona is unknown, but it could have arrived by dispersal of property from Pliny the Younger 's estate at Colle Plinio , north of Città di Castello , identified with certainty by his initials in the roof tiles. He kept statues of his ancestors there. Pliny the Elder was born at Como , not at Verona: it is only as a native of old Gallia Transpadana that he calls Catullus of Verona his conterraneus , or fellow-countryman, not his municeps , or fellow-townsman. A statue of Pliny on
9144-473: The customs of our forefathers ( veterum more interdiu ). Pliny the Younger wanted to convey that Pliny the Elder was a "good Roman", which means that he maintained the customs of the great Roman forefathers. This statement would have pleased Tacitus. Two inscriptions identifying the hometown of Pliny the Younger as Como take precedence over the Verona theory. One ( CIL V 5262 ) commemorates the younger's career as
9271-444: The dedication. The only certain fact is that Pliny died in AD 79. Natural History is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman Empire and was intended to cover the entire field of ancient knowledge, based on the best authorities available to Pliny. He claims to be the only Roman ever to have undertaken such a work. It encompasses the fields of botany , zoology , astronomy , geology, and mineralogy , as well as
9398-615: The dialect of Sparta ), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including Corinthian ). All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects. After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed, largely based on Attic Greek , but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced most of
9525-443: The economy on a sound footing. He needed in his administration all the loyalty and assistance he could find. Pliny, apparently trusted without question, perhaps (reading between the lines) recommended by Vespasian's son Titus , was put to work immediately and was kept in a continuous succession of the most distinguished procuratorships, according to Suetonius . A procurator was generally a governor of an imperial province. The empire
9652-647: The entire north in person (see under Thule above). As the periplus was a sort of ship's log, he probably did reach the Vistula. According to The Natural History by Pliny the Elder: Pytheas* speaks of an estuary of the Ocean named Metuonis and extending for 750 miles, the shores of which are inhabited by a German tribe, the Guiones. From here it is a day's sail to the Isle of Abalus, to which, he states, amber
9779-423: The etymology for clues about the route he took up the north Atlantic. The word epelthein , at root "come upon", does not imply any specific method, and Pytheas did not elaborate. Pytheas did use the word "whole" and he stated a perimetros ("perimeter") for Britain of more than 40,000 stadia . Using Herodotus' standard of 600 feet (180 m) for one stadium gives 4,545 miles (7,314 km); however, there
9906-458: The exact location of Tartessos . Mention of these places in a journal of the voyage indicates that Pytheas passed through the Straits of Gibraltar and sailed north along the coast of Portugal . Strabo reported that Pytheas said he "travelled over the whole of Britain that was accessible". Because there are scant first-hand sources available regarding Pytheas's journey, historians have looked at
10033-420: The exploitation of those resources. It remains a standard work for the Roman period and the advances in technology and understanding of natural phenomena at the time. His discussions of some technical advances are the only sources for those inventions, such as hushing in mining technology or the use of water mills for crushing or grinding grain. Much of what he wrote about has been confirmed by archaeology . It
10160-500: The extracts to his nephew. When composition of Natural History began is unknown. Since he was preoccupied with his other works under Nero and then had to finish the history of his times, he is unlikely to have begun before 70. The procuratorships offered the ideal opportunity for an encyclopedic frame of mind. The date of an overall composition cannot be assigned to any one year. The dates of different parts must be determined, if they can, by philological analysis (the post mortem of
10287-519: The façade of the Como Cathedral celebrates him as a native son. He had a sister, Plinia, who married into the Caecilii and was the mother of his nephew, Pliny the Younger, whose letters describe his work and study regimen in detail. In one of his letters to Tacitus ( avunculus meus ), Pliny the Younger details how his uncle's breakfasts would be light and simple ( levis et facilis ) following
10414-476: The field. Among Pliny's greatest works was the twenty-volume Bella Germaniae ("The History of the German Wars"), which is no longer extant . Bella Germaniae , which began where Aufidius Bassus ' Libri Belli Germanici ("The War with the Germans") left off, was used as a source by other prominent Roman historians, including Plutarch , Tacitus , and Suetonius . Tacitus may have used Bella Germaniae as
