Pliny the Elder gives vivid examples of the popularity of gladiator portraiture in Antium and an artistic treat laid on by an adoptive aristocrat for the solidly plebeian citizens of the Roman Aventine:

" The passage does not give enough information to determine which cubit Pliny meant ; however, any cubit gives the same general result.

Strabo speaks of it as one of the places on the north coast of Sicily which, in his time, still deserved the name of cities ; and Pliny gives it the title of a Colonia.

The account which Pliny gives of it is that Agoracritus contended with Alcamenes ( another distinguished disciple of Phidias ) in making a statue of Venus ; and that the Athenians, through an undue partiality towards their countryman, awarded the victory to Alcamenes.

Pliny the Elder also gives us some statements about Abnoba ( Natural History, 4. 79 ).

A summary of Classical sources on the Seres ( Greek and Roman name of China ) ( essentially Pliny and Ptolemy ) gives the following account:

On the other hand, Pliny, who also drew from Megasthenes ' work, gives even larger numbers of 600, 000 infantry, 30, 000 cavalry, and 9, 000 war elephants:

Pliny gives a list of female artists and their paintings.

Pliny the Elder gives a good account of the methods used in Spain, presumably based on his own observations.

Pliny gives a list of his works ; among them a Rape of Persephone, Victory in a Quadriga, Apollo and Artemis, and Cybele seated on a Lion.

It is no coincidence that he gives numerous references to the earlier author, Pliny the Elder and his Naturalis Historia.

Pliny the Elder, in his book " Natural History " writes: " The physician Apollodorus, in the work in which he wrote recommending King Ptolemy what wines in particular to drink -- for in his time the wines of Italy were not generally known -- has spoken in high terms of that of Naspercene in Pontus, next to which he places the Oretic, and then the Aeneatian, the Leucadian, the Ambraciotic, and the Peparethian, to which last he gives the preference over all the rest, though he states that it enjoyed an inferior reputation, from the fact of its not being considered fit for drinking until it had been kept six years.

Although much of the work was compiled by judicious use of written sources, Pliny gives an eye witness account of gold mining in Spain where he was stationed as an officer.

A summary of Classical sources on the Seres ( essentially Pliny and Ptolemy ) gives the following account:

Pliny the Elder gives a dramatic account in his Naturalis Historia of the method, possibly derived from his experiences in Spain.

Pliny the Elder gives us the names of nine of these islands — Aegialia, Cotonis, Thyatira, Geoaris, Dionysia, Cyrnus, Chalcis, Pinara, Mystus.

Pliny the Elder reported that the Gauls and Iberians used the foam skimmed from beer to produce " a lighter kind of bread than other peoples.

The Roman writer Pliny the Elder reported that parent Ospreys made their young fly up to the sun as a test, and dispatch any that failed.

A tradition reported by Justin and Pliny the Elder affirmed that they were a portion of that people who had settled in the plains of the Po and were driven into the mountains by the invading Gauls, when they assumed the name of " Raetians " from an eponymous leader Raetus ; a more probable derivation, however, is from Celtic rait (" mountain land ").

References to such communal meals are discerned in, in Saint Ignatius of Antioch's Letter to the Smyrnaeans, where the term " agape " is used, and in a letter from Pliny the Younger to Trajan, in which he reported that the Christians, after having met " on a stated day " in the early morning to " address a form of prayer to Christ, as to a divinity ", later in the day would " reassemble, to eat in common a harmless meal ".

Along with Thule, Hyperborea was one of several terrae incognitae to the Greeks and Romans, where Pliny, Pindar and Herodotus, as well as Virgil and Cicero, reported that people lived to the age of one thousand and enjoyed lives of complete happiness.

Pliny reported that the last known stalk of silphium found in Cyrenaica was given to the Emperor Nero " as a curiosity ".

Zeuxis and his contemporary Parrhasius ( of Ephesus and later Athens ) are reported in the Naturalis Historia of Pliny the Elder to have staged a contest to determine which of the two was the greater artist.

