C., a celebrated Roman writer, but who is to be distinguished from his nephew, Pliny the younger. He was born A.D. 23, in the tenth year of Tiberius, and died on the 2d of November, A.D. 80, the first year of the Emperor Titus, and the day after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Two cities contend for the honour of giving birth to him; but the inhabitants of Novum Commum, now Como, seem to have a better claim to him as their fellow-citizen than those of Verona. His earlier years were spent under the profligate reign of Caligula and Claudius, but he does not appear to have mingled in the dissolute scenes of those times. Though he devoted himself to the study of literature, he did not withdraw himself from the active business of life. It appears that he served his first military campaign in Africa, probably about his twenty-third year, and that he afterwards spent some time in Germany, under his friend and commander L. Pomponius Secundus, whom we find in Tacitus to have triumphed over the Catil. It was about this time, A.D. 48, that he published his work entitled De Joculatione Equestri; and as Pomponius died shortly after his triumph, Pliny performed the mournful though pleasing duty of transmitting to posterity the transactions of his friend, in a work entitled Pomponii Vita. He next devoted himself to forensic duties, and displayed the same activity and zeal in defending the causes of his fellow-citizens, as he had before done in maintaining the honour of his country by arms. It seems probable that at this time he published his work Studiorum Tres Libri, divided into six volumes, which was a manual for the formation of an orator, a subject which was subsequently treated by Quintilian. He also published another work, Germanica Bella, in which he gave a detailed account of the wars of Drusus and Germanicus. In the reign of Nero, Pliny was employed in Spain as Procurator Caesaris; an equestrian dignity, but with the duties of which we are by no means well acquainted. He employed his leisure hours in making a selection of passages from various authors, called Electorum Commentarii, which on his death he left, to the number of one hundred and sixty, to his nephew. He also published, about A.D. 67, a grammatical work, Dubi Sermonis Libri Octo; and thirty-one books of History, which was a continuation of that of Aufidius Bassus, who seems to have written an account of the civil wars. Pliny became the intimate friend of Vespasian and his son Titus; and it was in the reign of the former, A.D. 77, that he published his celebrated work, Historia Naturalis, in thirty-seven books. Two years afterwards, Pliny was stationed at Misenum, in Campania, in command of the fleet; and when the eruption of Vesuvius broke out, he hurried towards it, to assist his friends, and to examine more minutely this wonderful phenomenon of nature. But he fell a victim to his thirst for knowledge; being suffocated by the sulphurous exhalations, as he was approaching the mountain from the side of Stabiae, now Castellamare.

The work for which he is most distinguished is his Natural History, the materials for which he has drawn from upwards of two thousand authors, which have generally disappeared. It was divided into thirty-six books, with a dedication to Titus, and a kind of index of the whole; but these are now considered as the first book. The second book contains introductory remarks on astronomy and meteorology; and from the third to the sixth inclusive we have a description of the earth, the lands and their inhabitants, being a sort of universal geography, though it is frequently nothing more than a simple enumeration of names. Then follows the Natural History, beginning with the animal kingdom, which occupies from the seventh to the eleventh books; then botany from the twelfth to the nineteenth. With the twentieth begins his account of the medicinal qualities of various herbs, which extends to the twenty-seventh; and then of the medicines which may be prepared from animals, to the thirty-second. The remaining books are occupied with the mineral kingdom, in which he takes occasion to introduce much curious information respecting the fine arts, sculpture, painting, &c.; and concludes with an account of the most celebrated artists and their works. Cuvier, who was so well able to judge of the value of such a work, thus expresses himself: "Ce grand ouvrage est le seul de Plini qui soit arrivé jusqu'à nous. Il est en même temps l'un des monuments les plus précieux que l'antiquité nous ait laissés, et la preuve d'une érudition bien étonnante dans un homme de guerre et un homme d'état. Pour apprécier avec justice cette vaste et célèbre composition, il est nécessaire d'y distinguer le plan, les faits, et le style. Le plan en est immense." Plini ne se propose point d'écrire seulement une Histoire Naturelle dans le sens restreint où nous prenons aujourd'hui cette science, c'est-à- The second year after his consulship he was appointed by Trajan to the administration of the province of Bithynia; and it was whilst he was in this office that he wrote that letter to the emperor which bears such honourable testimony to the Christian religion, and which induced Trajan to mitigate the laws which bore so heavily on those who professed that faith. On his return from his province he seems only to have survived a few years, which were probably spent in retirement in his magnificent villas, of which he possessed several in different parts of Italy.

