Roman History Books and More

online book chats

This blog is an adjunct to The Roman History Reading Group which meets on the first and third Wednesday of each month except August in our chat room from 9:30 to 11:00 p.m. US EST (UTC/GMT -05).  This means that in Asia and Australia/Pacific, it's daytime. Here is a world time clock as a general assistance for non-USAns.

Chat room location (with instructions) at Google Talk.

2010 Reading Schedule 

January 6:
The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff

January 20, February 3 & 17:
Tacitus, Histories / Histories Online

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our upcoming read: ovid by david wishart

The second of our Mystery Month chats, on December 16,  is on the first book in David Wishart's Marcus Valerius Corvinus mystery series, Ovid.

I takes some doing to get accustomed to the highly anachronistic vernacular – "pukkah," I beg you! and no one had heard of a recent Vesuvius eruption either in Tiberius' times – but once one is past it, it's a good read.

The storyline is: what did Ovid do/not do that does not allow even have his ashes brought back to Rome? Corvinus, as substitute family patron, is asked by Ovid's stepdaughter Perilla to negotiate to get them back. Without success, he is stone-walled wherever he turns.  Since there are many guesses but no real answers to the cause of  Ovid's exile, all this is fair game for the novelist, and the author comes back with a real doozy. The reader knows more than the sleuth, as excerpts from Quinctilius Varus' "diary" are interspersed in the book. It's fun to follow Corvinus' internal reasonings, leading from red herring to red herring. And to a happy ending, in more ways than one.

Enjoy!

book chat on wednesday – a reminder Poseidon's Gold by Lindsey Davis

December is Mystery Month!

Upcoming on Wednesday, December 2:

Poseidon's Gold by Lindsey Davis.  A rollicking story about Greek antiques, maybe stolen, maybe fake.  And introducing a number of Falco's disreputable family members, one of them dead …

Enjoy!

browsing through 'caesar, life of a colossus'

Preparing for the first of our two book chats on Caesar: Life of a Colossus by Adrian Goldworthy, I've been re-reading the biography and have some observations on the first half of the book:

Part One: The Rise to Consulship 100-59 B.C.: Members of our group can most likely speed-read through the chapters dealing with the history of the Republic and the very early years of young Caesar.

Part Two: Proconsul 58-50 B.C., which we will partially discuss:  I find three topics especially well covered in these chapters:

• The War Commentaries.  A critical assessment.
• Caesar's Army.  No surprise with Goldworthy's past coverage of the Roman Army.
• The Whole of Gaul is Divided.  An excellent introduction of the history of the area that was outside the Roman provinces in 59 B.C.E. and a good set-up piece for the book's coverage of the Bellum Gallicum.

Online ancient texts can be found here.

next two book chats: caesar, life of a colossus

On November 4 & 18 we are going to discuss Caesar: Life of a Colossus by Adrian Goldworthy.

I reviewed the book in 2006.

My suggestion for the first of the two chats is to try and get as far as Book II, Chapter 12:  "Politics and War: The Conference of Luca," which divides the book roughly into half (through page 268).

Since we have had Caesar quite frequently in our book chats, I'm not sure how much I'm going to blog on this – especially as I have a rather full plate of work next month.  We'll see.

pliny the younger's villas and his descriptions of nature in his letters

Pliny obviously loved the countryside, and solitude when there.  He gives us and extensive, lovingly descriptions of his villas at Laurentum and in Tuscany, and how he contrived to make use of space for himself removed from all noise and interruptions.  The villa at Laurentum is certainly to die for!  This article* has a drawing of the layout of the villa.  I also like Pliny's description of nature and natural phenomena.

Villas

II.17 “my Laurentum place”
V.6  the Tuscan villa
IX.7. a very brief description of his places on Lake Como

Nature

IV.30  the spring at Lake Como
VIII.8 the source of the Clitumnus
VIII.20  Lake Vadimon

* a review of Caroline Lawrence' Roman Mysteries is coming soon.

list of letters of pliny the younger to his wife calpurnia, calpurnia hispulla her aunt, and calpurnius fabatus her grandfather

Pliny the Younger's third wife, Calpurnia, was his most beloved one according to livius.org, Pliny the Younger:

… In these years the successful author married again. Calpurnia was the love of his life. Of course he was forty and she fourteen, but this difference was no obstacle to a happy marriage. Pliny published several love letters, which are very interesting - not because of their contents, but because they are there: his were one of the first letters like these.

