Sallust: Historian and Critic of Rome’s Decline

Gaius Sallustius Crispus, commonly known as Sallust, was a Roman historian and politician born around 86 BC in Amiternum, a town in the Sabine region of Italy. His historical works provide valuable insights into the political and social dynamics of the late Roman Republic, a period marked by internal strife, corruption, and the erosion of traditional values.

Sallust began his political career as a tribune of the plebs in 52 BC, an office that allowed him to advocate for the common people and oppose the senatorial elite. He gained a reputation for his sharp criticism of the corruption and moral decay that plagued Roman society. However, his political career was not without controversy. In 50 BC, he was expelled from the Senate, likely due to accusations of immorality and political maneuvering. Some scholars suggest that his opposition to the aristocracy made him a target for his political rivals. Despite this setback, Sallust remained a loyal supporter of Julius Caesar, joining him during the Civil War and playing a role in Caesar's African campaign against the remnants of Pompey's forces.

As a reward for his loyalty, Caesar appointed Sallust as governor of the newly formed province of Africa Nova in 46 BC. However, his tenure was marred by allegations of extortion and corruption, reinforcing the very issues he had criticized in others. After Caesar’s assassination in 44 BC, Sallust retired from public life and dedicated himself to writing, producing some of the most significant historical texts of the era.

His most famous works, "Bellum Catilinae" (The War of Catiline) and "Bellum Jugurthinum" (The Jugurthine War), provide a critical perspective on the political events and figures of his time. "Histories," though only partially surviving, aimed to cover the history of Rome following the death of Sulla. Influenced by the Greek historian Thucydides, Sallust’s style is characterized by conciseness, moral reflection, and dramatic narrative, making his works both engaging and instructive.

Sallust died around 35 BC, leaving behind a legacy as one of Rome’s earliest and most influential historians. His works continue to be studied for their historical value and literary merit, offering timeless reflections on power, ambition, and corruption.
Sallust: Historian and Critic of Rome’s Decline

The Enduring Legacy of Marcus Tullius Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero, born on January 3, 106 BC, in Arpinum, Italy, stands as a paragon of Roman intellectual and political achievement. As a statesman, orator, lawyer, and philosopher, Cicero’s influence has transcended centuries, shaping Western thought and political theory. His early education in rhetoric and philosophy was pivotal, equipping him to navigate the complex legal and political arenas of Rome and to emerge as one of its greatest orators and prose stylists.

Cicero’s political career commenced in 75 BC with his election as quaestor, where his administrative acumen earned him widespread respect. His ascent through the Roman political hierarchy continued as he became aedile in 69 BC, praetor in 66 BC, and finally consul in 63 BC. His tenure as consul was marked by his resolute action against the Catiline Conspiracy, a scheme to overthrow the Republic. Cicero’s decisive measures, including his persuasive speeches that rallied the Senate, safeguarded Rome from anarchy and secured him the honorary title Pater Patriae (Father of the Fatherland).

However, Cicero's political journey was far from smooth. His staunch defense of the Republic often placed him at odds with powerful factions. In 58 BC, his opposition to Publius Clodius Pulcher led to his exile, a period of personal and political upheaval. Nevertheless, his return to Rome marked a resurgence in his influence, particularly through his oratory and philosophical writings. Cicero’s works, such as De Republica and De Legibus, not only articulated the principles of justice and governance but also laid foundational ideas for modern constitutional theory.

