PLINY THE ELDER. 77 



PomponiuSj when he had an opportunity of tra- 

 versing Germany from one extremity to the other. 

 At this time he wrote a treatise, De Jaculatione 

 Equestri, on the art of casting the javelin on horse- 

 back ; and afterwards composed an historical work, 

 in which he detailed all the wars carried on by the 

 Romans beyond the Rhine. Returning to Rome at 

 the age of thirty, he pled several causes, and became a 

 member of the college of augurs. Part of his time 

 was spent at Comum in superintending the edu- 

 cation of his nephew, for whom, it is probable, he 

 composed his three books entitled Studiosus, in 

 which he described the progress of an orator in the 

 various steps towards perfection. During the greater 

 part of the reign of Nero he seems to have been 

 without any public employment ; but towards the 

 end of it he was appointed procurator in Spain, 

 where, it is presumed, he remained pending the 

 civil wars of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius. On re- 

 visiting the capital he was favourably received by 

 Vespasian, on whom he had the privilege of waiting 

 every morning before sunrise, as already mentioned. 

 It is probable that at this period he wrote the His- 

 tory of his own Times, which consisted of thirty- 

 one books, and completed the work which Aufidius 

 Bassus had left unfinished. His Natural History, 

 which he dedicated to Titus, appears to have been 

 finished about the 78th year of our era. 



He was at Misenum, where he commanded the 

 fleet which protected all that part of the Mediter- 

 ranean comprised between Italy, the Gauls, Spain, 

 and Africa, when a great eruption of Vesuvius took 

 place. His sister and her son, the latter of whom 

 was then about eighteen years of age, were with him. 



