Legacy of Pliny the Elder

In retrospect, Pliny’s influence is based on his ability to assemble in a methodical fashion a number of previously unrelated facts, his perceptiveness in recognizing details ignored by others, and his readable stories, with which he linked together both factual and fictional data. Along with unsupported claims, fables, and exaggerations, Pliny’s belief in magic and superstition helped shape scientific and medical theory in subsequent centuries. Perhaps the most important of the pseudoscientific methods advocated by him was the doctrine of signatures: a resemblance between the external appearance of a plant, animal, or mineral and the outward symptoms of a disease was thought to indicate the therapeutic usefulness of the plant. With the decline of the ancient world and the loss of the Greek texts on which Pliny had so heavily depended, the Natural History became a substitute for a general education. In the European Middle Ages many of the larger monastic libraries possessed copies of the work; these and many abridged versions ensured Pliny’s place in European literature. His authority was unchallenged, partly because of a lack of more reliable information and partly because his assertions were not and, in many cases, could not be tested.

The first attack on Pliny’s work—Niccolò Leoniceno’s tract on the errors of Pliny—was published in Ferrara in 1492. Thereafter, Pliny’s influence diminished, as more writers questioned his statements. By the end of the 17th century, the Natural History had been rejected by the leading scientists. Up to that time, however, Pliny’s influence, especially on nonscientific writers, was undiminished; he was, for example, almost certainly known to William Shakespeare and John Milton. Although Pliny’s work was never again accepted as an authority in science, 19th-century Latin scholars conclusively demonstrated the historical importance of the Natural History as one of the greatest literary monuments of classical antiquity. It is still of value to those who wish an honest résumé of 1st-century Rome.