Cicero’s life was tragically cut short on December 7, 43 BC, during the proscriptions of the Second Triumvirate. Mark Antony, whom Cicero had vehemently criticized, orchestrated his execution. Yet, Cicero's legacy remains indelible. His mastery of Latin prose, commitment to republican ideals, and philosophical contributions continue to inspire scholars, leaders, and thinkers. In a modern context, Cicero’s writings on civic duty and the rule of law resonate as timeless principles, underscoring his enduring relevance in the quest for justice and democratic governance.
The Enduring Legacy of Marcus Tullius Cicero

Marcus Terentius Varro: Scholar and Polymath of Ancient Rome

Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BC) stands as one of ancient Rome’s most accomplished scholars, widely regarded for his extraordinary intellectual breadth. Born in Reate, Italy, he received an education from esteemed teachers such as Lucius Aelius Stilo, a master of Roman philology, and Antiochus of Ascalon, a prominent philosopher. This foundation equipped Varro with expertise in diverse disciplines, including literature, history, agriculture, and philosophy, which he utilized to produce an unparalleled body of work.

Varro's literary corpus reportedly exceeded 600 works, though only fragments survive today. Among his most celebrated achievements are the Saturae Menippeae (Menippean Satires), a genre-defining blend of prose and poetry inspired by the Greek Cynic philosopher Menippus. Through biting humor and incisive critique, these satires addressed the moral and societal dilemmas of Rome, revealing Varro’s wit and intellectual agility. While only fragments of this work remain, its impact on later writers, including Seneca and Petronius, underscores its significance.

Beyond satire, Varro contributed profoundly to practical and scholarly fields. His De Re Rustica (On Agriculture) is an essential treatise offering insights into Roman agricultural practices, animal husbandry, and rural economics. This work, written in his later years, also delves into sustainable farming—a concept that resonates with modern ecological concerns. Similarly, De Lingua Latina (On the Latin Language) is a pioneering linguistic study that provides invaluable etymological insights into Latin, laying groundwork for future philological research.

Varro’s intellectual legacy transcended his own era. Appointed by Julius Caesar to oversee the establishment of Rome's first public library, he demonstrated an enduring commitment to preserving cultural knowledge. His encyclopedic approach to scholarship earned him admiration during his lifetime and inspired thinkers like Cicero, who called him the "most learned of the Romans."

Despite the loss of much of his work, Varro’s surviving writings and his influence on later Roman and European intellectual traditions ensure his reputation as a cornerstone of ancient scholarship. He remains a symbol of the power of interdisciplinary inquiry and the enduring value of knowledge in shaping civilization.
Marcus Terentius Varro: Scholar and Polymath of Ancient Rome

Pliny the Elder: A Legacy of Knowledge and Curiosity

Pliny the Elder, whose full name was Gaius Plinius Secundus, stands as one of ancient Rome's most erudite figures. Born in AD 23-24 in Verona, he hailed from the esteemed equestrian class, a noble rank within Roman society. Pliny's early years were marked by a pursuit of knowledge and public service. He migrated to Rome at a young age, subsequently enlisting in the military, where he served in the cavalry and was stationed in Germany.

His career flourished as he held various positions, notably as procurator in eastern Spain, and he was also a trusted advisor to Emperors Vespasian and Titus. However, it is Pliny's contributions as a writer that truly defined his legacy. Throughout his life, he authored extensively, with his masterpiece being "Natural History," a comprehensive work spanning thirty-seven volumes that encapsulated the entirety of ancient knowledge.

Published between 77-79 AD, "Natural History" remains a testament to Pliny's insatiable curiosity and scholarly prowess. Covering topics ranging from wine making to medicine, mining to geography, the text offers a panoramic view of the ancient world's wisdom. Pliny's work not only influenced subsequent generations in antiquity but also left an indelible mark on the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, positioning him as a pivotal figure in the history of science.

In his exploration of knowledge, Pliny recorded fascinating experiments attributed to figures like the neo-Pythagorean philosopher Anaxilaus of Larissa. Anaxilaus, who faced accusations of practicing magic and was subsequently banished from Rome and Italy by Augustus, figures prominently in Pliny's accounts.

Tragically, Pliny met his end during the cataclysmic eruption of Mount Vesuvius on August 25, 79 AD. He was in his fifty-sixth year at the time. His death, while a profound loss to the intellectual community, underscores the daring spirit with which he pursued knowledge and the remarkable breadth of his contributions.

