posted with permission:

Performing Greek Comedy. By Alan Hughes. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. xiv + 311. Hardcover, £55.00/$99.00. ISBN 978-1-107-00930-1.

Reviewed by G. M. Sifakis, University of Crete and New York University

This is an extraordinary work about the performance of Greek comedy placed in its historical and social context from the time it first “came to sight” (as Aristotle puts it) and down to Hellenistic times. Alan Hughes is an emeritus professor of theater arts (British Columbia) and formerly a theater artist himself. He was a specialist in Shakespeare and the English theater of the 19th century when he turned his attention to Greek drama and its archaeology, where he found a good number of images comparable to modern theatrical pictures. 

As Hughes suggests, such images of actors, costumes, sets etc., often are more revealing about the theater of their own time than texts. Moreover, as we have no description of “how the komodos sat, stood, walked, gestured, … our best resource [for his style of movement] is the static figurines and pictures on vases that show actors in characteristic action” (147). This is the reason he decided to spend many years of studying not photos, but the dramatic monuments themselves (mostly Athenian terracottas and South Italian “phlyax” vases) in no fewer than 75 museums and private collections all over the world. As he writes, “I have never examined a comedy vase without learning something new” (xiv). His “Catalogue of objects discussed” lists more than five hundred dramatic monuments.

Unlike Classical scholars and archaeologists-since the time of Webster, Trendall and their successors-who tried to learn from theatrology in order to understand ancient dramatic monuments, modern theater critics and artists have usually moved in the opposite direction: they have been using ancient plays and theaters as vehicles for their own creative ideas and ‘original’ performances. Exceptions are few and far between, although a famous exception that confirms the rule, Peter Hall’s Oresteia (1981), must be mentioned in this connection.

Another unprecedented exception is Hughes’ scholarly work that began appearing in academic journals in 1996-when his seminal paper on “Comic Stages in Magna Graecia” (Theatre Research International 21) was published-and eventually resulted in the publication of the comprehensive work under review.

The book includes chapters devoted to general subjects such as the origins of comedy, festivals, theaters, and comic poets, because the author apparently wants his work to be useful to theater arts students and scholars. But its most original parts are those devoted to actors and acting style, masks and costumes, gestures and body language, and women on the stage. All suggestions and conclusions are based on specific images perceptively interpreted with regard to dramatic action.

The author begins with the symbolic notion of the passage from poet to actor and from lyric to the “double consciousness” (the term is borrowed from the French actor François-Joseph Talma (1763-1826)) of the actor, who does not “build a character from within” but has to act various parts, sometimes in quick succession. Obviously, masks encouraged “doubling,” and by transferring expression from the face to the whole body also encouraged creativity in regard to an acting style that was not representational but presentational and metatheatrical. The appearance of the actors (masks with distorted features, padded costumes, artificial phalli) was emblematic of the social inferiority of comic characters as opposed to the socially superior tragic heroes and stories (spoudaioi and phauloi, respectively, as Aristotle has it) (170-1).

When discussing attitudes and gestures, Hughes uses the behaviorist term ’emblem’ to distinguish between “symbolic, culturally specific action that expresses an idea rather than an emotion” (154), and affective gestures which are more difficult to decode. However, because ancient comedy was highly conventional in terms of its characters and plot structures, and the author has a great power of observation, his analysis of images is impressive. This is true of general examinations of the evidence, say, for comic costumes and how they were donned or manipulated on stage, or for wooden stages which could be dismantled and reassembled, but could not be carried by traveling troupes from city to city, and which, therefore, it has to be assumed belonged to the cities themselves. Occasionally, a single image may be enough to support a valuable conclusion, e.g. the “Perseus dance” on a low wooden stage illustrated on an Attic oinochoe (Athens ΒΣ518, c. 420), which shows that such stages originated in Attica (the same picture also offers a unique indication of a theatron opposite the stage).

