xii LIFE AKD WEITIKaS OE PLIIirr. 
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 when they were most 
likely to be correctly related. You of course will select 
such points as you may think the most important. Tor it 
is one thing to write a letter, another to write history ; — one 
thing to write for a friend, another to write for the public. 
Parewell." 
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 works 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 Eook. 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 Eooks, 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 Eooks on ' the 
"Wars in Grermany,' 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 
Grermany, 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. 