Sadly, this marriage, like the earlier ones, produced no children.  (Pliny's second wife may have died in childbirth.)  There are three letters to Calpurnia.  Pliny also wrote to her mother aunt, Calpurnia Hispulla, and her grandfather, Calpurnius Fabatus.

Here is the list (with links where they are available online):

Letters to Calpurnia

VI.4, VI.7
VII.5

Letters to Calpurnia Hispulla

IV.19
VIII.11

Letters to Calpurnius Fabatus

IV.1
V.11
VI.12, VI.30
VII.11, VII.16, VII.23, VII.32
VIII.10

book chat on wednesday: selected letters by pliny the younger, preliminary list

As we can't discuss all of Pliny's letters, it has been suggested that we concentrate on his correspondence with Trajan (Book X) and his letters to Tacitus, Suetonius and some others. And on some of the trials he was involved in. Below is the list of the letters to Tacitus and Suetonius, and as far they are available in the online edition at Ancient/Classical History at About.com, they are also linked.

The letters to Tacitus:

I.6, 1.20
IV.13
VI.9 
VI.16 & VI.20 (eruption of Vesuvius, from the volcanism blog, nicely illustrated)
VII.20, VII.33
VIII.7
IX.10, IX.14.

The letters to Suetonius:

I.18
III.8
V.10
IX.34

pliny the younger on jstor

I mentioned earlier that I would pursue Pliny the Younger on JSTOR. 

There are hundreds of articles of course, ranging from analyzing Pliny the man to interpreting his letters, to discussion of individual letters, and so on: You name it, they have it.

Quite often, Pliny is described as a gentleman, as praise as well as "is there all that is to him?" Here are two:

Fred Dunham calls him a "Gentleman and Citizen," lauding him via John Milton

… who defines education as follows: "I call, therefore, a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform skillfully and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war." Such was Milton's concept of the English gentleman and citizen, and so it has remained to this day.

Later, he writes:

Pliny's letters [leave] us with vivid impressions. We enjoy him because he has a revealing message expressed in a style that shows the highest respect for the intelligence of a reader. His letters were apparently the product of slow, careful study ad numerous emendations; they were not the result of rapid practice in improvised journalistic writing. To be sure, his composition at times verges upon artificial formality; but we think no more of this fault than we do of George Washington's letters, which were written in a day when epistolary art was more formal than it is today. Pliny was not a journalist, although he possessed many of the best qualities of a good reporter. Were he living today, his writings might appear in the New York Times or in the Atlantic Monthly, but not in the Saturday Evening Post or the usual daily papers - and perhaps this is in his favor. 

The Younger Pliny. Gentleman and Citizen
Author(s): Fred S. Dunham
Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 40, No. 7 (Apr., 1945), pp. 417-426
Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3292044

A. Carleton Andrews doesn't think it's such a good thing:

This at least is true, that a person whom we call a gentleman is a social conformist, whether or not he manifests inherent courtesy in addition to observance of the accepted forms of courtesy, and Pliny must be so considered if we accept him as a gentleman.

Pliny the Younger, Conformist
Author(s): A. Carleton Andrews
Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Dec., 1938), pp. 143-154
Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3290716

And then there is a discussion of his sense of humor or the lack thereof:

And so one may approach the problem of humor either with the greatest diffidence, because he knows not what humor is, or with the greatest assurance, because no one knows any better than he what it is.

This problem emerges in connection with the younger Pliny, who, while certainly not a second Aristophanes or a premature Mark Twain, has enlivened his Letters at intervals with what appear to be gleams of attractive humor. Yet W. M. L. Hutchinson in his Introduction to the Loeb translation has written that Pliny's character, "in spite of priggishness, vanity, and want of humour, has not only respectable but amiable traits.'' Perhaps the mistake is mine, and all that had seemed humor is nothing else than amiability raised to the nth degree.