Character types are identifiable by mask and “the generalized style of body language” (147). “Low” types may have been perceived as such “simply because they kept their bodies close to the ground. Actors cultivated this impression by adopting an angular, knee-bending walk, or by stooping and crouching” (151). Yet “portraits from Taras show how, within the comic convention of inverted ideals, actors could set their individual stamp on old types.” A wonderful example is “an old fellow named Derkylos [who] dances a ‘soft shoe,’ gracefully pointing his toes. A charming figure with black mask and tights seems to shrug, looking over his shoulder as he sidles” (150: Apulian situla, 360-350, Getty Museum, 96.AE.118).

In general, while masks often divide women into “three broad categories” (maiden, wife and crone), depictions in vase scenes situate women in relation to men in terms of modesty (158). However, in the chapter on “Comedy and Women” the author discusses the introduction of leading female roles to comedy (Lysistrata, Praxagora), which were individual cases since there was no tradition behind them; and because such heroines inverted “custom and propriety by abandoning the woman’s realm (oikos) for the man’s (polis)” the author wonders whether their appearance was also inverted so as to make them appear attractive in order to be taken seriously by the audience (204).

Lysistrata and Praxagora were played by Aristophanes’ protagonist actors, but Hughes believes that real women were also used as performers in mute roles of dancers, musicians, and allegorical abstractions. He lists a dozen or so cases from Aristophanes, of which worthy of special note is the aulos player brought home by reveling Philokleon at Wasps 1326, because Bdelykleon recognizes her as person (not a character of the play) and mentions her name, “Dardanis.” Does a reference to a real (and perhaps renowned) aulêtris amount to cogent evidence for her presence on stage? 

I remain skeptical about the possibility of mixing real young women with the grotesque and sexually repulsive old men of comedy, inasmuch as such a practice seems to me incompatible with the style of comic performance. Indeed, as Hughes elsewhere says, “given the way female characters are defined, surprisingly few scenes express even muted sexuality” (158). On the other hand, I recognize his point that certain of the above figures have some rejuvenating effect on protagonists (add Ach. 1198, Eq. 1390). Besides, sexually explicit paratheatrical performances featuring dancers and tumblers in partial or total nudity have been documented by Xenophon (Symp. 2.1-2, 8, etc.) and by phlyax vases, and the author refers most of them to acrobatic and mime shows, although in a few cases some relationship to comedy is also possible. Regarding the unnecessarily vexed question of whether women were admitted to theater as spectators, Hughes reasonably sides with those who believe that they were admitted.

The value of this remarkable book lies in the close examination of a multitude of dramatic monuments interpreted, not as archaeological objects, but as pictorial evidence for the performance of Old and Middle comedy in Athens and South Italy and Sicily. This kind of approach–and achievement–was possible precisely because the author is a professional theater historian and self-taught–though by no means an amateur–archaeologist.

[©2013 by The Classical Association of the Middle West and South. All rights reserved.]

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An Environmental History of Ancient Greece and Rome. By Lukas Thommen. Translated by Philip Hill. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp xi + 186. Paper, $29.99. ISBN 978-0521-17465-7.

Reviewed by Jeremy McInerney, University of Pennsylvania

Thommen’s work illustrates both the strengths and shortcomings of a short handbook designed to introduce readers to the study of the environmental history of the Greek and Roman worlds. Constraints of the handbook format, especially length, make it unfair to compare it to more theoretically sophisticated works like Horden and Purcell’s The Corrupting Sea, or more exhaustive tomes such as Sallares’ magnificent 1991 volume, The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World, and in the space of a scant 142 pages of text Thommen is able to touch upon a broad range of topics, from deforestation to changes in shore-line, with short chapters on topics as varied as Fire, Water, Animals and Food, which is not to exhaust the list. Also, the work has a very thorough summary, in the Introduction, briefly noting various modern works devoted to environmental history. Thommen is admirably lucid in laying out the key ancient and modern terms used for discussing environmental matters. The section on further reading is also very helpful and the volume will be a good jumping off point for undergraduates working on environmentally-themed term papers.

