The Shadow of Vesuvius: A Life of Pliny

If “The Shadow of Vesuvius” were a movie up for an Oscar, Pliny the Elder would be nominated for best supporting actor. His nephew, Pliny, would win Best Actor. Such are their relative roles featured in this combined biography.The two had much in common. Pliny the Elder was tormented thinking about “the injustice of being forgotten.” Pliny, according to author Daisy Dunn, believed “a man is happiest when he can be confident his name will live forever.” Both worked hard enough to make Pliny’s happy wish come true, producing work still in print; the Elder’s encyclopedic “Natural History,” and Pliny ‘s Letters.Both men boiled with a ferocious work ethic driving themselves to work endless hours. In fact, the younger Pliny wrote of the Elder, “he had a sharp intellect, incomparable concentration, and a formidable ability to stay awake.”The Elder was unquenchably curious, the trait that got him killed by the volcano. The younger Pliny, aside from his work as a lawyer, senator, and public official was, at heart, a speechwriter/orator, described as one who believed “his reputation depended upon what people remembered of his speeches.” To that end, quoting Virgil, he wouldn’t even mind (or so he wrote to an admired friend) being recalled as “second best but by a long way.” (One doubts it.)A charming book, centered largely on the younger Pliny, “The Shadow of Vesuvius” sparkles with random factoids, from the source of the phrase “in a nutshell,” to the possible origin of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” These small digressions feed rather than impede the narrative.Compared to the voluminous work left behind by the Pliny’s, this book is but an index card of their lives. But it’s a well-written, illuminating, enjoyable card enthusiastically recommended.

This book is an interesting combination of the lives of Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger using the eruption of the Vesuvius as the starting point of the book, where Pliny the Elder dies, while Pliny the Younger survives and starts his adult life.The main focus of the book is to tell the life of Pliny the Younger, from which the author drew mostly from the many surviving letters written during his lifetime. This is not presented as a chronological list of events, but as a combination of events and how his daily life went, both in his work and at his home away from Rome. While this is not strictly a history book, it provides information of some historical events, also providing the sociological context in which those events ocurred, but on a very local scale.The author did a good job to also be able to present Pliny the Elder's thoughts and beliefs in the book, using the little surviving information and what can be read in his surviving works. The connecting point between both men's lifes is presented by their family ties and the admiration the Younger had for the Elder.The only difficult part of the book is keeping track on which Pliny the author is talking about. The Elder is always referenced using that "Last Name", but it's easy to get lost with the names.Light read, informative, and enjoyable.

This is a magnificent biography of both Pliny the Elder and Younger. It begins with the eruption of Vesuvius and Pliny the Elder's heroic attempts at rescue. Pliny the Younger chose to stay at his uncle's villa, but his memory of this event is dramatically told in his letters to the historian Tacitus. It was something he could never forget nor can we.Daisy Dunn explores thoroughly this era of early imperial Rome and the reception both Plinies received during the Renaissance. Her style is easy and sensitive. Her insights into Roman life in the first and second centuries are valuable in their own right buttressed by citation of the Natural History and Pliny the Younger's Letters and speeches.As a classicist I found much to enjoy and appreciate in this marvelous book. We learn of Regulus, Tacitus, Domitian and Trajan, the marvelous landscape of northern Italy especially Comum, the flora of the region, the floating islands of Lake Vardamon.For anyone wishing to learn more about this period, Daisy Dunn's The Shadow of Vesuvius is a must read.

If you, for any reason, is intereted in the life of a second rate personage of first century of the Roman empire, a letter writer that shed some light in the uses of high circles, then this book is OK; If you do not know nothing about first century roman history, it could be of some but limited use too. If any of those conditions are not accomplished, then there is not reason at all to read it. Sometimes you anyway read a book of a period you know well in order to get another insight OR to enjoy a charming writting style, as it happens with missed Mr Nortwich, but this is not the case here. Some enthusiastic critics has said that miss Daisy writes "beautifully", but it is a judgement somehat beyond the pale. She writes good enough, but not "beatifully" Her writting is mostly clear and to the point, but sometimes boring and always lacking humor and originality.

Having read Dunn’s, “Catullus’ Bedspread,” not long ago, I bought her, “In the Shadow of Vesuvius.” I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as Catullus, but it was still a good read and starting point for anyone wishing to pursue Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger. The book does draw heavily from the letters of young Pliny and Pliny the Elder’s encyclopedia, “Natural History,” one of the first of its kind. All references are given in the substantial endnotes.In the process of bringing each Pliny to life during their times, along with Roman emperors, senators and philosophers of those days, Dunn does a great job showing their effect on more recent humanity, e.g., Francis Bacon, Charles Darwin, Mary and Percy Shelley, Charles Dickens, as well as how their times (23-117 A.D.) were a result of more distant Greek and Roman history.The eruptions of Vesuvius thread throughout the book and were interesting and informative. A fun, worthwhile read.