He was of the most amiable disposition, kind to his inferiors, generous and hospitable to his friends, amongst whom he numbered Quintilian, Suetonius, Silius Italicus, Martial, and Tacitus. He was the active and zealous patron of learning, dividing his time between his professional employments and the pursuits of literature. He has been accused of being jealous of the reputation of some of his friends; and there is no doubt that he was vain of his own acquirements. Next to Cicero there is certainly no orator so distinguished; yet of his numerous orations not one has been preserved except his Panegyric on Trajan, in which he returns thanks for having raised him to the consulship. It was received with great applause, and is without doubt one of the most beautiful specimens of Roman eloquence that we possess. He exhibits before us Trajan, invested, not merely with the majesty of a prince and commander, but with all the virtues which dignify a private character. His noble spirit, his integrity, his love of learning, are all beautifully portrayed; but in his praise he sometimes exceeds the bounds of propriety, so as to give it the appearance of flattery. He has also too great fondness for antithesis, and too constant a repetition of particular expressions. In his language, also, we have sometimes to regret the simplicity which distinguishes the works of an earlier age.

His epistles are addressed to different persons, upon a variety of occasions, and are divided into ten books, of which the last contains only those to Trajan, with his answers. As Sidonius Apollinaris speaks only of nine books, some have thereby been induced to consider the tenth as not the genuine production of Pliny; and indeed others have also refused to include the ninth. The subject-matter of these letters is of a very pleasing character. The reader is interested not more by the variety of circumstances presented to the mind, than by the agreeable manner in which they are told. They possess also great historical value, from being memorials of a period of which we have only a few unimportant hints. We refer more particularly to the two letters on the life and death of Pliny the elder, and that to Trajan on the character of the Christians. As the letters of Cicero are of great value in elucidating the events of the later years of the republic, and in making us more intimately acquainted with the leading statesmen of that time, so those of Pliny are equally valuable in admitting us to an acquaintance with the very different times of the empire.

The best edition is that of Schöfer, with the notes of Gessner and Ernesti, Leipzig, 1805, two vols. Svo.

**Plinth**, Orle; or Orlo, in Architecture, a flat square member, in the form of a brick. It is used as the foundation of columns, being that flat square table under the moulding of the base and pedestal at the bottom of the whole order. It seems to have been originally intended to keep the bottom of the original wooden pillars from rotting. Vitruvius also calls the Tuscan abacus plinth.

**Plinth of a Statue** is a base, either flat, round, or square, which serves to support it.

**Plinth of a Wall** denotes two or three rows of bricks advancing out from a wall; or, in general, any flat high moulding which serves, in a front-wall, to sustain the eaves of a wall, or support the larmier of a chimney.

**Plock**, a province or waiwodschaft of Poland, which has been formed out of the ancient division of that name. Ploermel and the addition of part of Massovia. It extends in north latitude from 52° 14' to 53° 27', and in east longitude from 18° 39' to 22° 30', and comprehends 6842 square miles. It contains forty-five cities and towns, 3399 villages, with 346,500 inhabitants, of whom 14,000 are Protestants, 24,000 Jews, and the remainder adhere to the Catholic religion. The capital of the province, and of a circle of its name, is the city of Ploëc. It stands upon the banks of the Vistula, is surrounded with walls, and is the see of a bishop, whose cathedral is here, as well as eleven other churches, and several collegiate and monastic institutions. It contains 960 houses, with 7500 inhabitants, who carry on considerable trade by the river. Long. 19° 42'. E. Lat. 52° 33' N.