22 
WEMOIK OF PLINY. 
sides to be acquainted with it ? But wee were not 
contented to feed with the peril of so many men, 
vnlesse we he clad and araied also therewith. O the 
folly of vs men ! See, how, there is nothing that 
gocth to the pampering and trimming of this our car- 
casse, of so great price and account, tliat is not bought 
with the vtmost hasard, and costeth not the venture 
of a man’s life 
The attention of Pliny, even at this early age, was 
attracted by the interesting productions of nature, 
and particularly by the remarkable animals which 
the emperors exhibited in the public spectacles. He 
relates in detail, in his ninth book, and as an eye- 
witness, the capture of a huge whale, or other large 
monster of the deep, which was taken alive in the 
harbour of Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, and 
slain by the darts and javelins of certain Prtetorian 
cohorts, for the amusement of the people of Rome. 
This event having taken place while Claudius was 
constructing the port in question, that is, in the second 
year of his reign, the youthful iihilosopher could not 
have been at that time more than about nineteen 
years of age. We learn from himself that, about hie 
twenty-second year, he resided for a time on the coast 
of Africa. It was at this period that some modern 
writers have alleged, on no very substantial evidence 
howev'er, that he served in the Homan fleet, and 
visited Britain, Greece, and some other eastern coun- 
tries. But these suppositious do not accord with 
