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LIFE AITD WEITINGS OP PLIKT 
continuation of the " Eoman History "ofAufidiusEassns, from 
the time of Tiberius, he judiciously suspended its publication 
during the reign of JNTero, 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 CsDcilius Secundus (the author of the Letters) an or- 
phan; whom immediately upon his return to Kome, AcD. 7 0, he 
adopted, receiving him and his widowed mother under his roof. 
Having been previously known to Yespasian 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 w^as pub- 
lished A.D. 77, two years before his death. 
In A.D. 73 or 74, he had been appointed by Vespasian 
prsefect of the Roman 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 ^tna. 
The closing scene of his active life, simultaneously with the 
destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii, cannot 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 theninth^ 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. E. vi. Ep. 16. 2 Twenty-fourth August. 
