Who is pliny the younger pompeii

Knowing that Pliny was born and bred in what is today the northern Italian town of Como, the scientists conducted an analysis of the teeth in the jawbone to see if the data would match. And indeed, they found that those teeth belonged to someone who had spent their infancy in northern Italy, the release says. Then the investigation hit a big snag. Roberto Cameriere, a forensic anthropologist from the University of Macerata, concluded that the teeth belonged to a person aged around 37, way too young to be Pliny the Elder.

Then, another anthropologist suggested that the jawbone and the skull may have belonged to two different people. DNA tests confirmed this hypothesis: the jawbone came from a man whose ancestry could be traced to North Africa.

So, it seems that in the jumble of skeletons found on the beach in Stabiae, the archaeologists mistakenly associated the skull and jawbone of two different people. Russo, the military historian, says the isotope analysis and the DNA tests suggest the owner of the jawbone was likely a second-generation African who grew up in northern Italy. So perhaps we have found the remains of one of the slaves who died along with the Roman admiral and the group of people they were trying to rescue.

But what about the skull? Is there any further information that can clear up the mystery of the bejeweled skeleton found by Matrone on the beach of Stabiae? An analysis of the sutures in the skull bones does indicate that the individual was of the right age, says physical anthropologist Luciano Fattore. Human babies are born with open cranial sutures to allow the brain to grown and which progressively seal up as we age. Anthropologists can give a range for the age-at-death of an individual judging by the state of the cranial sutures.

Thinking so Pliny conjectures to set an example of calm, he asked for a bath and dinner. Even as flames began leaping from the mountain, he told his companions that these were surely just burning houses abandoned by frightened peasants, and he went off to take a nap. The party strapped pillows over their heads to protect themselves, and made a run for it.

The Elder headed to the shore, hoping that he might find some way to escape by sea. Back in Misenum, meanwhile, Pliny and his mother decided that they, too, had to escape. They tried to go by carriage, but the roads were clogged with other people fleeing, so they got out and ran.

Plinia begged her son to leave her and go on alone, but he refused. The two eventually found their way to safety. The Elder, on the opposite shore, did not. When the darkness lifted, his body was found on the beach. He was heavyset and had a weak windpipe. He probably died of asphyxiation from the ash. Dust from the explosion reached all the way to Africa, Pliny writes.

Of the two Plinys, Dunn focusses on the younger. Clearly, she would rather have done otherwise. The Elder was more famous, rightfully so. As his nephew said, the older man did things that deserved to be written about and wrote things that deserved to be read.

Healy—is not merely huge but piquant and readable. Of bees, for example, he writes:. The bees have a wonderful way of supervising their work-load: they note the idleness of slackers, reprove them and later even punish them with death. Their hygiene is amazing: everything is moved out of the way and no refuse is left in their work areas.

Indeed the droppings of those working in the hive are heaped up in one place so that the bees do not have to go too far away. They carry out the droppings on stormy days when they have to interrupt work. Then suddenly all becomes silent. How wonderfully, punctiliously factual that is, but also with a subtle moral.

In fact, however, he told us almost nothing about himself. That, no doubt, is the reason that Dunn chose to concentrate not on him but on his nephew. Pliny went to work as a lawyer at the age of eighteen, and he had other vocations as well. He was a poet, a senator, a public official. But in all his jobs he seems to have landed in the second- or third-best spot. The law court he worked in was the one that handled civil cases—wills, inheritance, fraud—not the juicy murders and other foul deeds for which the Roman Empire is famous.

Is that the job you would have wanted in imperial Rome? He wrote long letters to Trajan, asking whether he should do this or that. The letters took two months to arrive in Rome, and the answers took two months to get back.

Reading them, you sense that Trajan often wished Pliny would just go ahead and make whatever decision seemed reasonable. My uncle having left us, I spent such time as was left on my studies it was on their account indeed that I had stopped behind , till it was time for my bath. After which I went to supper, atmd then fell into a short and uneasy sleep. There had been noticed for many days before a trembling of the earth, which did not alarm us much, as this is quite an ordinary occurrence in Campania; but it was so particularly violent that night that it not only shook but actually overturned, as it would seem, everything about us.