10541-404: The fifth century, Symmachus had little hope of finding a copy. Like Caligula, Nero seemed to grow gradually more insane as his reign progressed. Pliny devoted much of his time to writing on the comparatively safe subjects of grammar and rhetoric. He published a three-book, six-volume educational manual on rhetoric, entitled Studiosus , "The Student". Pliny the Younger says of it: "The orator
10668-673: The forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek ( c. 1400–1200 BC ), Dark Ages ( c. 1200–800 BC ), the Archaic or Epic period ( c. 800–500 BC ), and the Classical period ( c. 500–300 BC ). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers . It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been
10795-561: The historical Dorians . The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians. The Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people – Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and Cypriot, far from
10922-476: The historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form. Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not later than 1120 BC, at the time of the Dorian invasions —and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to
11049-563: The imperial magistrate and details his considerable charitable and municipal expenses on behalf of the people of Como. Another (CIL V 5667) identifies his father Lucius' village as present-day Fecchio (tribe Oufentina), a hamlet of Cantù , near Como. Therefore, Plinia likely was a local girl and Pliny the Elder, her brother, was from Como. Gaius was a member of the Plinia gens : the Insubric root Plina still persists, with rhotacism , in
11176-433: The knowledge of his time. Some historians consider this to be the first encyclopedia written. It comprised 37 books. His sources were personal experience, his own prior works (such as the work on Germania), and extracts from other works. These extracts were collected in the following manner: One servant would read aloud, and another would write the extract as dictated by Pliny. He is said to have dictated extracts while taking
11303-462: The last years of Nero's reign (67–68) focused on form rather than on content. He began working on content again probably after Vespasian's rule began in AD 69, when the terror clearly was over and would not be resumed. It was to some degree reinstituted (and later cancelled by his son Titus) when Vespasian suppressed the philosophers at Rome, but not Pliny, who was not among them, representing, as he says, something new in Rome, an encyclopedist (certainly,
11430-717: The late 19th century and early, speculated that he must have traveled overland to the mouth of the Loire or the Garonne . Others believed that, to avoid the Carthaginian blockade, he may have stayed close to land and sailed only at night, or taken advantage of a temporary lapse in the blockade. An alternate theory is that by the 4th century BC, the western Greeks, especially the Massaliotes, were on amicable terms with Carthage. In 348 BC, Carthage and Rome came to terms over
11557-581: The latitudes to be 64° 32′ and 65° 31′, partially confirming Hipparchus' statement of the latitude of Thule. And yet Strabo said: Pytheas of Massalia tells us that Thule ... is farthest north, and that there the circle of the summer tropic is the same as the Arctic Circle. Eratosthenes extended the latitudinal distance from Massalia to Celtica to 5000 stadia (7.1°), placing the base line in Normandy . The northernmost location cited in Britain at
11684-580: The latter to inherit the entire estate. The adoption is called a "testamental adoption" by writers on the topic, who assert that it applied to the name change only, but Roman jurisprudence recognizes no such category. Pliny the Younger thus became the adopted son of Pliny the Elder after the latter's death. For at least some of the time, however, Pliny the Elder resided in the same house in Misenum with his sister and nephew (whose husband and father, respectively, had died young); they were living there when Pliny
11811-542: The local surname "Prina". He did not take his father's cognomen , Celer, but assumed his own, Secundus. As his adopted son took the same cognomen, Pliny founded a branch, the Plinii Secundi. The family was prosperous; Pliny the Younger's combined inherited estates made him so wealthy that he could found a school and a library, endow a fund to feed the women and children of Como, and own numerous estates around Rome and Lake Como, as well as enrich some of his friends as
11938-542: The modern Celtic languages than its Classical Latin variants. From this Greek spelling, the name is treated a feminine noun. "Britain" is most like Welsh Ynys Prydein , "the island of Britain", in which is a P-Celtic cognate of Q-Celtic Cruithne in Irish Cruithen- tuath , "land of the Picts". The base word is Scottish/Irish cruth , Welsh pryd , meaning "form". The British were the "people of forms", with
