VIU LirE AND WETTINGS OF PLINT. 



continuation of the "Eoman History "ofAufidiusBassus, from 

 the time of Tiberius, he judiciously suspended its publication 

 during the reign of Nero, who appointed him his procurator 

 in Nearer Spain, and not improbably honoured him with 

 equestrian rank. It was during his sojourn in Spain that the 

 death of his brother-in-law, C. Csecilius, left his nephew C. 

 Plinius Caecilius Secundus (the author of the Letters) an or- 

 phan; whom immediately upon his return to E-ome, a.d. 70, he 

 adopted, receiving him and his widowed mother under his roof. 



Having been previously known to Vespasian in the 

 German wars, he was admitted into the number of his 

 most intimate friends, and obtained an appointment at court, 

 the nature of which is not known, but Eezzonico conjec- 

 tures that it was in connexion with the imperial treasury. 

 Though Pliny was on intimate terms also with Titus, to 

 whom he dedicated his Natural History, there is little 

 ground for the assertion, sometimes made, that he served 

 under him in the Jewish wars. His account of Palestine 

 clearly shows that he had never visited that country. It 

 was at this period that he published his Continuation of the 

 History of Aufidius Bassus. 



Prom the titles which he gives to Titus in the dedicatory 

 preface, it is pretty clear that his Natural History was pub- 

 lished A.D. 77, two years before his death. 



In A.D. 73 or 74, he had been appointed by Vespasian 

 praefect of the Eoman fleet at Misenum, on the western coast 

 of Italy. It was to this elevation that he owed his romantic 

 death, somewhat similar, it has been remarked, to that of 

 Empedocles, who perished in the crater of Mount ^Etna. 

 The closing scene of his active life, simultaneously with the 

 destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii, camiot be better 

 described than in the language employed by his nephew in 

 an Epistle to his friend Tacitus the historian^ : — " My uncle 

 was at Misenum, where he was in personal command of the 

 fleet. On the ninth^ day before the calends of September, at 

 about the seventh hour, 1 p.m., my mother, observing the ap- 

 pearance of a cloud of unusual size and shape, mentioned it to 

 him. After reclining in the sun he had taken his cold 

 bath ; he had then again lain down and, after a slight repast, 

 applied himself to his studies. Immediately upon hear- 

 1 Plinii Ep. B. vi. Ep. 16. " ^ Twenty-fourth August. 



