The Dolphins of Laurentum :: Historical Background

The historical background to
The Dolphins of Laurentum

Pliny the Younger is the only real person in this story. He was Admiral Pliny's nephew, aged seventeen when he witnessed the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. Many years later he wrote about the eruption in a letter to the Roman historian Tacitus. Pliny the Younger is famous today because of the letters he wrote. He published most of them in his lifetime, hoping that they might bring him lasting fame. He got his wish.

In another of his letters, Pliny the Younger describes his beautiful seaside villa on the coast at Laurentum near Ostia. His description is so captivating that many people over the centuries have tried to find or recreate Pliny's 'Laurentine villa'. There is a site a few miles south of Ostia called Villa di Plinio, but scholars are not sure whether this was really Pliny's villa or not.

My plan at the front of this book is based on many speculative plans and on the seventeenth letter in Pliny's second scroll.

Diving deep and holding your breath for a long time is called 'free diving'. It is a very dangerous sport. So was sponge-diving in ancient times. The people who did it for a living were often crippled or even killed by their profession.

Dolphins of Laurentum Pliny's Letters Day in Laurentum General Links

this statue of a boy on a dolphin in London always reminds me of Lupus