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Ash spewed into the sky. All eyes were on Vesuvius. Pliny the Elder sailed towards the phenomenon. A teenage Pliny the Younger waited. His uncle did not come back.In a dazzling new literary biography, Daisy Dunn introduces Pliny the Younger, the survivor who became a Roman lawyer, senator, poet, collector of villas, curator of drains, and representative of the Emperor. He was confidant and friend to the great and good, an unparalleled chronicler of the Vesuvius catastrophe, and eyewitness to the terror of Emperor Domitian.The younger Pliny was adopted by his uncle, admiral of the fleet and author of the Natural History, an extraordinary compendium of knowledge and the world’s first full-length encyclopaedia. The younger Pliny inherited his uncle’s notebooks and carried their pearls of wisdom with him down the years.Daisy Dunn breathes vivid life back into the Plinys. Reading from the Natural History and the Younger Pliny’s Letters, she resurrects the relationship between the two men to expose their beliefs on life, death and the natural world in the first century. Interweaving their work, and positioning the Plinys in relation to the devastating eruption, Dunn’s biography is a celebration of two outstanding minds of the Roman Empire, and their lasting influence on the world thereafter. .

A new biography of Pliny the YoungerAD 79. Above the Bay of Naples, Mount Vesuvius is spewing thick ash into the sky. The inhabitants of nearby villages stand in their doorways, eyes cast on the unknown. Pliny the Elder, a historian, admiral of the fleet, and author of an extraordinary encyclopaedia of Natural History, dares to draw closer to the phenomenon. He perishes beneath the volcano. His seventeen-year-old nephew, Pliny the Younger, survives.The elder Pliny left behind an enormous compendium of knowledge, his Natural History offering observations on everything, from the moon, to elephants, to the efficacy of ground millipedes in healing ulcers. Adopted as his late uncle’s son, Pliny the Younger inherited his notebooks – his pearls of wisdom – and endeavoured to keep his memory alive. But what became of the young man after the disaster? Pliny resurrects the ‘father and son’ to explore their beliefs about life, death and the natural world in the first century AD. At its heart is a literary biography of the younger Pliny, who grew up to become a lawyer, senator, poet, collector of villas, curator of drains, and personal representative of the emperor overseas. Counting the historian Tacitus, biographer Suetonius, and poet Martial among his close friends, Pliny the Younger chronicled his experiences from the catastrophic eruption through the dark days of terror under Emperor Domitian to the gentler times of Emperor Trajan. Interweaving the younger Pliny’s Letters with ideas and extracts from Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, Daisy Dunn brings their world back to life. Working from the original sources, she celebrates two of the greatest minds from antiquity and their influence on the world that came after them.

Written in the twilight of the Roman Republic, the poetry of Gaius Valerius Catullus offers a delicious insight into the passions and gossip of high Roman society.From the poet and his friends to cultural and political titans, including Caesar, Cicero, and Pompey, his cutting, modern verse spares no-one. In this new translation by Daisy Dunn, author of Catullus’ Bedspread, his obscene honesty, arrogant wit and surprising tenderness capture Roman society at their best.Most famous for his obsessive love lyrics for the married Lesbia, Catullus’ words are an immortal expression of youth, rebellion and agonised love.

Living through the debauchery, decadence and political machinations of the crumbling Great Republic, Gaius Valerius Catullus’s fervent poetry was filled with emotion, wit and lurid insight into some of the republic’s most enduring figures. In his own scandalous love affairs brimmed all the decadence, debauchery and spectacle of his time.Born in Verona in c. 82BC, Catullus’ name remains famous after two thousand years for the sharp, immediate poetry with which he skewered society in the great Republic. From mocking political Rome’s sparring titans – Pompey, Crassus and his father’s friend, Julius Caesar – to his wry observations of cavorting youths, money-grabbing brothel-keepers or slaves who knew too much, Catullus was a reckless forefather of social satire. But it was by his erotic, scandalous but tender love elegies that he became known, remaining a monumental figure of reference for poets from Ovid and Virgil onwards.Tracing his journey across youth and experience, from Verona to Rome, Bithynia to Lake Garda, Daisy Dunn rediscovers the world of Catullus’ passions. She explores the adventures at sea described by his breathless syllables, the private dinners, lovers’ trysts and power games all amid the trembling death of the Roman republic, written with a wit and energy that Catullus would surely have enjoyed.