 Given that he led such an active public life while also raising a large family, the sheer quantity of Grotius’ works is nothing short of astonishing. Typical, for him, was the time of his embassy to France early in his life. The same year as the embassy, he published Pontifex Romanus, a collection of six essays on recent political events. While working on this, he produced what are in essence critical editions of two works: the Phaenomena, an astronomical work of the third century BCE by Aratus of Soli, and Martianus Capella’s handbook of the seven liberal arts. He also began research on a history of the Netherlands, research would which much later would result in the Annales et Historiae de Rebus Belgicis. And he did all this while still in his late teens. Over the full course of his life, Grotius would write or edit some five-dozen book-length works and innumerable smaller pieces.