But the more one thinks about Pliny, the more apparent it becomes that he must have had a sense of humor.

Pliny's "Want of Humor"
Author(s): Graves H. Thompson
Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Jan., 1942), pp. 201-209
Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3291609

Ronald Syme, to no ones surprise, it interested in persons:

People in Pliny
Author(s): Ronald Syme
Source: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 58, Parts 1 and 2 (1968), pp. 135-151
Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/299703

Correspondents of Pliny
Author(s): Ronald Syme
Source: Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Vol. 34, No. 3 (3rd Qtr., 1985), pp. 324-359
Published by: Franz Steiner Verlag
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4435931

introductions to the letters of pliny the younger from print editions

This is mainly for those participants in the October 21 chat on the Letters of Pliny the Younger who do not have a print copy.

I went to Google Books and found previews of two major print editions.  One  offers  the complete introduction, the other the larger part, meaning some pages are blank, nonetheless giving as excellent an overview and discussion of the letters. (The latter is the copy I have.)  Considering that we have only one chat, and also in general, these chapters can be quite helpful to the understanding of Pliny the person and Pliny the letter writer.

• Oxford World Classics Edition (Patrick Gerard Walsh)
  Complete Introduction and Note on the Text & Translation.
  Click on arrows to get to the Introduction.
  
• The Penguin Classics Edition (Betty Radice)
  Incomplete introduction. It also shows appendices, such as a reconstructed plan of Pliny's house at Laurentum. ("Content: Inscriptions," scroll down)

Statue of Pliny the Younger on the façade of
the Cathedral of S. Maria Maggiore in Como
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

pliny the younger, his life and letters

In our next book chat on October 21 we are going to discuss the Letters of Pliny the Younger (Plinius Secundus).  There are more translations in print, and the letters  also available online:

• Letters of Pliny the Younger at About.com
• Letters of Pliny the Younger at VRoma (Latin and English)

Jona Lendering at livius.org has an extensive (in 6 parts) biography of Pliny the Younger.  It's an all you want to know about ... and more essay.

For my next post on Plinius Secundus, I may explore JSTOR.

But there is also a beer called Pliny the Younger … maybe we should lift a cup in his honor …

second of three chats on 'caesar's women'

The second of our three chats on Caesar's Women, on Wednesday, covers two more chapters:  Parts IV and V.

A quite entertaining rendition of the Catilinarian conspiracy … Servilia's letter to Caesar and and its consequences … the trial of Rabirius (see McCullough's note on this) … the Senate tries to disbar Caesar … Caesar and the Vestals … enter Publius Vatinius … the Bona Dea scandal … Pompey returns  … and much more … enjoy!

Join us here.

2010 reading list for book chats

As we like to plan ahead, here, as usual, is next year's reading list for our book chats:

Roman History Reading Group
Reading List for 2010

January 6	The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff
January 20, February 3 & 17	Tacitus, Histories (Penguin Classics; Revised edition, August 25, 2009) Histories Online
March 3 & 17	Ancient Rome on Five Denarii a Day by Philips Matyzcak  (Irene's review) Working IX to V: Orgy Planners, Funeral Clowns, and Other Prized Professions of the Ancient World by Vicki Leon
April 7	Lavinia by Ursula K. Leguin
April 21	Marcus Aurelius: Meditations (Penguin Classics; annotated edition edition, 2006) Online: The Meditations with background: Marcus Aurelius by Anthony Birley / related blogs, etc., to follow
May 5 & 19	Augustus, A Novel by John Williams, which interested parties could combine with Massie’s Augustus as a contrast.
June 2	The Roman Way by Edith Hamilton
June 16	Martial (selections to come)
July 7	SPQR III: The Sacrilege by John Maddox Roberts
July 21	The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found by Mary Beard This may be carried over into August for those interested.
August Recess
September 1	Kleopatra by Karen Essex (Irene's review) / (N.S. Gill's review)
September 15, October 6 & 20	Sections of The Aeneid (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) by Virgil Dryden Translation
November 3, 17	The Spartacus War by Barry Strauss
December 1	Last Act in Palmyra by Lindsey Davis
December 15	Get Out or Die (Aurelia) by Jane Finnis

first of three chats on 'caesar's women'

The first of our three chats on Caesar's Women, on Wednesday, covers the first three chapters (Parts I through III):

Caesar returns from Spain and gets introduced to Servilia, who as so often is up to no good, while Brutus hankers after little Julia … Pompey receives and executes the command against the pirates … Clodius plays havoc with Lucullus' army and gets a little punishment but finds Fulvia … Metellus Pius dies and Caesar has a chance … politics Roman (and Caesar) style abound … and much much more … enjoy!