A more difficult question to answer, however, is whether such a format is really desirable for a topic as immense as the environmental history of the Ancient Mediterranean. Time and again questions are raised, or more commonly, assertions are made, that one would like to have seen more fully teased out. For example, after a half-page discussion of the Greek understanding of climatic zones and meteorology, Thommen declares, “No concrete effects of this teaching on settlement activity are apparent” (25) This is strictly not true. Lothar Haselberger has shown quite convincingly that classical urban planning took account of Aristotelian notions of the winds. [[1]] Rather than a closed avenue, as Thommen’s comments suggest, this is a new line of inquiry that deserves much more attention. Similarly, a statement such as “During the Augustan period, the poets Vergil and Propertius praised the superior strength of the Roman Empire precisely because of its better environment” (76) borders on oversimplification. Debellare superbos et parcere subiectis is not an environmental manifesto!

A second reservation concerns Thommen’s decision to base his work primarily on literary sources (16) and to take into account “natural-scientific investigations” (which I take to mean archaeology in its fullest sense) “only to a limited degree.” Thus we get Oliver Rackham on the capacity of pine trees to regenerate and the revisionist view that widespread deforestation was not responsible for the degradation of the Greek countryside, and a passing reference to Hans Lohmann’s Atene survey, but no mention of the Nemea Valley Area Project, the Pylos Regional Area Project or the nearly fifty year old Minnesota-Messenia Project. Similarly, on the Roman side, an influential 2010 Dutch landscape and archaeological project entitled Regional Pathways to Complexity is simply absent. Such omissions are a concern: Thommen’s analysis of Roman agriculture relies far too heavily on Columella and Varro, while his treatment of Rome as an urban environment is skewed towards Horace and Martial’s familiar complaints about the noise, traffic and smell of the city. Once again, archaeology is being reduced to a bowl of cherries, to be picked for the juiciest bits but not systematically digested. That’s a step backwards.

Even if we follow Thommen and restrict the analysis to literary sources, there’s much here to cause raised eyebrows. It is not controversial to say that “In Greece the gods took anthropomorphic form,” but recent studies have explored the animal nature of Hera and Zeus, as well as the obvious cases of Athena Hippia and Poseidon Hippios in much greater depth. Accordingly, the statement that Poseidon “was primarily held responsible for earthquakes” is not wrong but only skims the surface, since the cult of the Earthshaker was central to the religious, political and ethnic identity of central Greece. [[2]] Another lost opportunity is the omission of any discussion of the Mycenaean draining of Lake Copais, despite a short section on drainage that mentions a similar, though more modest project under Alexander the Great. One might have expected the greatest engineering feat performed on the Greek mainland in three millennia to have warranted a mention.

The second half of the book is dedicated to Rome and in particular the environmental changes associated with the growth of imperial power. The section on roads is clear, if somewhat weighted towards the physical connections made between Italy and Germany without much attention to other provinces or regions. The same can be said of an interesting section on timber that makes some keen observations about Roman forestry practices in southern Germany. Here too, however, the highly selective nature of Thommen’s argument, which is assembled somewhat serendipitously, leaves the reader dissatisfied. For example, Thommen cites a lugubrious passage from Pliny on the human dilemma: man is weak, threatened by the environment, aided only by his technical resources, which, ironically, leave him even more exposed to destruction. Yet what qualifies this passage as programmatic (an illustration of “the fundamental dilemma of people in antiquity with respect to nature” (78)) rather than, say, Sophokles’ famous ode to man from the Antigone, in which human ingenuity is seen as a continuous triumph over nature?