In essence, Pliny the Elder remains not only a luminary of ancient Rome but a beacon of intellectual inquiry whose writings continue to enlighten and inspire across centuries, affirming his enduring significance in the annals of human thought and discovery.
Pliny the Elder: A Legacy of Knowledge and Curiosity

Ammianus Marcellinus: Roman Historian

Ammianus Marcellinus, born approximately in 330 AD and living beyond 390 AD, was a Greek native who served within the ranks of the Roman military. He was born in the Eastern Mediterranean, potentially in areas such as Syria or Phoenicia, to an affluent Greek family. He grew up acquiring proficiency in both the Greek and Latin languages. Around 350 AD, he gained entry into the respected group of protectores domestici and became a member of General Ursicinus' staff.

He took part in the Roman campaign in Mesopotamia and was involved in the events at Amida in the year 359. Four years later, he participated in battles against the Persians alongside Emperor Julian and played a role in the subsequent retreat led by Emperor Jovian. Following his departure from the military in Antioch, he embarked on voyages to Egypt and Greece before eventually finding his settled place in Rome.

Thanks to his position as a protector, he enjoyed advantageous access to primary information. This information could be gleaned from direct discussions with Ursicinus and other military figures, or from reports compiled by the staff, drawing from the accounts of scouts, spies, or deserters.

While residing in Rome, he penned the "Res gestae," a historical record of the Roman Empire that spans from Emperor Nerva's ascension in 96 AD to the downfall of Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378 AD. This work potentially served as a continuation of the historical narrative initiated by Tacitus. He completed a total of thirty-one books, yet only thirteen of these have endured through time to the present day.
Ammianus Marcellinus: Roman Historian

Vitruvius (c. 80–70 BC – after c. 15 BC): Roman architect

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was born in the Bay of Naples, Campania, He is best known for his writings on architecture, but he also wrote on astronomy, describing the understanding of his time and its usefulness in making sundials.

After receiving a thorough education in Greek philosophy and science, he possibly served as a Roman architect and engineer. As a young man he served in the army corps of engineers under Caesar, first in Gaul (known service includes Larignum 56 BC and Marseilles 48 BC), then in North Africa (at Zama in 46 BC).

Vitruvius was not only an influential architect, but was also an author, civil engineer, and military officer. He also employed his knowledge of architecture and military strategy as a Roman military engineer. After his general’s assassination, Vitruvius joined the troops of Octavian (the future Augustus), on active duty as an artillery engineer; by 33 BC he was an aqueduct official.

Vitruvius wrote one known work, a handbook (institutio) in 10 books on “architecture”—that is civil engineering— from selection of a city site through design and construction to maintenance and defense. De architectura is a treatise on architecture was written dedicated to his patron, the emperor Caesar Augustus, as a guide for building projects.

He gives extensive theoretical justifications for each precept, devoting over two-thirds of book 9 to astronomy and astrology, as the basis for constructing sundials.

Vitruvius' De architectura was widely copied in the Middle Ages and survives in many dozens of manuscripts though in 1414 it was "rediscovered" by the Florentine humanist Poggio Bracciolini in the library of Saint Gall Abbey. In De Architectura, Vitruvius highlights six principles of Architecture: Order, Arrangement, Eurythmy, Symmetry, Propriety, and Economy. He wrote for many years around 25 BC, in his old age and during peacetime.
Vitruvius (c. 80–70 BC – after c. 15 BC): Roman architect

Dionysius of Halicarnassus

Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Augustus Caesar. Dionysius of Halicarnassus was born before 53 BC.

He had come to Italy at the time when Augustus Caesar put an end to the civil war in the middle of the 187th Olympiad (the late in 30 BC). He had spent the following twenty years in acquiring himself with language and the literature of the Romans, in gathering his material an in writing his history. He lived there until his death sometime after 8 BC.

His literary style was Atticistic – imitating the classical Greek of Herodotus. His work called Rhōmaïke archaiologia (Roman Antiquities), which describes the history of Rome from the mythical period to the beginning of the first Punic war.

