The legendary Pliny the Elder beer--much ought after, but hard to find
Posted on 07/12/2018 5:51:09 AM PDT by C19fan
...and the best wine was grown in Normandy, Wales, and Southern England. Can you say global warming?
Haven’t thought of that in a long time!
I think that was Pliny the Younger who was Hadrian’s governor of Bithynia and Pontus when he persecuted Christians.
It’s a “whale of a tale”, so it dinged my memory.
Pliny came to the province not knowing much about Christianity but assuming that the Christians were guilty of horrible crimes in their secret meetings. He took the trouble to investigate and could find no evidence that the reports were true, but still thought they should be executed for refusing to honor the gods.
He wrote Trajan to make sure--Trajan replied that just being a Christian was sufficient reason to be put to death, but any former Christian who offered incense to the gods would be let off, and Pliny should not go hunting after Christians.
Pliny the Younger was a friend of Tacitus--Tacitus' account of Nero's persecution of the Christians after the Great Fire of 64 is very interesting reading. Pliny's letter describing the eruption of Vesuvius was written for Tacitus as material for his Histories (but that portion of Tacitus' work does not survive.
If Pliny described whales in the Mediterranean, why would any idiot doubt he saw whales in the Mediterranean? “They’re not there now” is a pretty absurdly illogical reason.
“This fact led scientists to wonder if Pliny’s account was accurate, or if perhaps he was mistaking dolphins for whales.”
Well, dolphins and orcas ARE whales.
Mythbuster: the ancients and medievals knew damned well that dolphins were mammals, even though they called them “fish.” They also called starfish, jellyfist, shellfish, crayfish and everything else that swam in the seas, “fish.” Specifically, “dolphin” means “(having a) uterus.” Yes, they called them “fish” on porpoise.
Well, I’m sure that’s true.
But it is hard to tell one Pliny from the other.
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