So light is Thommen’s engagement that at times his pages read more as aperçu than argument. Page 97, for example, begins with bans on animal fights in the arena before moving to depictions on arches and sarcophagi of animal hunts, five lines on the Piazza Armerina mosaics, Vergil on bee colonies, Pliny on zoology in general, Neopythagoreans and vegetarianism, Plutarch on animal reason, Porphyry on avoiding carnivory, and finally, the New Testament, the Lamb of God and the Good Shepherd: a veritable smorgasbord!

Overall, students will find a good deal of useful information here but despite Thommen’s laudable concern for the environment his volume can hardly be said to have ascertained “the interactive complexes of effects between people and their environment” (15) in the ancient Mediterranean. Such a work remains to be written. A final note: Philip Hill’s translation is fine, although there are occasional missteps. “For whenever anyone was belated by a sacrifice …” (51) is not a happy expression.

[[1]] Lothar Haselberger, “Geometrie der Winde, windige Geometrie: Städtebau nach Vitruv und Aristophanes,” in Stadt und Umland-Diskussionen zur Archäologischen Bauforschung 7 (Mainz,1999) 90-100.

[[2]] See Sabine Szidat, Poseidon als Erderschütterer (Munich, 2001).

[©2013 by The Classical Association of the Middle West and South. All rights reserved.]

posted with permission:

Under Divine Auspices: Divine Ideology and the Visualisation of Imperial Power in the Severan Period. By Clare Rowan. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. xvi + 303. Hardcover, $110.00. ISBN 978-1-107-02012-2.

Reviewed by Adam M. Kemezis, University of Alberta

The last ten years of scholarship have greatly enriched our understanding of the Severan period of imperial history (193-235), and Clare Rowan’s study of the emperors’ religious self-presentation represents both a synthesis of this new material and an important advance in its own right. It will be indispensable to specialists in the period, and of great interest both to scholars of imperial Rome’s religious and cultural history and also to students of the historical side of numismatics.

The book, a revised version of a Macquarie University doctoral thesis, consists of an introduction, methodological-and-background chapter and one chapter each on the four Severan emperors, followed by a brief conclusion and three appendices. Each of the main emperor-based chapters gives a detailed survey of surviving uses of religious imagery in visual media for that reign with particular emphasis on coinage, both imperial and civic.

The methodology chapter lays out Rowan’s approach to coins (19-31), which is notable for its stress on hoard evidence as opposed to catalogs; thus Rowan looks not only at which types were issued, but also at which types were most heavily issued. It is this that leads to the most important finding of the book overall, which is that religious imagery is considerably more prominent in Severan than in Antonine coinage when one considers it as a percentage of the total coins minted. Thus in a sample hoard of 80,000 coins, a coin of Alexander Severus is twice as likely to have a religious image as a coin of Marcus Aurelius (see Rowan’s Appendix 1). Furthermore, many of the cults invoked in Severan coinage are provincial in origin, suggesting a new ideological dynamic between center and periphery.

The remaining chapters detail the rather different emphasis that each emperor used in this practice. The chapter on Septimius Severus is the longest, due to the abundance of sources, and consists mostly of an important discussion of Septimius’ use of the tutelary gods of Leptis Magna. Some of this material has been covered very recently and in great depth by Achim Lichtenberger, in a book that Rowan was fortunately able to consult (Severus Pius Augustus: Studien zur sakralen Repräsentation und Rezeption der Herrschaft des Septimius Severus und seiner Familie (193-211 n. Chr.) Leiden, 2011). Rowan adds to this formidable study particularly in her coverage of numismatic material, of monuments in Leptis itself (84-102), and in her cultural-historical arguments, which are more straightforwardly presented without being any less sophisticated.

The chapter on Caracalla concentrates on an aspect of his persona that may be unfamiliar even to specialists: his obsession with his health. Rowan convincingly links his well-known devotion to Sarapis with numismatic references to Aesculapius and Apollo which seem to coincide with Caracalla’s travels to specific holy sites, and with literary references to his diseases (115-37). The iconography of the cults finds its way into imperial coinage as a sort of reflex to the appearance of imperial ideology in provincial coinage and art.