My mother rushed into my chamber, where she found me rising, in order to awaken her. We sat down in the open court of the house, which occupied a small space between the buildings and the sea. As I was at that time but eighteen years of age, I know not whether I should call my behaviour, in this dangerous juncture, courage or folly; but I took up Livy, and amused myself with turning over that author, and even making extracts from him, as if I had been perfectly at my leisure.

Just then, a friend of my uncle's, who had lately come to him from Spain, joined us, and observing me sitting by my mother with a book in my hand, reproved her for her calmness, and me at the same time for my careless security: nevertheless I went on with my author.

Though it was now morning, the light was still exceedingly faint and doubtful; the buildings all around us tottered, and though we stood upon open ground, yet as the place was narrow and confined, there was no remaining without imminent danger: we therefore resolved to quit the town. A panic-stricken crowd followed us, and as to a mind distracted with terror every suggestion seems more prudent than its own pressed on us in dense array to drive us forward as we came out.

Being at a convenient distance from the houses, we stood still, in the midst of a most dangerous and dreadful scene. The chariots, which we had ordered to be drawn out, were so agitated backwards and forwards, though upon the most level ground, that we could not keep them steady, even by supporting them with large stones. The sea seemed to roll back upon itself, and to he driven from its banks by the convulsive motion of the earth; it is certain at least the shore was considerably enlarged, and several sea animals were left upon it.

On the other side, a black and dreadful cloud, broken with rapid, zigzag flashes, revealed behind it variously shaped masses of flame: these last were like sheet-lightning, but much larger. Upon this our Spanish friend, whom I mentioned above, addressing himself to my mother and me with great energy and urgency: " If your brother," he said, "if your uncle be safe, he certainly wishes you may be so too; but if he perished, it was his desire, no doubt, that you might both survive him: why therefore do you delay your escape a moment?

Upon this our friend left us, and withdrew from the danger with the utmost precipitation. Soon afterwards, the cloud began to descend, and cover the sea. It had already surrounded and concealed the island of Capri and the promontory of Misenum. My mother now besought, urged, even commanded me to make my escape at any rate, which, as I was young, I might easily do; as for herself, she said, her age and corpulency rendered all attempts of that sort impossible; however, she would willingly meet death if she could have the satisfaction of seeing that she was not the occasion of mine.

But I absolutely refused to leave her, and, taking her by the hand, compelled her to go with me. She complied with great reluctance, and not without many reproaches to herself for retarding my flight. The ashes now began to fall upon us, though in no great quantity. I looked back; a dense dark mist seemed to be following us, spreading itself over the country like a cloud. You might hear the shrieks of women, the screams of children, and the shouts of men; some calling for their children, others for their parents, others for their husbands, and seeking to recognise each other by the voices that replied; one lamenting his own fate, another that of his family; some wishing to die, from the very fear of dying; some lifting their hands to the gods; but the greater part convinced that there were now no gods at all, and that the final endless night of which we have heard had come upon the world.

I remember some who declared that one part of Misenum had fallen, that another was on fire; it was false, but they found people to believe them. It now grew rather lighter, which we imagined to be rather the forerunner of an approaching burst of flames as in truth it was than the return of day: however, the fire fell at a distance from us: then again we were immersed in thick darkness, and a heavy shower of ashes rained upon us, which we were obliged every now and then to stand up to shake off, otherwise we should have been crushed and buried in the heap.

I might boast that, during all this scene of horror, not a sigh, or expression of fear, escaped me, had not my support been grounded in that miserable, though mighty, consolation, that all mankind were involved in the same calamity, and that I was perishing with the world itself.

At last this dreadful darkness was dissipated by degrees, like a cloud or smoke; the real day returned, and even the sun shone out, though with a lurid light, like when an eclipse is coming on.