Punic wars were fought between ancient Carthage (present Tunisia) and roman republic between 264 to 46 BC. His Roman Antiquities began to appear in 7 BC.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus

Gaius Acilius – earliest Roman annalist

Acilius, Gaius Roman senator of plebeian descent and historian, who work for three Greek scholars, Carneades, Diogenes, and Critolaus in the senate in 155 BC. At that session he acted as interpreter.

He wrote a history of Rome. The work extended from pre-history down to the writer’s own time, 184 BC. Acilius takes for granted that Rome was a Greek colony. He wrote in Greek in order to parade Roman achievement before the Greek world.

His work was reproduced in Latin by Claudius Quadrigarius, who would then have incorporated it in his annalistic form.
Gaius Acilius – earliest Roman annalist

Procopius of Caesarea

Procopius of Caesarea (fl. 527 – 554), the most important of the Byzantine historians, was born in the city of Caesarea in Palestine towards the beginning of the sixth century of the Christian era. Caesarea had been one of the pre-eminent centers of learning in the Roman Empire during the fourth century.

After having for some time practiced as a “Rhetorician,” that is, advocate or jurist, in his native land, he seems to have migrated early to Byzantium or Constantinople.

There he gave lessons in elocution, and acted as counsel in several law-cases. His talents soon attracted attention, and he was promoted to official duties in the service of the State. He was commissioned to accompany the famous Belisarius during his command of the army in the East, in the capacity of Counsellor or Assessor.

Procopius was on Belisarius's first Persian campaign, and later took part in an expedition against the Vandals. He was in Italy on the Gothic campaign until 540, after which he lived in Constantinople, since he describes the great plague of 542 in the capital.

Procopius would remain in the employ of the Roman government through at least 554, at which point the historian fades from the historical record.

He is the author of three major historical works: the History of the Wars, the Anecdota, and Buildings. The world of Justinian and Procopius was one of rapid, unsettling change as the Roman Empire evolved into something new.

Procopius of Caesarea composed a record of the wars which Justinian, the emperor of the Romans, waged against the barbarians of the east and of the west.

His chief work in “Histories,” in eight books: two on the Persian wars (408-553), two on the Vandal wars (395-545), and four on the Gothic wars, bringing down the narrative to the beginning of 559.

Procopius provides an ample record for the historian, narrating the momentous events of Justinian’s reign: however, his voice is inflected by his antiquarianism and a disapproval of innovation verging on the reactionary.

Procopius also composed De Aedificiis (on Buildings) around 554 AD. The purpose is to glorify the reigning emperor Justinian as a master builder and imperial patron, it does also present a compendium of significant building activities throughout the extent of the sixth-century Mediterranean world.
Procopius of Caesarea

Quintus Fabius Pictor: Roman Historian

Quintus Fabius Pictor born 270 bc (flourished c. 200 BC) was one of the earliest Roman prose historians.

Fabius used the records of his own and other important Roman families as sources, and began with the arrival of Aeneas in Latium. His work ended with his own recollections of the Second Punic War.

A member of the Senate, Fabius Pictor fought in the Gallic War of 225 BC and that he was sent by the senate to Delphi in 216 BC to consult the oracle after disaster at Cannae.

The first history of Rome was written in Greek by Q. Fabius Pictor at the close of the third century BC. According to Plutarch, that Fabius’ source for the Romulus and Remus story was a Greek historian called Diocles of Peparethus (Life of Romulus, 3.1), and the great historian of Western Greece and Sicily, Timaeus of Tauromenium, had incorporated a good deal of material about Rome’s mythical past in his Histories of c. 280 BC.
Quintus Fabius Pictor: Roman Historian

Lucius Cincius Alimentus: Roman annalist and jurist

Lucius Cincius Alimentus was a plebeian senator and one of Rome's earliest historians. From a plebeian family, Cincius participated late in the Second Punic War in a variety of capacities.