12065-467: The movements of the horse to assist the javelin -man in throwing missiles while astride its back. During this period, he also dreamed that the spirit of Drusus Nero begged him to save his memory from oblivion. The dream prompted Pliny to begin forthwith a history of all the wars between the Romans and the Germans, which he did not complete for some years. At the earliest time that Pliny could have left
12192-508: The older dialects, although the Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language , which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek . By about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosed into Medieval Greek . Phrygian is an extinct Indo-European language of West and Central Anatolia , which
12319-413: The people get their beverage, also, from them. As for the grain, he says, – since they have no pure sunshine – they pound it out in large storehouses, after first gathering in the ears thither; for the threshing floors become useless because of this lack of sunshine and because of the rains. What he seems to be describing is an agricultural country that used barns for threshing grain rather than
12446-487: The perfect stem eilēpha (not * lelēpha ) because it was originally slambanō , with perfect seslēpha , becoming eilēpha through compensatory lengthening. Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by i . A nasal stop appears after the reduplication in some verbs. The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek writing ( c. 1450 BC ) are in
12573-547: The primary source for his work, De origine et situ Germanorum ("On the Origin and Situation of the Germans"). Pliny the Elder died in AD 79 in Stabiae while attempting the rescue of a friend and her family from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius . Pliny's dates are pinned to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 and a statement by his nephew that he died in his 56th year, which would put his birth in AD 23 or 24. Pliny
12700-586: The province of Africa , most likely as a procurator. Among other events or features that he saw are the provoking of rubetae , poisonous toads ( Bufonidae ), by the Psylli ; the buildings made with molded earthen walls, "superior in solidity to any cement;" and the unusual, fertile seaside oasis of Gabès (then Tacape), Tunisia, currently a World Heritage Site . Syme assigns the African procuratorship to AD 70–72. The procuratorship of Hispania Tarraconensis
12827-539: The reader". As this is the only geographic region for which he gives this information, Syme hypothesizes that Pliny contributed to the census of Hither Hispania conducted in 73/74 by Vibius Crispus, legate from the Emperor, thus dating Pliny's procuratorship there. During his stay in Hispania, he became familiar with the agriculture and especially the gold mines of the north and west of the country. His descriptions of
12954-468: The reign of terror was at an end, as was the interlude in Pliny's obligation to the state. At the end of AD 69, after a year of civil war consequent on the death of Nero, Vespasian , a successful general, became emperor. Like Pliny, he had come from the equestrian class, rising through the ranks of the army and public offices and defeating the other contenders for the highest office. His main tasks were to re-establish peace under imperial control and to place
13081-535: The river Rhône , where it was carried down to the mouth. Diodorus said that the inhabitants of Cornwall were civilized in manner and especially hospitable to strangers because of their dealings with foreign merchants. The first written reference to Scotland was in 320 BC by Pytheas, who called the northern tip of Britain "Orcas", the source of the name of the Orkney islands . Strabo, taking his text from Polybius, related that "Pytheas asserts that he explored in person
13208-530: The same list of islands. The Scandiae islands are more of a problem, as they could be Scandinavia, but other islands had that name as well. Moreover, Procopius says ( De Bello Gothico , Chapter 15) that the earlier name of Scandinavia was Thule and that it was the home of the Goths . The fact that Pytheas returned from the vicinity of the Baltic favors Procopius's opinion. The fact that Pytheas lived centuries before
13335-495: The scholars). The closest known event to a single publication date, that is, when the manuscript was probably released to the public for borrowing and copying, and was probably sent to the Flavians, is the date of the Dedication in the first of the 37 books. It is to the imperator Titus. As Titus and Vespasian had the same name, Titus Flavius Vespasianus, earlier writers hypothesized a dedication to Vespasian. Pliny's mention of
