The Letters of Pliny. A Historical and Social Commentary.

Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1985. (Reissued ed.with corrections). XV,808p. Original red gilt titled cloth. Spine slightly bumped. Pencil underlinings from pp.85-152. Else fine. May require extra shipping costs: weight including packing from 1 - 2 Kg. 'If this review concentrates upon a small part, by bulk, of Mr. Sherwin-White's large and splendid new book, namely the introductions to the whole work and to the correspondence with Trajan, that is merely because (a) everyone concerned with the history of the Roman empire must go to the commentators on the individual letters, and the riches there to be found cannot be catalogued in a review, and (b) the introduction are a foundation for, and a summing-up of, the work of the commentary. (...) Sherwin-White convincingly defends the authenticity of Pliny's Letters as correspondence. (...) The question of authenticity leads on naturally to their chronology. (...) There is a special excursus on the chronology of the extortion trials, in which a matter comes up which is much more important than chronology. (...). An interesting section of the introduction is devoted to who Pliny's correspondents were - what kind of people, of what status or background. The conclusion, with which there need be no quarrel, is that Pliny was no snob or name-dropper; the circle of friends is not particularly illustrious (though some rose high later), and is just what you would expect to be the real friends of a new 'provincial' consular with no military pretensions. (...) The second introduction, to Book X, the Trajan letters, contains sections on the chronology of those letters and its relation to Pliny's Bithynian journeys, on the purpose of the collection and whether it is complete or 'doctored', on the 'chancery' element in Trajan's replies, and on the philosophy and technique of imperial government implied by it all. (...) We have long awaited this commentary, with high hopes; we are not disappointed. Pliny's Letters, so vital a source for the social and economic history of the haut empire, demand a commentator of deep and varied erudition; Sherwin-White possesses it, and his notes display a knowledge of Roman law, private and public, of prosopography, of land tenure and tenancy, of architecture, of the early Church, and of all else, that is relevant, which besides being impressive in itself, illuminates not only the passages under discussion by the whole history of Roman institutions.' (JOHN CROOK in The Classical Review (New Series), 1967, pp.311-14).