Pliny the Elder reported about a vine in Helvie “ that flowers in a day, which protects it from accidents ”; the region would wait however, until the Middle Ages before the production was well established and the wine became well known.

| Pliny the Elder reported the case of Cornelia Serpios, wife Serpios in Pompeii in the 1st century AD, who had given him a son, Volusius Saturninus, at the age of 60.

Pliny ( VIII. 72-73 ) also writes of another hyena-like creature, the leucrocotta, which he calls " the swiftest of all beasts, about the size of an ass, with a stag's haunches, a lion's neck, tail and breast, badger's head, cloven hoof, mouth opening right back to the ears, and ridges of bone in place of rows of teeth — this animal is reported to imitate the voices of human beings.

The Judean Drusilla was one of only two major figures reported as dying in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the other being Pliny the Elder.

Pliny the Elder's statement on the topic of the marshes :" Another marvel not far from Circello is the Pomptine Marsh, a place that Mucianus, who was three times consul, has reported to be the site of 24 cities.

Around 7 BC, Augustus Caesar divided Italia into eleven regiones, as reported by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia ( iii 46 ):

The name is derived from the type genus Apium, which was originally used by Pliny the Elder circa 50 AD for a celery-like plant.

This image of a fully mature " Venus rising from the sea " ( Venus Anadyomene ) was one of the iconic representations of Aphrodite, made famous in a much-admired painting by Apelles, now lost, but described in the Natural History of Pliny the Elder.

Antoninus ’ father and paternal grandfather died when he was young and he was raised by Gnaeus Arrius Antoninus, his maternal grandfather, reputed by contemporaries to be a man of integrity and culture and a friend of Pliny the Younger.

Another early reference to Amber was Pytheas ( 330 BC ) whose work " On the Ocean " is lost, but was referenced by Pliny.

According to The Natural History " by Pliny the Elder:

Earlier Pliny says that a large island of three days ' sail from the Scythian coast called Balcia by Xenophon of Lampsacus is called Basilia by Pytheas.

The amphisbaena has been referred to by the poets, such as Nicander, John Milton, Alexander Pope, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and A. E. Housman, and the amphisbaena as a mythological and legendary creature has been referenced by Lucan, Pliny the Elder, Isidore of Seville, and Thomas Browne, the last of whom debunked its existence.

Its name was changed by Lysimachus to Alexandria Troas, in memory of Alexander III of Macedon ( Pliny merely states that the name changed from Antigonia to Alexandria ).

In the 4th century BC Plato knew oreichalkos as rare and nearly as valuable as gold and Pliny describes how aurichalcum had come from Cypriot ore deposits which had been exhausted by the 1st century AD.

He might also have been influenced by the name of a legendary island mentioned in The Natural History by Pliny the Elder.

It is possible that Pliny refers to an island named Basilia (" kingdom " or " royal ") in On the Ocean by Pytheas.

It might be connected with " glowing coals ", or " fire ", but it could equally go back to, or be influenced by, the Latin name Brundisium of the city of Brindisi ( aes Brundusinum, meaning " copper of Brindisi ", is attested in Pliny ).

The earliest bestiary in the form in which it was later popularized was an anonymous 2nd century Greek volume called the Physiologus, which itself summarized ancient knowledge and wisdom about animals in the writings of classical authors such as Aristotle's Historia Animalium and various works by Herodotus, Pliny the Elder, Solinus, Aelian and other naturalists.

Much of the early development of purification methods is described by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia.

The event was witnessed by Pliny the Elder:

According to Pliny the Elder in Achaea, the garland worn by the winners of the sacred Nemean Games was also made of celery.

There are few direct testimonies to the language of the Cimbri: Referring to the Northern Ocean ( the Baltic or the North Sea ), Pliny the Elder states: " Philemon says that it is called Morimarusa, i. e. the Dead Sea, by the Cimbri, until the promontory of Rubea, and after that Cronium.

Pliny claims that division was the work of Caligula, but Dio states that in 42 CE an uprising took place, which was subdued by Gaius Suetonius Paulinus and Gnaeus Hosidius Geta, only after which the division took place.

This diagnosis is mainly attributed to Caligula's irritability and his " stare " as described by Pliny the Elder.

Even in Roman times, hundreds of votive statues remained, described by Pliny the Younger and seen by Pausanias.