He was praetor in Sicily in 210/9 BC, a title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to men acting in one of two official capacities. As a Roman senator, his most important legislation was the Cincian Law, which forbade the acceptance of payment for legal services.

Cincius was captured by Hannibal in one of the early battles of the Second Punic War.

His family most likely obtained membership in the Senate only in the troubled years of the Hannibalic War (218–201 BCE), and only for a short period of time.

His history of Rome, written in Greek, set the foundation of the city in 729–728 BC and reached his own times. With the work of Quintus Fabius Pictor, it formed the basis of the senatorial historical tradition, especially of the Second Punic War.

Dionysius also named Cincius as one of the earliest historians of Rome. According to Dionysius, Cincius‘ history, much like Pictor‘s, related both ancient and more recent events. Cincius dealt only cursorily with events further removed. Few fragments, only thirteen, of Cincius‘ history survive.
Lucius Cincius Alimentus: Roman annalist and jurist

Cassius Dio (155-235 CE)

Cassius Dio, often referred to as Dio Cassius, was a Greek of an important family of Bithynia who entered the senate towards the end of the third century AD and rose to hold the consulship twice the second time in AD 229 as colleague to the emperor.

He was probably taken to Rome as a boy when his father Cassius Apronianus became a senator. Following in his father’s footsteps, he entered the Senate under Commodus (r. AD180-92), was awarded a praetorship by Pertinax (AD 193), and probably around AD 204, was made consul by Septimius Severus (AD 193-211).

Macrinius made him a curator in Pergamum and Smyra. He later governed Africa, Illyricum and Upper Pannonia, successively, from 223 to 228.

Dio is the only historian who follows the developments of Rome’s political institutions over more than a thousand years. This makes him an indispensible source for Rome’s history, particularly in the Late Republic, the reign of Augustus and the second and third centuries AD.

Dio authored several no-longer works, including a history of the struggle for the throne from 193 to 197 and an analysis of dreams, Dio’s most important achievement is his monumental historical work, the Roman History, which was written in Greek and originally contained 80 books narrating events from the origins of Rome until D 229.
Cassius Dio (155-235 CE)

Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo (13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was one of the greatest figures in the Church. He was born in the Roman city of Tagaste in North Africa (modern Algeria). His father, Patricius, was a functionary in the local Roman administration in Tagaste and was an adherent to traditional Roman paganism until his conversion to Christianity near the end of his life.

His mother Monica, was a committed Christian who greatly influenced he son spiritually through her life and her commitment to prayer and sound biblical teaching. Augustine studied Latin and Greek grammar and literature in his boyhood, complaining about rough treatment by his schoolmasters.

After his father died in 370 Augustine went to Carthage to study rhetoric as the first step to prepare for a public life.

In the theology of St. Augustine of Hippo, love appears as a desire whose quality is determined by its object. Created by a loving God, humans are unable to find complete fulfillment for their desires except in the Creator.

Augustine’s most famous book in his Confessions (c. 397) which was probably written in response to Bishop Paulinus of Nola’s request to know something of Augustine’s journey to faith.

The Confessions is not only his intimate spiritual autobiography, but it also a presentation of the writer’s mystical experiences during his spiritual struggle to accept Christianity.
Augustine of Hippo

Horace: World's first autobiographer

Quintus Horatius Flaccus (December 8, 65 BC – November 27, 8 BC) was born at the city of Apulia.

His father was a propertied freedman of a small farm in the vicinity of that place from which he afterwards removed to Rome, when his son had attained the age of nine or ten years in order to afford him the benefits of a liberal education.

About the age of twenty-one, Horace was sent to Athens to complete his education. Horace was 21 when the assassination of Julius Caesar precipitated 17 years of civil war. In 44 BC he joined Brutus’ faction and in 42 he fought as an officer at the battle of Philippi, where Brutus was defeated.

