MEMOIR OF PLINY. 23 



the testimony of his nephew, who asserts that, while 

 yet quite young, he was employed in the Roman ar- 

 mies in Germany. He there served under Lucius 

 Pomponius, whose friendship he gained, and who 

 entrusted him with the command of a part of the 

 cavalry. In these campaigns he must have availed 

 himself very fully of the opportunity to explore the 

 country ; since he informs us that he had seen the 

 sources of the Danuhe, and had also visited the 

 Chauci, a tribe that dwelt between the Elbe and the 

 Weser, on the borders of the Northern Ocean. The 

 operations of the war seem not entirely to have en- 

 grossed his time, as he found leisure to write a trea- 

 tise (his first work) De Jaculatione Equestri, on the 

 art of throwing the javeline on horseback. He also 

 composed a life of his General, Pomponius, which 

 was dictated by his strong attachment to that com- 

 mander, and by the gratitude which he felt for his 

 numerous favours. He was induced about the same 

 period to engage in a literary enterprise of great la- 

 bour, viz. that of composing the history of all the 

 wars carried on in Germany by the Romans. This 

 undertaking, as recorded by his nephew, was sug 

 gested to him by a remarkable dream, in which the 

 shade of Drusus appeared to him, and urged him to 

 write his memoirs, a task which he eventually exe- 

 cuted in the compass of twenty books. 



About the age of thirty Pliny returned to Rome, 

 where he pleaded several causes according to the 

 custom of his countrymen, who were fond of allying 



