Pliny's stylistic ambitions were not matched by competence or taste. He does not appear to have mastered either the periodic elegance in which, for example, Columella and
Celsus wrote successfully on technical themes, or the staccato Senecan lucidity, which Seneca himself had used impressively for science. But he aims high; and, though a
torment to translators, he has often tempted them, not only for his content but for a certain richness of language, especially in his many moralizing digressions and
exclamations. His summary of Augustus' career (7.147 ff.) reveals a talent for satire, and the syntax of Mr. Jingle:
In Divine Augustus ... if all things were judged carefully many volumes of human destiny might be found; defeat in his uncle's time for the Mastership of the Horse;
preference given to Lepidus over his candidature; unpopularity from the proscriptions; participation in the triumvirate with the most evil men-and in no equal share at that,
but dominated by Antony; illness at Philippi, flight, three days' hiding in the marsh, ill and (according to Agrippa and Maecenas) swollen with subcutaneous water; Sicilian
shipwreck; another concealment, this time in a cave; plea for death made to Proculeius in the rout at sea, with the enemy fleet hard upon him; anxiety in the Perugian war;
mutinies; dangerous illnesses; suspicion of Marcellus' intentions; shocking exile of Agrippa; all the plots against his life; accusations about his children's deaths; mourning
whose sadness was not due simply to bereavement; daughter's adultery and the disclosure of her plans for parricide; his stepson Nero's rude withdrawal from court; adultery
again, in his granddaughter; then a combination of evils-lack of revenue, rebellion in Illyricum, call-up of slaves, shortage of recruits, plague in Rome, famine in Italy,
determination to die, four days without food, when much of death entered his body; on top of this, disaster of Varus, foul insults to dignity, Postumus Agrippa adopted,
rejected, and then missed, suspicion of Fabius and his betrayal of secrets, apprehensions concerning his wife and Tiberius. This was his last anxiety. In short, this god -who
perhaps not only achieved heaven, but deserved it, died leaving his enemy's son as his heir.