When Horace returned to Rome in 41 BC his land had been confiscated. He joined the civil service and forced by poverty, turned to writing. He became a friend of Virgil and in 38 BC met Maecenas, who became his patron. Horace rose to be the supreme lyric poet of his time.

Augustus courted Horace’s friendship. The emperor Augustus gave him a farm in the Sabine hills.

The works of Horace are numerous, displaying a knowledge of philosophy, vast vocabulary and a reliance upon common sense.
Satires 1 (c. 35–34 BC)
Satires 2 (c. 30 BC)
Epodes (30 BC)
Odes 1–3 (c. 23 BC)
Epistles 1 (c. 21 BC)
Carmen Saeculare (17 BC)
Epistles 2 (c. 11 BC)
Odes 4 (c. 11 BC)
Ars Poetica (c. 10–8 BC)
Horace: World's first autobiographer

Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56-117 CE)

Tacitus or Publius Cornelius Tacitus or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus) (ca. AD 56–ca. 117) was a Roman historian, politician, orator, biographer, and essayist.

A brilliant successor to the essayist Seneca the Younger, the statesman and chronicler Tacitus mirrored the compression and consciences of the Greek historian Thucydides. A member of the senatorial order at Rome under the early Roman Empire, he lived under a succession of emperors stretching from Nero through to the anti-senatorial Domitian.

Believed to have born in southern Italy or in southern Gaul, he was the son of the governor of Belgic Gaul. In year 77 he married the daughter of Agricola, the future governor of Britain.

Publius Cornelius Tacitus

After studying rhetoric and law, Tacitus exhibited the influence of the orator Cicero on his dignified speaking style. He advanced under the reign of Domitian (81-96) to the praetorship (88) and became consul under the emperor Nerva (96-98) in 97.

During consulship, Tacitus had survived the harsh time of Domitian, a period that saw the death of his father-in-law and a regime whose cultivated despotism left a major mark on his writings.

Sometime later he served as proconsular governor in Asia. He died a few years later perhaps early in the reign of Hadrian (117-138).

Tacitus is known primarily for four historical works:
Agricola is a biography of his father-in-law
Dialogus treats the decline of Roman oratory
Histories and Annals
Germania (98) consists of an ethnographical treatise on the people and customs of that region

The Histories and Annals, Tacitus’s major works, survive toady only in partial form -they covered the history of the early principate from the death of the first Emperor Augustus to the end of the reign of Domitian (14-96). The Histories and Annals is a fundamental literary source for the political history of the early empire.

Tacitus is regarded as perhaps the greatest historian and one of the greatest prose stylists to write in Latin.
Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56-117 CE)

Polybius (200 BC-118 BC)

He was Greek statesman and historian. Polybius was born at Megalopolis, Arcadia in southern Greece and one of the prominent states in the Achaean League. His father, a wealthy landowner, was an elected official of the Achaean League.

Polybius served the league as a diplomat and military officer. After Rome’s victory in the Macedonian War, Polybius was among one thousand prominent sentiments, who were taken to Rome as hostages. But soon he became a welcome guest and friend of grecophile leading citizen, especially of P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus.

When seventeenth years later the barely three hundred surviving Achaeans were finally allowed to return home, Polybius lingered with his Roman friends for five more years and Scipio took him with him on his military campaigns in Africa.

Polybius wrote a history of Rome from the First Punic War in 264 to the destruction of Carthage and Corinth in 146 in forty books. Originally, his aim was to explain for a Greek speaking audience Rome’s conquest of the Mediterranean during the half century from the Sound Punic War to the Third Macedonian War, but the later expanded the material to include the First Punic War.

In addition to his history, Polybius also wrote of life of Philopoemen ( a general of the Achaean League), a treatise on tactics and a history of the Numantine War. Polybius is not only the first Greek to tell about Rome but also predates all surviving historical texts written by Romans.
Polybius (200 BC-118 BC)

Quintus Curtius Rufus

Quintus Curtius Rufus, a Latin historian, celebrated by his History of the reign of Alexander the Great (De Rebus Gestis Alexandri Magni) is supposed to have flourished in the reign of Vespasian or Tragan.

