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Aristotle

Pliny the Elder’s Contribution in Literature

March 28, 2021 by Essay Writer

Pliny the Elder affected the world in many many ways. With everything that he did I think he deserves the “Thinkers” award. Welcome to this journey while you learn about how he impacted the world and how that led him to a wonderful success. Pliny the Elder was born in Como, Italy , previously known as novum comum. He was born in c.23 AD and sadly died in c.79 AD. He spent his childhood in early Rome and then went to Germany to serve in the Roman cavalry. He switched to law and then became a scholar because of his love for writing. He was a very curious man and spent much of his life collecting information about many things making more than 100 volumes describing this wealth of material.

Pliny the Elder’s most important and famous contribution was his book, Natural History. It has 37 books or volumes. He got his information from many sources. He got some of his information from Aristotle and some he got when he was in Germany for his military career. He collected many fictional and non fictional information which made him famous. He took many non important and non related facts and turned them into something very interesting and important. All of his books had many grammatical errors though and eventually the leading scientists rejected his theories because they questioned his claims.

His books helped develop many things we know about life today. Without him, we would be clueless about how ,much, of nature works. Along with his exaggerated, claims, and fables his belief in magic helped shape interesting theories. Many scientists used this as a guideline for their scientific experiments. They shaped new theories with help his theories and then made new discoveries. Although it has many grammar mistakes, many scientists used this as a model to guide them. People who looked up to him included writers, his fables and tales intrigued them. Some following writers include William Shakespeare and John Milton. Sadly, scientists that used his books are not known though there were many. One of the very important methods he helped develop was called the doctrine of signatures: A similarity between the external appearance of a plant, animal, or mineral and the external symptoms of a disease indicated how the plant was beneficial.

With that said, if I were to give Pliny the Elder and IB profile award, I would give him the one for thinker. I would give him that because he took different aspects of one thing that nobody really cared about, and made it creative but helpful. He made a reasonable decision with what he had. He wrote his books thinking uniquely but smartly. His very famous book “Natural History” helped develop many theories and finding we know today. Although he didn’t invent many of his findings he was the base of others’ helping us know as much as we know now.

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