Pliny the Younger has come a long way since the time when his letters were valued more as a source on Flavian-Trajanic Rome than as serious literature meriting close textual analysis. The last two decades have done much to elucidate the Letters’ epistolarity and elevate Pliny's status as an author (e.g. I. Marchesi [2008]; J.M. Carlon [2009]; R. Gibson and C. Whitton [edd.] [2012]; C. Whitton [ed.] [2013]). Given this trend, the concomitant dearth of biographies on Pliny is especially prominent. G.'s comprehensive account, only the second in English published in the past decade (following R. Winsbury [2014]), is thus a welcome addition, and further solidifies Pliny's rightful place within the landscape of Roman literary history.
‘Place’ and ‘landscape’ are particularly appropriate terms: G. eschews the usual linear, chronological approach favoured by modern (auto)biographers and instead adopts a framework centred on geographical place: specific locales serve as the scaffolding for constructing a biography situating Pliny within not only his cultural, political and social context, but also a geographical one. The result is a highly engaging narrative suitable for specialists and non-specialists alike: G. takes readers on a diachronic journey through time and space to the places that informed Pliny's habitus and posthumous legacy.
The four-page introduction provides a biographical sketch, methodological overview and synopsis of three interwoven objectives. Foremost, G.'s goal is to ‘recreate the life of Pliny’ (p. xvi) and in so doing interrogate the genre of (auto)biography. Lastly, G.'s framework encourages a broader contextualisation of Pliny's milieux to facilitate more nuanced readings of the Letters and Panegyricus; in this regard, G. suggests that the book can serve as a companion to more literary-based studies, including his earlier 2012 monograph co-authored with R. Morello.
The first two chapters might appear as merely preliminary grounding for the remaining six, each of which focuses on a specific place. In fact, Chapters 1 and 2 present a thematically cohesive argument asserting the symbolic interconnection among place, identity and (auto)biography. In Chapter 1, ‘Life and Letters’, G. surveys Pliny's reception from antiquity to the present and discusses the evidence available for the reconstruction of Pliny's vita and comparative analysis; regarding the latter, notable is the figure of Augustine of Hippo whose ‘interiority’ G. cites as a precursor to modern (auto)biography and as a departure from Pliny's epistolary self-expression. G. explicates a long-standing case of mistaken identity from antiquity until the 1300s, when scholars finally disentangled Pliny the Younger's identity from the Elder. Vying attempts by Verona and Como in the fourteenth century to claim the Plinii as ‘fellow townsmen’ (p. 2) by virtue of birthplace illustrates the symbolic capital derived from intentional associations between person and place. The legacy of such competition, G. reveals, can be found in the fifteenth-century statues of the Plinii still adorning Como's cathedral and in early foundational treatises resulting from political manoeuvring by ‘civic leaders in Como and Verona, keen to assert the antiquity of their towns and independence from dominant nearby communities in Milan and Venice’ (p. 3). G. implicitly inserts his own volume within the subsequent development of Plinian scholarship from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries, including the seminal works of Theodor Mommsen and Ronald Syme (the latter of whom G. references with a frequency approaching veneration). The chapter offers a cautionary tale about the precariousness of transmission and the subjectivity of reception, particularly when the political agendas of cities can mean the difference between (an author's posthumous) life and death.
Readers impatient to ‘get on with the “life”’ (p. xvi) should ignore G.'s own suggestion to skip Chapter 2 (‘Writing a Modern Biography of an Ancient Roman’) since it is here that G. raises vital questions about reconstructing an ancient life and the ‘norms of modern biography’ (p. 14). G. introduces psychology in the development of modern biography and its emergence from Augustine's self-conscious ‘interiority’ that traces his moral progress since childhood. Like Augustine, G. suggests, the linear, chronological approach of most modern biography aims to trace the individual's path of discovery, change and introspection over time in order to reach a more enlightened, successful version of one's self. This methodological intent, however, is at odds with earlier Roman biography and contradicts classical Roman ideals that rejected fickleness and espoused constantia, a virtue Pliny strives to embody in his Letters. G.'s locale-based framework, then, aligns with Pliny's own epistolary arrangement and autobiographical self-presentation.
