XU LIFE AKD WRITIIfGS OF PLINT. 



details connected with his death. I shall therefore draw to 

 a conclusion. The only thing that I shall add is the assu- 

 rance that I have truthfully related all these facts, of which 

 I was either an eye-witness myself, or heard them at the 

 time of their occurrence, a period w^hen they were most 

 likely to he correctly related. You of course will select 

 such points as you may think the most important. For it 

 is one thing to write a letter, another to write history ; — one 

 thing to write for a friend, another to write for the puhlic. 

 Farewell." 



Of the mode of life pursued by Pliny, and of the rest of 

 his works, an equally interesting account has been pre- 

 served by his nephew, in an Epistle addressed to Macer^ 

 We cannot more appropriately conclude than by present- 

 ing this Epistle to the reader : — " I am highly gratified to 

 find that you read the w^orks of my uncle with such a 

 degree of attention as to feel a desire to possess them 

 all, and that with this view you inquire, What are their 

 names ? I will perform the duties of an index then : and 

 not content with that, will state in what order they were 

 written : for even that is a kind of information which is by no 

 means undesirable to those who are devoted to literary pur- 

 suits. His first composition was a treatise ' on the use of 

 the Javelin by Cavalry,' in one Book. This he composed, 

 with equal diligence and ingenuity, while he was in com- 

 mand of a troop of horse. His second work was the ' Life 

 of Q. Pomponius Secundus,' in two Books, a person by whom 

 he had been particularly beloved. — These books he composed 

 as a tribute which was justly due to the memory of his de- 

 ceased friend. His next work was twenty Books on ' the 

 Wars in Gi-ermany,' in which he has compiled an account of 

 all the wars in which we have been engaged with the people 

 of that country This he had begun while serving in 

 G-ermany, having been recommended to do so in a dream. 

 Eor in his sleep he thought that the figure of Drusus 

 Nero"^ stood by him — the same Drusus, who after the 

 most extensive conquests in that country, there met his 



1 B. iii. Ep. 5. 



2 Nero Claudius Drusus, the son of Livia, afterwards the wife of Au- 

 gustus. He was the father of the Emperor Claudius, and died in Grer- 

 many of the effects of an accident. 



