Such is the audacity of man, that he hath learned to counterfeit Nature, yea, and is so bold as to challenge her in her work.

Life and times


Background

Pliny's dates are pinned to the eruption of Vesuvius in August 79 and a statement of his nephew that he died in his 56th year which would make his birth in AD 23. Literary interlude

At the earliest time Pliny could have left the service Nero the last of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty had been emperor for two years.

Pliny is referring to the fact that Tacitus relied on his uncle's now missing work on the History of the German Wars. His companions attributed his collapse and death to toxic fumes but they were unaffected by the fumes suggesting natural causes. In the latter number will be my uncle by virtue of his own and of your compositions.