Pliny the Elder vs. Seneca the Younger
Side-by-side comparison of two thinkers
Pliny the Elder
20 – 79
Gaius Plinius Secundus, known in English as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, scientist, naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, procurator, and friend of the emperor Vespasian. Pliny wrote the encyclopedic Naturalis Historia, a thirty-seven-volume work covering a vast array of topics on human knowledge and the natural world, which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. He spent most of his spare time studying, writing, and investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field.
"Man is the only one that knows nothing, that can learn nothing without being taught. He can neither speak nor walk nor eat, and in short he can do nothing at th…"
Seneca the Younger
4 BCE – 65
Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger, usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, a dramatist, and in one work, a satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature.
"Great also are the souls of the defenders—men who know that, as long as the path to death lies open, the blockade is not complete, men who breathe their last in…"
Connections
Both wrote about: