ABSTRACT
Pliny the Elder's Natural History had many lives in the Renaissance. But so too did the Roman compiler's death. In the field of pedagogy, meanwhile, the anecdote could offer a cautionary culmination to biographical introductions to commentaries on Pliny that formed part of certain university arts curricula. The much briefer pseudo-Suetonius life of Pliny rehearses his nephew's image of Pliny as incorrigible scholar and courageous enquirer. The panegyric purpose of both the Younger Pliny's letter and the Vita Plinii means that in these texts the emphasis is firmly on celebration rather than on judgement of the actions that led to Pliny's death. The portrait of Pliny as empiricist, meanwhile, runs counter to the critique of the classical author as armchair scholar that was voiced in debates over Pliny's errors at the end of the fifteenth century.
