A Roman scholar born in 23 CE who died from poisonous fumes while trying to get close to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. A soldier and scholar, Pliny composed the 37-volume Natural History, in which he mentions an Essene settlement above 'Ein Gedi in the context of a description of Judea ( Nat. Hist. 5.17.4 [§73).

Gaius Plinius Secundus, Roman historian and scientific encyclopedist (AD 23-79). In his Historia Naturalis, he surveyed all the known sciences of his day, ranging from astronomy and geography to natural history and mineralogy.

Roman naturalist and writer, active in the first century A.D.