His work, which has been admired for the elegance and purity of his style, is divided into ten books; of which the first and second, the end of the fifth and the beginning of the sixth are lost.

He recommended himself by his knowledge to Tiberius and during his reign, received the pretorship; under Claudius, the consulship, and also the emperor’s consent to celebrate a triumph, and finally the proconsulship of Africa.

He died in Africa, AD 69 at an advanced age.
Quintus Curtius Rufus

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil was Rome’s greatest poet producing in Latin the great epic poem the Aeneid, the well-known epic poem of twelve books that became the Roman Empire’s national epic. Virgil became the archetype of future poets well into the Renaissance.

Virgil was born on the 15th of October 70 BC at Andes, a little village near Mantua. His mother’s name was Maia, and his father was probably a small landowner.

Virgil learned country ways in his father’s pottery shop and form anima husbandry, beekeeping and lumbering.  At the age 17, he enrolled on oratory and law at Marcus Epidius’s school in Rome, where the young Octavian and Mark Antony had studied.

Virgil wrote three major works, the Eclogues published I 37 BC, which brought him to the literacy circle of Horace, Pollio, Maecenas and ultimately Octavian (Augustus).

In 37 BC, he and Horace traveled together to southern Italy when he began work on his second major work with Georgics, published in 29 BC.

Then he immediately began work on his third and greatest work, the Aeneid which was unfinished at the time of his death in 19 BC at Brundusium. Until his death at the 51, Virgil labored on the Aeneid, a nationalistic paean to the Trojan prince Aeneas and to Rome’s foundations.
Virgil

Dioscorides (AD 40 - 90)

Pedanius Dioscorides was born in Anazarbus which was part of the Roman province of Cilicia.

He was a Greek surgeon who served in Emperor Nero’s (AD 54-68) Roman Army and who, in the course of his military travels, complied what some consider to be the best description of medical botany to his name.

His great herbal was probably written around 60-78 BC, and mentioned 850 plants, animals, and minerals with discussion of their medical and non-medical uses.

De Materia Medica described more than 600 plants with medical uses, 90 of which are still in use. As an army physician, Dioscorides concentrated on soldier’s medicine, particularly wounds. But De Materia Medica also included a great deal of herbal folk wisdom.

De Materia Medica remained a standard reference for centuries and until the early 1600s, books on medical botany were little more than commentaries on Discorides’s work.

Until his classification was supplanted by that of Carolus Linnaeus in the 18th century, he stood as the foremost authority on pharmacy for more than sixteen hundred years.

He was recognized not only by later Roman and Byzantium writers but also by Islamic scholars.
Dioscorides (AD 40 - 90)

Pliny the Elder

Pliny, the elder, one of the most learned men of ancient Rome, was born at Verona in AD 23-24. His full name was Gaius Plinius Secundus, was born into the equestrian class, one of the noble ranks of ancient Rome.

Pliny came to Rome at an early age and joined the general. Military service in the cavalry brought him to Germany.

His public career included several posts as procurator, notably of eastern Spain. He was a member of the councils of Emperors Vespasian and Titus.

Throughout his life Pliny was a prolific writer. He wrote a Natural History in thirty seven books, which are still extant. His work had great influence on later antiquity the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, he remains a major figure in the history of science.

With topics ranging from wine making to mining, medicine to geography, the book contained as much of the ancient world’s knowledge as Pliny could gather.

His Natural History published in 77-79 AD, Pliny the Elder records several curious experiments ascribed to the neo-Pythagorean philosopher Anaxilaus of Larissa.

Anaxilaus, a Pythagorean philosopher and physician, born at Larissa, was accused of practicing magic and banished from Rome and Italy by Augustus.

He lost his life in the great eruption of mount Vesuvius, on August 25, in the year 79 AD. He was in his 56th years when he died.
Pliny the Elder