13462-549: The sense of shapes or pictures, thought to refer to their practice of tattooing or war painting. The Roman word Picti , "the Picts", means "painted". This etymology suggests Pytheas most likely did not have much interaction with the Irish as their language was Q-Celtic. Rather, Pytheas brought back the P-Celtic form from more geographically accessible regions where Welsh or Breton are spoken presently. Furthermore, some proto-Celtic
13589-478: The service, Nero , the last of the Julio-Claudian dynasty , had been emperor for two years. He did not leave office until AD 68, when Pliny was 45 years old. During that time, Pliny did not hold any high office or work in the service of the state. In the subsequent Flavian dynasty , his services were in such demand that he had to give up his law practice, which suggests that he had been trying not to attract
13716-423: The sources that mention the voyage. The early part of Pytheas' voyage was outlined by statements of Eratosthenes that Strabo said are false because they were taken from Pytheas. Apparently, Pytheas said that tides ended at the "sacred promontory" ( Hieron akrōtērion , or Sagres Point ), and from there to Gades is said to be 5 days' sail. Strabo complained about this distance, and about Pytheas' portrayal of
13843-467: The summer tropic is the same as the Arctic Circle (see below on Arctic Circle). Moreover, said Strabo, none of the other authors mention Thule, a fact which he used to discredit Pytheas, but which to moderns indicates Pytheas was the first explorer to arrive there and tell of it. Thule was described as an island six days' sailing north of Britain, near the frozen sea ( pepēguia thalatta , "solidified sea"). Pliny added that it had no nights at midsummer when
13970-489: The sun was passing through the sign of the Crab (at the summer solstice), a reaffirmation that it is on the Arctic Circle. He added that the crossing to Thule started at the island of Berrice , "the largest of all", which may be Lewis in the outer Hebrides . If Berrice was in the outer Hebrides, the crossing would have brought Pytheas to the coast of Møre og Romsdal or Trøndelag , Norway , explaining how he managed to miss
14097-517: The syllabic script Linear B . Beginning in the 8th century BC, however, the Greek alphabet became standard, albeit with some variation among dialects. Early texts are written in boustrophedon style, but left-to-right became standard during the classic period. Modern editions of ancient Greek texts are usually written with accents and breathing marks , interword spacing , modern punctuation , and sometimes mixed case , but these were all introduced later. The beginning of Homer 's Iliad exemplifies
14224-483: The third point is Orkas , presumably the main island of the Orkney Islands. The inhabitants of Cornwall were involved in the manufacture of tin ingots . They mined the ore, smelted it and then worked it into pieces in the shape of knuckle-bones, after which it was transported to the island of Ictis by wagon, which could be done at low tide. Merchants that purchased it there packed it on horses for 30 days to
14351-513: The various methods of mining appear to be eyewitness judging by the discussion of gold mining methods in his Natural History . He might have visited the mine excavated at Las Médulas . The last position of procurator, an uncertain one, was of Gallia Belgica , based on Pliny's familiarity with it. The capital of the province was Augusta Treverorum ( Trier ), named for the Treveri surrounding it. Pliny says that in "the year but one before this"
14478-456: The whole northern region of Europe as far as the ends of the world." Strabo did not believe it but he explained what Pytheas meant by the ends of the world. Thoulē , he said (now spelled Thule ; Pliny the Elder uses Tyle ; Vergil references ultima Thule in Georgic I, Line 30, where the ultima refer to the end of the world) is the most northerly of the British Isles. There the circle of
14605-521: The word Britain was an ancient Greek transliteration of the original P-Celtic term. It is believed to have appeared within a periplus by Pytheas, but no copies of this work survive. The earliest existing records of the word are quotations of the periplus by later authors, such as those within Strabo's Geographica , Pliny's Natural History and Diodorus of Sicily's Bibliotheca historica . According to Strabo, Pytheas referred to Britain as Bretannikē , which shares more similarities with spellings in
14732-493: Was The Life of Pomponius Secundus , a two-volume biography of his old commander, Pomponius Secundus. Meanwhile, he was completing his monumental work, Bella Germaniae , the only authority expressly quoted in the first six books of the Annales of Tacitus , and probably one of the principal authorities for the same author's Germania . It disappeared in favor of the writings of Tacitus (which are far shorter), and, early in
14859-480: Was Aeolic. For example, fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos are in Aeolian. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including Cretan Doric ), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including Laconian ,