The remaining six chapters loosely follow Pliny's life through the locales that influenced his personal and professional advancement. Chapter 3 takes us to ‘Comum’ and Pliny's early youth, where the Transpadana landscape and familial connections there shaped Pliny's outlook, character and professional advancement. In Chapter 4 we visit ‘Campania’ and the impact of Mt Vesuvius’ eruption on the eighteen-year-old Pliny; G. illuminates how Pliny's autobiographical retrospection in Book 6 contributes to an epistolary self-presentation focused on literary and moral constantia. Chapter 5 brings us to ‘Rome’ with a sweeping overview of Pliny's adulthood under the Flavians and Trajan; with impressive detail G. describes Pliny's education, courtroom activities and political success. His expansive contextualisation adeptly navigates the complex network of Pliny's interactions at Rome including the individuals who populate the Letters and reappear at various times and places throughout Pliny's life. Chapters 6, ‘Umbria and the Laurentine Shore’, and 7, ‘Return to Comum’, should be read in sequence; together they reveal how Italian locales outside Rome shaped Pliny's idealised personae as a philanthropic patron, author, husband, villa owner and, notably, landlord. It is in these settings, G. argues, that Pliny's ‘sense of private or domestic self’ (p. 146) emerges most vividly. In Chapter 8 we travel outside Italy to Pontus-Bithynia and Pliny's governorship; this is the longest chapter, offering a panoramic view of the complex cultural and political landscape where Pliny executed his gubernatorial mandata. G.'s impressive collation of primary and secondary evidence elucidates Pliny's movements through time and space, both geographically, between Rome and Pontus-Bithynia, and autobiographically, among various books of the Letters.
A brief conclusion brings us full circle and returns to Pliny's legacy. G. cautions readers about the power of biography in influencing assessments about an author's worth and the value of their life as a negative or positive exemplum of how to live. Only a few shortcomings are worth mentioning: formal distinctions between the genre of (auto)biography proper and autobiographical writings, like letters, are not fully addressed; more theoretical grounding and engagement with recent scholarship pertaining to genre and identity would refine G.'s justification for his locale-based approach and his comparative references to other Roman biographical writers, especially Augustine (e.g. R. Sorabji, Self [2006]; L. Revell, Roman Imperialism and Local Identities [2009]; C. Smith and A. Powell [edd.], The Lost Memoirs of Augustus and the Development of Roman Autobiography [2009]; B. Stock, Augustine's Inner Dialogue [2010]). Given his framework, it is somewhat surprising that G. spends little time addressing the pragmatic considerations of Pliny's travels and epistolary communication on personal and bureaucratic levels (e.g. the cursus publicus and imperial secretary ab epistulis). Moreover, the book's non-linear approach may limit its useability as a reference volume, although G. attempts to resolve this potential shortcoming with frequent (often repetitive) ‘bookending’, alerting readers to forthcoming discussions and reminding them of previous ones; in the same vein, fulsome endnotes and cross-referencing could be trimmed. Yet, this ‘forwards and backwards’ movement (a strategy G. and Morello promote for reading Pliny's Letters in sequence [2012]) is also one of the book's merits, in that it presents Pliny's life as a mosaic, rather than a straight line and may more accurately reflect how one experiences life and remembers their past.
Overall, the non-linear locale-based approach has much to commend it. G. is successful in his objective to ‘avoid standard encapsulations of the man’ and to rehabilitate persistent characterisation of Pliny as self-absorbed, vain and ‘priggish’ (p. 242). New perspectives gleaned from G.'s volume will inspire readers to revisit the Letters, where they now might discover a new side of the author and statesman, and perhaps even encounter a more likeable, relatable Pliny, if only because his human imperfection feels rather familiar.
