Pliny the Elder

Roman military commander and encyclopedist who wrote the Naturalis Historia — a 37-volume encyclopedia of all ancient knowledge about the natural world — and who died in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE while attempting to rescue friends.

Created the most ambitious encyclopedic work of antiquity — the Naturalis Historia's attempt to organize all natural knowledge — and demonstrated that curiosity and death are inseparable: his death investigating Vesuvius for scientific curiosity is the founding image of the scientist who sacrifices himself for knowledge.