Roy Gibson

Pliny the Younger (c. 60-112 C.E.)--senator and consul in the Rome of emperors Domitian and Trajan, eyewitness to the eruption of Vesuvius in 79, and early 'persecutor' of Christians on the Black Sea--remains Rome's best documented private individual between Cicero and Augustine. No Roman writer, not even Vergil, ties his identity to the regions of Italy more successfully than Pliny. His individuality can be captured by focusing on the range of locales in which he lived: from his hometown of Comum (Como) at the foot of the Italian Alps, down through the villa and farms he owned in Umbria, to the senate and courtrooms of Rome and the magnificent residence he owned on the coast near the capital. Organized geographically, Man of High Empire is the first full-scale biography devoted solely to the Younger Pliny. Reserved, punctilious, occasionally patronizing, and perhaps inclined to overvalue his achievements, Pliny has seemed to some the ancient equivalent of Mr. Collins, the unctuous vicar of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Roy Gibson reveals a man more complex than this unfair comparison suggests. An innovating landowner in Umbria and a deeply generous benefactor in Comum, Pliny is also a consul who plays with words in Rome and dispenses summary justice in the provinces. A solicitous, if rather traditional, husband in northern Italy, Pliny is also a literary modernist in Rome, and--more surprisingly--a secret pessimist about Trajan, the 'best' of emperors. Pliny's life is a window on to the Empire at its zenith. The book concludes with an archaeological tour guide of the sites associated with Pliny.

The Life of Pliny the Younger

Man of High Empire

Senior Lecturer in Classics and Fellow of Emmanuel College Christopher Whitton

This volume brings together some of the best and most influential work to be published on the Epistles of Pliny the Younger in recent decades. Covering historical, (auto)biographical, and literary aspects of the Epistles and their reception, the 19 classic articles included here offer a wide and representative range of approaches to Pliny, from prosopography and social history to intertextuality and self-representation. Topics include Pliny's villas, friends, and career, alongside literary and historical readings of some of his most famous letters, such as those on the eruption of Vesuvius and the torture of Christians, and correspondence with and about his wife Calpurnia, his uncle Pliny the Elder, his rival Regulus, the historian Tacitus and the emperor Trajan. The volume includes several chapters currently out of print or scarcely available (such as Birley's on Pliny's career and Eco's on the first Vesuvius letter), one which has been wholely rewritten (Cameron on reception) and one newly translated from German (Schenk on intertextuality). In addition, most have been updated by their authors, and translations of all Latin and other foreign languages have been added. A substantial introductory chapter by the editors offers the first full account of the history of scholarship on the Epistles from the birth of printing to the present day, summarises important recent work in languages other than English, and contextualises the articles included within the broader context of modern approaches to Pliny. Pliny the Younger's ten books of Epistles have only recently moved into the mainstream of classical studies from their traditional role as fodder for Latin beginners or filing cabinet for Roman historians. This volume marks and consolidates that shift by reprinting nineteen of the best and most influential contributions on Pliny and his Epistles from recent decades, newly edited, revised and/or translated into English. It begins with a new, substantial account of the history of Plinian scholarship and survey of the contemporary scholarly landscape. Together this collection offers a detailed study of the man, the events of his time, his career, his friends, even his possessions, and above all the varied artistic and ideological facets of his letters.

The Epistles of Pliny

A Stoners Handbook for Enjoying Marijuana with friends or alone. 101 things to not do while smoking with friends or alone. Not every stoner need this book but every stoner should have a copy.It will make you laugh or prove a point to a violator of weed etiquette . You can keep those noobies in check or if you are a noob you can know the do's and dont's.

Stoner's Handbook

101 Things Not to Do While Smoking Weed

Alison Sharrock

Steven Green

A collection of essays on Ovid's cycle of sophisticated and subversive didactic poems on love, The Art of Love and Cures for Love, written by leading scholars and offering a range of perspectives on the poetics, politics, and erotics of the poems.

Bimillennial Essays on Ovid's Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris

The Art of Love

The Art of Love celebrates the bi-millennium of Ovid's cycle of sophisticated and subversive didactic poems on love, traditionally assumed to have been brought to completion around AD 2. Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love) and Remedia Amoris (Cures for Love), which purport to teach young Roman men and women how to be good lovers, were partly responsible for the poet's exile from Rome under the emperor Augustus. None the less they exerted great influence over ancient and later love poetry. This is the first collection in English devoted to the poems, and brings together many of the leading figures in the field of Latin literature and Ovidian studies from the British Isles, Germany, Italy, and the United States. It offers a range of perspectives on the poetics, politics, and erotics of the poems, beginning with a critical survey of recent research, and concluding with papers on the ancient, medieval, and modern reception of the poems.

Ruth Morello

Pliny's Naturalis Historia is a sophisticated encyclopaedia of the riches of the ancient world. The contributors to the present volume represent and join a new generation of critics who have begun to examine the dominant motifs which give shape to the work.

Roy Gibson

Books

Your next favorite book is out there