The chapter also contains detailed considerations of Caracalla’s visits to Troy and Alexandria (146-53). Elagabalus’ religious self-presentation is well mapped territory, and Rowan is less interested in breaking new ground than in placing what we know in better perspective. Her sensible conclusion is that, based on the visual and material evidence, Elagabalus’ presentation of himself as priest-emperor appears neither as a unilaterally and universally imposed policy, nor as a radical aberration from Severan practice generally, however disastrously it may eventually have failed.

The chapter on Alexander is the shortest, again as dictated by the available evidence, and Rowan mainly discusses his use of Jovian imagery and in general his reaction against Elagabalus. There is also a sensible discussion of Alexander’s heavy use of solar imagery (241-5).

What makes this book most useful is its breadth and accessible organization: Rowan brings together a very great deal of material for a medium-length book, both in terms of ancient evidence and of modern bibliography, and presents it sensibly without getting lost in technicalities. Above all to be commended is her treatment of coins. Her quantitative methodology brings out her most original new findings, and she is clearly far more comfortable with the technical aspects of numismatics than most historians (this reviewer very much included), but she keeps these details fully integrated within historical arguments, and the non-specialist never feels talked over or talked down to.

This same breadth does at times constitute a drawback. The book discusses nearly all the “greatest hits” of Severan art and architecture, but in many cases, such as the Arch of the Argentarii and Septimius Severus’ Forum Arch (104-7), the discussion adds little either to the overall argument of the book or to the separate scholarship on the monument, and seems to be there for the sake of completeness.

The treatment of literary evidence and of historical narrative is sometimes faulty (e.g. the description of the aftermath of Pertinax’s death at 34-5) and often heavily derivative of one point of view (e.g. Harker’s revisionist take on the Alexandrian violence under Caracalla). These points are ultimately tangential to Rowan’s larger argument, however. The idea of the Severans as religious innovators is of course not new, but much of the older work is ideologically problematic and/or based on uncritical readings of literary sources. Rowan’s findings, and the recent scholarship she has admirably incorporated into her study, will place the entire discussion on much firmer ground.

[©2013 by The Classical Association of the Middle West and South. All rights reserved.]

posted with permission:

Roman Disasters. By JERRY TONER. Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 220. Hardcover, $25.00. ISBN: 978-0-7456-5102-6.

Reviewed by Herbert J. Benario, Emory University

When this book reached me around the middle of June, I recalled that, in the fall of 2000, I had arranged a panel for the Southern Section of CAMWS meeting on “Roman Military Disasters and Their Consequences,” consisting of four papers, which were published in The Classical World 96 (2003) 363-406. But the present volume treats sparingly manmade disasters, largely in warfare, such as the Romans’ terrible defeats at Cannae, in the Teutoburg Forest, and at Adrianople.

Its subject is rather essentially those calamities caused by Mother Nature: volcanic eruptions, flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, earthquakes. The book’s arrival was very timely, alas. There were daily reports of the horrendous flooding in northern Europe. Not long before, tornadoes had leveled large sections of central Oklahoma. Forest fires were devastating parts of California and Colorado.Every classicist will think immediately of the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. We may not recall that there had been an earthquake in Pompeii seventeen years before, nor should one forget the seemingly continuous eruptions of Mt. Etna and the horrendous earthquake at Messina in 1908.

It is disasters such as these which are the prime subject of Toner’s book. There are two main themes: how did the Romans respond to these overwhelming disasters and what lessons, if any, the people drew from them or tried to explain them in some rational manner. In our day we have splendid communications, heavy equipment to attempt to give immediate succor, and trained dogs which can find and rescue buried people. But, all in all, we have not advanced very far from the time of the Romans. We may anticipate an earthquake or predict a tsunami, but we cannot forestall them.