14986-503: Was a Roman author, naturalist , natural philosopher , and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire , and a friend of the emperor Vespasian . He wrote the encyclopedic Naturalis Historia ( Natural History ), a comprehensive thirty-seven-volume work covering a vast array of topics on human knowledge and the natural world, which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. He spent most of his spare time studying, writing, and investigating natural and geographic phenomena in
15113-457: Was going to Emperor Vespasian (for he also made use of the night), then he did the other duties assigned to him. In this passage, Pliny the Younger conveys to Tacitus that his uncle was ever the academic, always working. The word ibat (imperfect, "he used to go") gives a sense of repeated or customary action. In the subsequent text, he mentions again how most of his uncle's day was spent working, reading, and writing. He notes that Pliny "was indeed
15240-470: Was next. A statement by Pliny the Younger that his uncle was offered 400,000 sesterces for his manuscripts by Larcius Licinius while he (Pliny the Elder) was procurator of Hispania makes it the most certain of the three. Pliny lists the peoples of "Hither Hispania", including population statistics and civic rights (modern Asturias and Gallaecia ). He stops short of mentioning them all for fear of "wearying
15367-401: Was perpetually short of, and was always seeking, officeholders for its numerous offices. Throughout the latter stages of Pliny's life, he maintained good relations with Emperor Vespasian. As is written in the first line of Pliny the Younger's Avunculus Meus : Ante lucem ibat ad Vespasianum imperatorem (nam ille quoque noctibus utebatur), deinde ad officium sibi delegatum . Before dawn he
15494-597: Was said that earth and water and all things are in suspension as if this something was a link between all these elements, on which one can neither walk nor sail. The term used for "marine lung" ( pleumōn thalattios ) appears to refer to jellyfish of the type the ancients called sea-lung. The latter are mentioned by Aristotle in On the Parts of Animals as being free-floating and insensate. They are not further identifiable from what Aristotle says but some pulmones appear in Pliny as
15621-477: Was sole emperor, but was awarded for a military victory, in this case that in Jerusalem in 70. Aside from minor finishing touches, the work in 37 books was completed in AD 77. That it was written entirely in 77 or that Pliny was finished with it then cannot be proved. Moreover, the dedication could have been written before publication, and it could have been published either privately or publicly earlier without
15748-782: Was spoken over all of Greater Britain, and this particular spelling is prototypical of those more populous regions, but there is no evidence that Pytheas distinguished between the peoples of the archipelago. Diodorus - based on Pytheas - reported that Britain is cold and subject to frosts, being "too much subject to the Bear ", and not "under the Arctic pole", as some translations say. The numerous population of natives, he says, live in thatched cottages, store their grain in subterranean caches and bake bread from it. They are "of simple manners" ( ēthesin haplous ) and are content with plain fare. They are ruled by many kings and princes who live in peace with each other. Their troops fight from chariots , as did
15875-421: Was supplied by Strabo, who said that an emporium on the island of Corbulo in the mouth of the river Loire was associated with the Britain of Pytheas by Polybius . Assuming that Ictis, Mictis and Corbulo are the same, Diodorus appears to have read Timaeus, who must have read Pytheas, whom Polybius also read. Most of the ancients do refer to his work by his name: "Pytheas says …" Two late writers give titles:
16002-554: Was the son of an equestrian Gaius Plinius Celer and his wife, Marcella. Neither the younger nor the elder Pliny mention the names. Their ultimate source is a fragmentary inscription ( CIL V 1 3442 ) found in a field in Verona and recorded by the 16th-century Augustinian friar Onofrio Panvinio . The form is an elegy . The most commonly accepted reconstruction is PLINIVS SECVNDVS AVGV. LERI. PATRI. MATRI. MARCELLAE. TESTAMENTO FIERI IVSSO Plinius Secundus augur ordered this to be made as
16129-539: Was thus multi-ethnic and the Plinies could have come from anywhere. Whether any conclusions can be drawn from Pliny's preference for Greek words, or Julius Pokorny 's derivation of the name from north Italic as "bald" is a matter of speculative opinion. No record of any ethnic distinctions in Pliny's time is apparent—the population considered themselves to be Roman citizens. Pliny the Elder did not marry and had no children. In his will, he adopted his nephew, which entitled
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