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  • BBC World Histories Magazine

    Pliny the Younger’s journey to Asia Minor

    Sep 10, 2020 6 minutes

    When Pliny the Younger set out from Rome to what’s now Turkey in the baking-hot summer of AD 111, he must have experienced at least a hint of trepidation. One trait rarely attributed to this Roman author is bravery.

    Today, he is best known for what he saw rather than what he did. In AD 79, while he was still a teenager, he was staying with his uncle, writer Pliny the Elder, when they noticed a strange cloud in the sky above Pompeii. It was tall, branching – and puzzling. What was it?

    We know now, of course, that it was Vesuvius clearing its mighty throat. At the time, though, there was no ‘of course’ about it. Pliny’s uncle, brave and insatiably curious, decided to board a ship to take a closer look. Did Pliny the Younger want to come with him, he asked? He did not: the youth had some pressing homework to finish. Pliny’s uncle set out, declaring: “” – Fortune favours the brave. A day later, the older Pliny was dead.

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