Toner’s book is the first in my memory which treats such a huge range of disasters. I quote here from page 10 his subjects:

natural hazards:

atmospheric: rain, snow, hurricane

hydrological: floods, drought

geological: earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides

biological: epidemic diseases, blight, plagues of insects, forest fires

technological hazards

fire, hazardous materials, destructive processes, structural failure, mechanical devices, organizational failure

violence:

war, rebellion, assault, ethnic cleansing

Perhaps the Roman disasters which most readily come to a reader’s mind are the collapse of the amphitheater in Fidenae in 26, followed by a huge fire on the Caelian Hill (Tacitus Ann. 4,62-4), the earthquake at Pompeii and eruption of Vesuvius, in 62 and 79, and the great fire at Rome in 64, which may have been set at Nero’s instigation. The emperor Titus’ short reign was marked by this eruption and another massive fire in Rome. Even the emperor could not do much against them; human capabilities were too frail (“Oh Gertrude, Gertrude! When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions” [Hamlet, IV 1])

When a disaster struck in antiquity, it was almost impossible for help to arrive from any distance, save for the delivery of food. This was the case into the nineteenth century, until the invention of the railroad. The victims did the best they could, fear and panic generally reigned, but one could do little more than hope and pray. The division of society into its various strata could help, because the aristocracy had private resources which they could tap, if they so wished.

It was easier to find blame in military disasters. In ad 9, the disaster in the Teutoburg Forest was irrevocably linked with Quinctilius Varus, and to a large degree quite appropriately. Yet some of the blame must fall on Augustus himself. Had he appointed to the legateship of Germany an experienced soldier like Caecina, history might well have been different. But conjecture can never lead to an answer, why some disaster occurred. Religion was most often invoked. In the first century ad and later, the Christians could argue that God had caused A or B to punish the remaining pagans; conversely, the pagans could claim that the disaster came because the Christians had abandoned the ancient religion. But none of this is satisfactory.

Discussion of the consequences of disasters is largely psychological and sociological. The last two chapters, “The Psychological Impact” and “Roman Disasters in Context,” recapitulate the arguments which Toner has presented. 

The book’s publication is almost foolproof. I offer here a few suggestions and amendments. On page 18, eighth line from the bottom, use of the noun “vice” for “vise” befuddled me; is this a British usage? In the first paragraph on the next page, the Teutoburg forest is located in “what is now southern Germany.” Not so; if one accepts Kalkriese as the battle site, it will be well into the northern part of the country, northeast of Osnabrück. On 143, the Arch of Gallienus deserves mention.

This is fine and informative book, for which the author deserves great praise. The subject is sad and gloomy, and the reader will not be very cheerful as he/she works through it. But the reader will know much more about Roman disasters at the end. Bene factum!

[©2013 by The Classical Association of the Middle West and South. All rights reserved.]

posted with permission:

Reading the Letters of Pliny the Younger: An Introduction. By Roy K. Gibson and Ruth Morello. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. iv + 350. Hardcover, $99.00. ISBN 978-0-521-84292-1.

Reviewed by Barbara Weinlich, Eckerd College

Organized in eight chapters and supplemented by a map, four appendices, references, an index of passages, and a general index, this highly informative book is devoted to the process of unpacking Pliny’s Letters as an artistic product, a cultural document, and a reading experience. What makes this introduction so interesting and engaging is the way in which it meets the twofold goal of covering a range of reading methodologies to Pliny’s correspondence and a selection of its key themes and topics. Each chapter combines a (different) subject with a (different) approach and thus exemplifies a number of interpretive possibilities that Pliny’s Letters-both individually and as a collection-offer to the reader.

In good didactic (and pedagogical) fashion, Chapter 1 (“Reading a Life: Letters, Book 1”) chooses the most popular approach, i.e. reading Pliny “for his life,” and applies it to the first book. The chapter elucidates how biographical and narrative gaps as well as the use of metaphor are part of an artistic concept by means of which Pliny shapes a meta-text in Book 1. By uncovering the high degree of complexity of Pliny’s text, this chapter makes the reader realize that Book 1 offers first and foremost an elite member’s autobiographical perspective, not narrative, on a new political era.

