The past decade has witnessed a resurgence of scholarly interest in Pliny the Younger and his world. Pliny's Letters, a perennial staple of undergraduate courses in Roman history, have been the subject of incisive critical analysis by I. Marchesi in The Art of Pliny's Letters (2008), while R.K. Gibson and R. Morello's modestly-titled Reading the Letters of Pliny the Younger: an Introduction (2012), has put the study of the corpus on a new footing. The Panegyricus, a speech more often quoted than read, has also been the subject of a fine collection edited by P.A. Roche, Pliny's Praise: the Panegyricus in the Roman World (2011). To these works we can now add this volume, W.'s accessible biography intended for the general reader.
It may initially seem surprising that W. is the first author to produce a biographical account of Pliny the Younger in English. There is certainly sufficient source material, given that we not only possess Pliny's own writings, but also the accounts of the Flavio-Trajanic period and its emperors featured in Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio. But a biographer also faces serious problems in reconstructing a coherent account of Pliny's life, since the Letters are not presented in chronological order, as W. is well aware (pp. 10–11). One of the book's virtues is that W. does not hide this problem, but makes it a key part of his analysis. For example, he takes the reader step-by-step through the chronological problems of Pliny's praetorship and, more importantly, shows how different dates affect our interpretation of Pliny's career under Domitian (pp. 97–100).
The book is divided into sixteen brief chapters arranged into eight sections, which follow the course of Pliny's life and career in the imperial service. After two introductory chapters, W. launches into an account of the eruption of Vesuvius (pp. 23–35), drawing on Pliny's gripping letters about his own experiences (6.16, 6.20). (John Millar Watt's vivid rendition of the Eruption of Vesuvius also graces the front cover.) We then follow Pliny through his legal career (pp. 37–90), and the political machinations of the reigns of Domitian and Trajan (pp. 91–123). W. seems to relish this material, and his discussion of Pliny's various legal cases is particularly engaging (pp. 78–90). There follow thematic chapters on Pliny's family life, wealth and property (pp. 125–57) and his literary circle (pp. 159–84). W. then deals with Pliny's appointment as governor of Bithynia (pp. 185–215) with two chapters focusing on provincial government and the famous correspondence with Trajan about the Christians. The book concludes with an ultimately positive assessment of Pliny as a man who tried his best to live a honourable life under the rule of the emperors (pp. 217–27).
W. is well-acquainted with recent scholarship by Marchesi, Gibson and Morello, among others, on the Letters as a literary work. Thus, in the first section, we have a chapter on ‘Reading the Evidence: Are Pliny's Letters What They Seem?’ which takes the reader through important issues such as the textual transmission of the letters and the arrangement of the corpus. In W.'s discussion of the correspondence between Trajan and Pliny, he is well aware that Book 10 is no government archive, but a carefully-arranged selection of letters designed to present Pliny's administration in a particular light (pp. 185–7). These sections help to show the general reader some of the problems ancient historians face in interpreting the past, and that the exploration of these issues can be tremendously satisfying in and of itself. Not all aspects of Pliny's life receive equal treatment, however, and W. seems more at home working out thorny chronological issues and charting the world of high politics than social history. The discussion of childlessness among the Roman elite is rather cursory (pp. 128–9), and he does not really exploit Pliny's correspondence on the issue to the extent one might have wished. Pliny's treatment of slaves and freedmen, and the role it plays in his self-presentation in the Letters, is also given somewhat superficial treatment (pp. 139–40). There are some memorable letters on this topic, such as those dealing with the illness of Pliny's freedman Zosimus (5.19), or the deaths of his slaves (8.16), that would have merited discussion.
There are other issues with the style and presentation of the book. The writing is in general lively, but sometimes W. presses the colloquialisms too far. Concerning Trajan's ascent to the principate, he writes that the new emperor needed to be grateful to his supporters, ‘just in case those who put him there decided to un-put him’ (p. 122). W. is often heavily reliant on the conclusions of modern scholars to the extent of quoting them verbatim in substantial block quotations (for example: p. 74 on the Roman legal system; p. 109 on the Panegyricus; p. 132 on Pliny and Calpurnia; p. 149 on the villas). It would have been better to paraphrase and synthesise the results of scholarly research into the main narrative rather than using this style of block quotation. The endnotes are very limited, often referring only to these direct quotations, which means that it is difficult to follow the route of W.'s own research if one should wish to do so. For example, who are the ‘some analysts of Roman law’ (p. 47) who put forward a specific argument about inheritance law? They are not cited by name and there is no endnote provided. Including such references would not have compromised the readability of the work for the general public, while increasing its usefulness to students and scholars.
W. has written an engaging biography of Pliny the Younger for a non-specialist audience. With any luck, it will inspire its readers to buy a copy of Pliny's Letters and read them for themselves. One hopes that a paperback version will be released soon, because at £65, the price seems very steep for the intended audience.
