When he passed away at the age of 56, he had written 37 books on the nature of the physical universe - including geography, anthropology, zoology, botany and other related subjects. Pliny did, indeed, leave the world happier and better for having lived in it. His scientific findings have been far surpassed, as we would expect. Nothing great was ever accomplished without it. This is to be distinguished from blatant notoriety.
History presents far more writings of the latter sort than the former.
Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, and countless other great destroyers loom too large in written history. It is the bad, not the good, which attracts the public eye. Observe today's media and the preponderance of reporting that does not deserve to be either written or read, spoken or heard. The following is an attempt to think through and to understand Pliny's three parts of True Glory. If even partially successful, I will make a small contribution to the displacement of that which should be neither written nor read.