Chapter 2 (“Reading a Book: Letters, Book 6”) studies the arrangement of Pliny’s Letters for evidence of artistic design. Although this approach is primarily applied to Book 6, it introduces the reader to structures that create coherence not only on the book but also on the collection level. As to the latter, the chapter points to a narrative cycle that stretches across several books and illuminates how the interaction between Book 6 and the cyclical narrative are meant to make a particular point (about Pliny).

Reading “by cycle” then is the approach that Chapter 3 (“Epistolary Models: Cicero and Seneca”) applies to Pliny’s Letters for exploring their literary context. Though Seneca and Ovid do not remain unmentioned, the chapter is mostly concerned with the question of how Pliny positions his work and his epistolary persona vis-à-vis Cicero. Based on both textual and intertextual evidence, the chapter highlights Pliny’s innovative contributions to the genre, his ambivalent attitude toward his most eminent predecessor, and the artistic manifestation of this enormously stimulating, yet also limiting, hate-love for Cicero.

Further examining the ways in which Pliny wishes to present himself to the reader and once again applying the approach of reading Pliny ‘by cycle,’ Chapter 4 (“Pliny’s Elders and Betters: The Elder Pliny, Vestricius Spurinna, Corellius Rufus, Verginius Rufus [and Silius Italicus]”) focuses on the cyclical narratives devoted to those who acted as his good or bad role models (or both). Chapter 5 (“Pliny’s Peers: Reading for the Addressee”), in turn, focuses on so-called friendship narratives, i.e., cycles of letters about or addressed to a number of Pliny’s peers.

Turning to a key theme of the Letters, Chapter 6 (“Otium: How to Manage Leisure”) explores how Pliny defines his concept of otium vis-à-vis his epistolographical predecessor Seneca and, more broadly, vis-à-vis the elite’s concern with time management. Alternating between sequential readings and the study of individual letters, the chapter illuminates in which ways Pliny both agrees and disagrees with the Senecan tradition and how he establishes his personal version of otium in his Letters as well as in elite culture.

Adopting the anthologist’s approach, Chapter 7 (“Reading the Villa Letters: 9.7, 2.17, 5.6”) focuses on the three best-known letters on Pliny’s villas. While this chapter is specifically concerned with exploring an essential aspect of Pliny’s discourse on otium and implicitly on himself, it first and foremost demonstrates the interpretive benefit gained from integrating varied, seemingly exclusive, approaches (e.g. archaeological, historical, and literary) to the villa letters. In addition, Chapter 7 stresses the significance of Book 9 and of Letter 9.7 in particular for providing important reading guidance to the earlier villa descriptions by Pliny himself.

Chapter 8 (“The Grand Design: How to Read the Collection”) is concerned with closure and the significance of Books 9 and 10 in this regard. Roughly divided in halves, the chapter first makes a well-argued case for reading Books 1-9 as one unit and then considers the interpretive potential of Book 10 as an integral part, continuation, and even climax of the Letters-text.

The eight chapters are complemented by four appendices that provide a “Pliny timeline,” a catalog of contents and addressees of Books 1-9, bibliographical help on popular topics in the Letters, and a list of the collection’s main characters.

This co-authored volume has many strengths. Above all, it is a very stimulating read, offering food for thought about approaching and exploring Pliny’s Letters. Moreover, it is written with great clarity and with an eye for a well-balanced presentation. Roughly of equal length, each chapter contributes to a varied, yet thematically coherent introduction. Diversity is achieved by the fact that each author gives a different overall meaning to Pliny. This change of perspective(s) may pose a challenge to the reader and may at times result in re-reading a chapter or at least parts

[©2013 by The Classical Association of the Middle West and South. All rights reserved.]