MEMOIR OF PLINY. 
23 
the testimony of his nephew, who asserts that, while 
yet quite young, he was employed in the Roman ar- 
mies in Germany. He there served under Lucius 
Pomponius, whose friendship he gained, and who 
entrusted him with the command of a part of the 
cavalry. In these campaigns he must have availed 
himself very fully of the opportunity to explore the 
country ; since he informs us that he had seen the 
sources of the Danube, and had also visited the 
Chauci, a tribe that dwelt between the Elbe and the 
Weser, on the borders of the Northern Ocean. The 
operations of the war seem not entirely to have en- 
grossed his time, as he found leisure to write a trea- 
tise (his first work) De Jaculatione Equestri, on the 
art of throwing the javeline on horseback. He also 
composed a life of his General, Pomponius, which 
was dictated by his strong attachment to that com- 
mander, and by the gratitude which he felt for his 
numerous favours. He was induced about the same 
period to engage in a literary enterprise of great la- 
bour, viz. that of composing the history of all the 
wars carried on in Germany by the Romans. This 
undertaking, as recorded by his nephew, was sug 
gested to him by a remarkable dream, in which the 
shade of Drusus appeared to him, and urged him to 
write his memoirs, — a task which he eventually exe- 
cuted in the compass of twenty books. 
About tbe age of thirty Pliny retui'ned to Rome, 
where he pleaded several causes according to the 
custom of his countrymen, who were fond of allying 
