Before 35 (N.H. xxxvii.81) his father took him to Rome, where he was educated under his father's friend, the poet and military commander, Publius Pomponius Secundus, who inspired him with a li(xiii.83), and he afterwards wrote that preceptor's Life. He mentions the grammarians and rhetoricians, Remmius Palaemon and Arellius Fuscus (xiv.4; xxxiii.152), and he may have been their student. In Rome he studied botany in the topiarius (garden) of the aged Antonius Castor (xxv.9), and saw the fine old lotus trees in the grounds that had once belonged to Crassus (xvii.5). He also viewed the vast structure raised by Caligula (xxxvi.111), and probably witnessed the triumph of Claudius over Britain in 44 (iii.119). Under the influence of Seneca the Younger he became a keen student of philosophy and rhetoric, and began practicing as an advocate. He saw military service under Corbulo in Germania Inferior in 47, taking part in the Roman conquest of the Chauci and the construction of the canal between the rivers Maas and Rhine (xvi. 2 and 5). As a young commander of cavalry (praefectus alae) he wrote in his winter-quarters a work on the use of missiles on horseback (De jaculatione equestri), with some account of the points of a good horse (viii.162). In Gaul and Spain he learned the meanings of a number of Celtic words (xxx.40).

He took note of sites associated with the Roman invasion of Germany, and, amid the scenes of the victories of Drusus, he had a dream in which the victor enjoined him to transmit his exploits to posterity (Plin. Epp. iii.5, 4). The dream prompted Pliny to begin forthwith a history of all the wars between the Romans and the Germans.

He probably accompanied his father's friend Pomponius on an expedition against the Chatti (50), and visited Germany for a third time (50s) as a comrade of the future emperor, Titus Flavius (Praef. §3). Under Nero he lived mainly in Rome. He mentions the map of Armenia and the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea, which was sent to Rome by the staff of Corbulo in 58 (vi.40). He also saw the building of Nero's "golden house" after the fire of 64 (xxxvi.111).

Meanwhile he was completing the twenty books of his History of the German Wars, the only authority expressly quoted in the first six books of the Annals of Tacitus (1.69), and probably one of the principal authorities for the Germania. It was superseded by the writings of Tacitus, and, early in the 5th century, Symmachus had little hope of finding a copy (Epp. xiv.8).

He also devoted much of his time to writing on the comparatively safe subjects of grammar and rhetoric. A detailed work on rhetoric, entitled Studiosus, was followed by eight books, Dubii sermonis, in 67. Under his friend Vespasian he returned to the service of the state, serving as procurator in Gallia Narbonensis (70) and Hispania Tarraconensis (73), and also visiting the province of Gallia Belgica (74). During his stay in Spain he became familiar with the agriculture and the mines of the country, hair loss treatment besides paying a visit to Africa (vii.37). On his return to Italy he accepted office under Vespasian, whom he used to visit before daybreak for instructions before hair proceeding to his official duties, after the discharge of which he devoted all the rest of his time to study (Plin. Epp. iii.5, 9).

He completed a History of his Times in thirty-one books, possibly extending from the reign of Nero to that of Vespasian, and deliberately reserved it for publication after his death (N. H., Praef. 20). It is quoted by regrowth Tacitus (Ann. xiii.20, xv.53; Hist. iii.29), and hair loss treatment is one of the authorities followed by Suetonius and Plutarch.

He also virtually completed his great work, the Naturalis Historia, an encyclopedia into which Pliny collected much of the knowledge of his time. The work had been planned under the rule of Nero. The materials collected for this purpose filled rather less than 160 volumes in 23, when Larcius Licinus, the praetorian legate of Hispania Tarraconensis, vainly offered to purchase them for a sum equivalent to more than £3,200 (1911 estimated value) or £200,000 (2002 estimated value). He dedicated the work to Titus Flavius in 77.

[edit] Vesuvius Soon afterwards he received from Vespasian the appointment of praefect of the Roman fleet at Misenum. On August 24, 79 A.D., he was stationed at Misenum, at the time of the great eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which overwhelmed Pompeii and Herculaneum. A desire to observe the phenomenon directly, and also to rescue some of his friends from their perilous position on the shore of the Bay of Naples, led to his launching his galleys and crossing the bay to Stabiae (near the modern town of Castellammare di Stabia). His nephew, Pliny the Younger, provided an account of his death, and suggested that he collapsed and died through inhaling poisonous gases emitted from the volcano. However, Stabiae was 16 km from the vent, and his companions were unaffected, so it is more likely that he died through a different cause, such as a stroke or heart attack[1].

He is still remembered in vulcanology where the term plinian (or plinean) refers to a very violent eruption of a volcano after a long period of being dormant. The term ultra-plinian is reserved for the most violent type of plinian eruption such as the 1883 destruction of Krakatoa. The story of his last hours is told in an interesting letter addressed twenty-seven years afterwards to Tacitus by the Elder Pliny's nephew and heir, Pliny the Younger (Epp. vi.16), who also sends to another correspondent an account of his uncle's writings and his manner of life (iii.5):

"He began to work long before daybreak.…He read nothing without making extracts; he used even to say that there regrowth was no book so bad as not to contain something of value. In the country it was only the time when he was actually in his bath that was exempted from study. When travelling, as though freed from every other care, he devoted himself to study alone. In short, he deemed all time wasted that was not employed in study."

His only writings to have survived to modern times is the Naturalis historia. It was used as an authority over the following centuries by countless scholars.