Join us here.

next book chats: 'caesar's women' in three installments

I have been asked how we are planning to discuss Caesar's Women by Colleen McCullough, our upcoming read, over the three chats.  Given the usual size of the tome, I suggest we follow our McCullough "convention" and divide the novel into to three parts:

• September 2:  Through Part III
• September 16:  Through Part V
• October 7:  Through the end

Enjoy your read!

book chat august recess

There will be no book discussions in August, as usual.  Meanwhile, we are entertaining reading suggestions for 2010 so that we'll have a schedule ready sometime in September, giving members sufficient time to look ahead, and maybe get some books on their holiday list.

Enjoy your summer and your summer reads!

Norwalk, CT, Harbor, July 10, 2009

sejanus 'the tuscan'

That's what C.P. Baker calls him in his Tiberius Caesar, Emperor of Rome, in the chapter "The Advent of the Tuscan," p. 221 ff.  Online

[…] He was a Tuscan, sprung of that strange, dark and ancient Etrurian race which seemed to derive many of its typical characteristics from an older culture than that of classical Greece and Rome. The Etrurian possessed a start in the virtues and vices of civilization that the Roman, trained in a later school, never quite recaptured: his very mind and temperament, like those of the Jew, were attuned by a remote historical experience to the life of populous cities and crowded human society.

Maecenas had been a Tuscan—that very wise man of the world who never fought nor worked, but, because he lived in a torrent of talk, ruled the men who did so. . . . After all, the art of arriving at an understanding with other men is the whole art of civilization.

Seianus possessed this gift. He had a genius for adapting himself to other men. We may call it genius, for he successfully adapted himself to the mind of one of the subtlest, most discerning, and most difficult men who ever lived Tiberius.

tiberius' villas on capri

Robert has more:  Tiberius's Villas on Capri

The emperor Tiberius left Rome in 26 AD never to return.  For most of the rest of his life he stayed on the island of Capri, where he had 12 villas.  Remains still exist of some of them.  The best preserved of them is the Villa Jovis, or possibly Jonis, which was the largest.  CapriWeb has four pages of text and some nice pics of the Villa Jovis, while Oebalus also has informative text and a floor plan.  read on

Imagined reconstruction by Carl Weichardt (c. 1900)
Villa Jovis, Archaeological Institute Heidelberg

a view of capri (in re tiberius)

Capri From Punta Campanella (Wikimedia Commons)

Capri (Wikipedia, handle with care) with nice images.

'return of the roman' – an essay by allan massie

 Knowledge of Latin may be in decline, but novels, films and documentaries about the Romans have never been more popular.  We are still dimly, unconsciously, aware that our culture grew out of classical civilisation.
Allan Massie
Prospect Magazine Blog
November 2006 | 128 » Essays » Return of the Roman

In his short book "The Future of the Classical," Salvatore Settis, director of the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, writes that "the marginalisation of classical studies in our education systems and our culture at large is a profound cultural shift that would be hard to ignore."  At the same time, he asks: "What place is there for the ancients in a world… characterised by the blending of peoples and cultures, the condemnation of imperialism, the end of ideologies, and the bold assertion of local traditions, and ethnic and national identities in the face of all forms of cultural hegemony?  Why seek out common roots, if everyone is intent on distinguishing their own from those of their neighbour?"

The points are well made, the questions pertinent, though the implication is not always as cogent as Settis supposes. After all, one characteristic of the Roman world was a very similar "blending of peoples and cultures," as eastern gods and goddesses were introduced to Rome and worshipped there, and as the emperors came more often from the provinces than from Italy, let alone Rome. 

      read on

Hat tip: Robert Greaves