In his own way and for his own ends the Roman could be intensely studious.  He was eager to know and to possess information; but his native taste was for information of a positive kind, for definite facts more or less encyclopaedic—­the facts of history, of science, of art, of literature, or even of grammar.  His natural bent was not towards pure speculation.  The elder Pliny was in his prime in the later days of Nero, and though he is perhaps an extreme type, he is nevertheless a type worth contemplating.  His nephew writes a letter to a friend in which he gives a formidable list of works which the uncle had written or rather compiled, culminating in that huge miscellany known as his Natural History—­a book dealing, not only with geography, anthropology, physiology, zoology, botany, mineralogy, but also with fine art.  How did he lead the ordinary Roman official life and yet accomplish all this before he was fifty-six?  Here is the explanation.  “He had a keen intellect, incredible zeal, and the greatest capacity for wakefulness.  The end of August had not come before he began to work by lamplight long before dawn; in winter he began as early as one or two o’clock in the morning.  It is true that he could readily command sleep, which visited and left him even during his studies.  Before daylight he used to go to the emperor Vespasian—­who also worked before day—­and thence to his appointed duty.  Returning home he gave the remainder of his time to his studies.  After his dejeuner—­which, like any other food that he took in the daytime, was light and digestible in the old-fashioned style—­if it was summer, some leisure moments were spent in lying in the sun; a book was read, and he marked passages or made extracts.  He never read anything without making excerpts, for he used to say that no book was so bad as to contain no part that was useful.  After sunning himself he generally took a cold bath.  He then took a snack and a very brief siesta, subsequently reading till dinner-time as if it were a new day.  During dinner a book was read and marked, all very rapidly.  I recall an occasion on which a certain passage had been badly delivered by his reader, whereupon one of the company stopped him and made him read it again.  Said my uncle, ‘I suppose you had caught the meaning?’ The friend nodded.  ’Then why did you call him back?  We have lost more than ten lines by this interruption of yours.’  So economical was he of time.  In summer he rose from dinner while it was still light, and in winter within an hour after dark, as if compelled by some law.  Such was his day amid all his work and the roar of the city.  But when on holiday the only time he was not I studying was bath-time.  By bath I mean when he I was actually right inside; for while he was under scraper and towel he would be read to or dictate.  When travelling he thought of nothing else:  at his side was a shorthand writer with a book and his tablets.  In winter the writer’s