THE 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF PLINY 
Cattjs Pliitiits Seciji^dtjs was born either at Verona or 
Novum Comuin^ now Como, in Cisalpine Graul, in the year 
A.ir.c. 776, and a.d. 23. It is supposed that his earlier years 
were spent in his native province ; and that he was still a 
youth when he removed to Rome, and attended the lectures 
of the grammarian Apion. It was in about his sixteenth year 
that he there saw Lollia Paulina^, as in the following she 
was divorced by Caligula, and it was probably in his twen- 
tieth that he witnessed the capture of a large fish at Ostia, 
by Claudius and his attendants^, and in his twenty-second 
that he visited Africa'*, Egypt, and Greece. 
In his twenty-third year Pliny served in Germany under 
the legatus Pomponius Secundus, whose friendship he soon 
acquired, and was in consequence promoted to the command 
of an ala^ or troop of cavalry. During his military career 
he wrote a treatise (now lost) " On the Use of the Javelin 
by Cavalry," and travelled over that country^ as far as 
the shores of the German Ocean, besides visiting Belgic 
Gaul. In his twenty-ninth year he returned to Kome, 
and applied himself for a time to forensic pursuits, which 
however he appears soon to have abandoned. About this 
time he wrote the life of his friend Pomponius, and an 
account of the "Wars in Germany," in twenty books, 
neither of which are extant. Though employed in writing a 
^ The weight of testimony inclines to the latter. The mere titles of 
the works which have been written on the subject would fill a volume. 
2 At a wedding feast, as mentioned by him m B. ix. c. 58. She was 
then the wife of Cahgula. ^ E-elated in B. ix. c. 5. 
* Here at Tusdrita, he saw L. Coisicius, who it was said had been 
changed from a woman into a man. See B. vii. c. 3. Phlegon Trallianus 
and Auspnius also refer to the story. 
* See B. xvi. c. 2, and B. xxxi. c. 19. 
