Pliny: Natural History, Vol. I (Loeb)

when the famous eruption of Vesuvius occurred on August 23 and 24, overwhelming the little towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii. Pliny, as a man of science, sailed across the bay to obtain a closer view; he landed at Stabiae and was killed there by poisonous fumes. The circumstances are recorded by his nephew in a letter to Tacitus (Pliny, Epistulae VI. xvi). Vespasian had died two months before, succeeded as Princeps The official title of the Roman Emperor. by his son Titus.

Pliny’s earlier writings were on subjects suggested by his professional experiences—for example, the use of the javelin by cavalry, a history of the German wars, and the training of an orator. During his retirement, he produced Dubius Sermo ("Doubtful Language"), a treatise on grammar, and later a continuation, up to his own time, of the history of Rome by Aufidius Bassus. Finally, he wrote Natural History, the largest and most important of his works and the only one that has survived. His historical writings on the defense of the German frontier and the events of his own period were clearly works of value, and their loss is much to be regretted. However, their content is undoubtedly largely incorporated into the writings of Tacitus and Suetonius, the former of whom repeatedly cited Pliny as an authority in both his Annals and Histories.

Natural History is dedicated to Titus, who is referred to in the Preface (§ 3) as "sexies consul" original: "six times consul"; this dates the completion of the work to A.D. 77, two years before the author’s death and the accession of Titus. It is an encyclopedia of astronomy, meteorology, geography, mineralogy, zoology, and botany—that is, a systematic account of all natural objects that are not products of human manufacture.