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The Shadow of Vesuvius
- A Life of Pliny
- Narrated by: Mike Grady
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
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The Shadow of Vesuvius
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When Pliny the Elder perished at Stabiae during the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, he left behind an enormous compendium of knowledge, his 37-volume Natural History, and a teenaged nephew who revered him as a father. Grieving his loss, Pliny the Younger inherited the Elder's notebooks - filled with pearls of wisdom - and his legacy. At its heart, The Shadow of Vesuvius is a literary biography of the younger man, who would grow up to become a lawyer, senator, poet, collector of villas, and chronicler of the Roman Empire from the dire days of terror under Emperor Domitian to the gentler times of Emperor Trajan. A biography that will appeal to lovers of Mary Beard books, it is also a moving narrative about the profound influence of a father figure on his adopted son. Interweaving the younger Pliny's Letters with extracts from the Elder's Natural History, Daisy Dunn paints a vivid, compelling portrait of two of antiquity's greatest minds.
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Her palace shimmered with onyx, garnets, and gold, but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator. Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world. She was married twice, each time to a brother. She waged a brutal civil war against the first when both were teenagers. She poisoned the second. In a masterly return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff here boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Approach this book with caution
- By GolfZilla on 12-02-10
By: Stacy Schiff
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Our Oriental Heritage
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The first volume of Will Durant's Pulitzer Prize-winning series, Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilization, Volume I chronicles the early history of Egypt, the Middle East, and Asia.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful
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By: Will Durant
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The Florentines
- From Dante to Galileo: The Transformation of Western Civilization
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- Narrated by: Roger Clark
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Between the birth of Dante in 1265 and the death of Galileo in 1642, something happened that transformed the entire culture of Western civilization. Painting, sculpture, and architecture would all visibly change in such a striking fashion that there could be no going back on what had taken place. Likewise, the thought and self-conception of humanity would take on a completely new aspect. Sciences would be born - or emerge in an entirely new guise.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Narrator ruins the narrative
- By amavita on 03-24-22
By: Paul Strathern
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Dynasty
- The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar
- By: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
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- Unabridged
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Author and historian Tom Holland returns to his roots in Roman history and the audience he cultivated with Rubicon—his masterful, witty, brilliantly researched popular history of the fall of the Roman republic—with Dynasty, a luridly fascinating history of the reign of the first five Roman emperors.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Accessible, enjoyable history
- By Mary on 01-28-16
By: Tom Holland
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Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome
- By: Anthony Everitt
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 245
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 208
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Acclaimed British historian Anthony Everitt delivers a compelling account of the former orphan who became Roman emperor in A.D. 117 after the death of his guardian Trajan. Hadrian strengthened Rome by ending territorial expansion and fortifying existing borders. And - except for the uprising he triggered in Judea - his strength-based diplomacy brought peace to the realm after a century of warfare.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A Biography "too tall for the height of the cella"
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By: Anthony Everitt
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Alaric the Goth
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Story4 out of 5 stars 100
Denied citizenship by the Roman Empire, a soldier named Alaric changed history by unleashing a surprise attack on the capital city of an unjust empire. Stigmatized and relegated to the margins of Roman society, the Goths were violent "barbarians" who destroyed "civilization," at least in the conventional story of Rome's collapse. But a slight shift of perspective brings their history, and ours, shockingly alive.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Can't finish it.
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By: Douglas Boin
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The Twelve Caesars
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 323
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The Twelve Caesars was written based on the information of eyewitnesses and public records. It conveys a very accurate picture of court life in Rome and contains some of the raciest and most salacious material to be found in all of ancient literature. The writing is clear, simple and easy to understand, and the numerous anecdotes of juicy scandal, bitter court intrigue, and murderous brigandage easily hold their own against the most spirited content of today's tabloids.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A pleasure to read...
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By: Suetonius
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Lives of the Twelve Caesars
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- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 80
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 42
Suetonius wrote his Lives of the Twelve Caesars in the reign of Vespasian around 70AD. He chronicled the extraordinary careers of Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, and Domitian and the rest in technicolour terms. They presented some high and low times at the heart of the Roman Empire. The accounts provide us with perspicacious insights into the men as much as their reigns.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Translation doubts
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By: Suetonius
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The Buried Book
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- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 350
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 270
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Story4 out of 5 stars 266
One day in 1872, self-taught Assyriologist George Smith was sifting through a pile of clay tablets when he realized he was reading about "a flood, storm, a ship caught on a mountain, and a bird sent out in search of dry land". This is the riveting story of the discovery of the world's first literary epic, the "Epic of Gilgamesh".
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3 out of 5 stars
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interesting- but not for everyone
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Prince Albert
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Drawn from the Royal archives, including Prince Albert’s voluminous correspondence, this brilliant and ambitious book offers fascinating never-before-known details about the man and his time. A superb match of biographer and subject, Prince Albert, at last, gives this important historical figure the reverence and recognition that is long overdue.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Well Worth Reading
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Best selling history writer Thomas Cahill continues his series on the roots of Western civilization with this volume about the contributions of ancient Greece to the development of contemporary culture. Tracing the origin of Greek culture in the migrations of armed Indo-European horsemen into Attica and the Peloponnesian peninsula, he follows their progress into the creation of the Greek city-states, the refinement of their machinery of war, and the flowering of intellectual and artistic culture.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Super super
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Alain de Botton has performed a stunning feat: He has transformed arcane philosophy into something accessible and entertaining, useful and kind. Drawing on the work of six of the world's most brilliant thinkers, de Botton has arranged a panoply of wisdom to guide us through our most common problems.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Cheering, empathic, helpful
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
Long before books were mass-produced, scrolls hand-copied on reeds pulled from the Nile were the treasures of the ancient world. Papyrus is the story of the book’s journey from oral tradition to scrolls to codices, and how that transition laid the very foundation of Western culture. Irene Vallejo evokes the great mosaic of literature in the ancient world, all the while illuminating how ancient ideas about education, censorship, authority, and identity still resonate today.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great read
- By Hunter Pechin on 12-15-22
By: Irene Vallejo, and others
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Isak Dinesen
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 71
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Story4 out of 5 stars 52
Isak Dinesen earned international fame for Seven Gothic Tales and Out of Africa, and other stories that skillfully combine elements of fable, social conflict, and psychological drama. She was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize. Yet the story of her life - her travels, affairs, and friendships - remains the greatest story of all.
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3 out of 5 stars
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over-written
- By Jacqui Good on 10-19-18
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The Roman Way
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Edith Hamilton shows us Rome through the eyes of the Romans. Plautus and Terence, Cicero and Caesar, Catullus, Horace, Virgil, and Augustus come to life in their ambitions, their work, their loves and hates. In them we see reflected a picture of Roman life very different from that fixed in our minds through schoolroom days, and far livelier.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not so bad
- By steve on 04-25-11
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The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books
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The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books tells the story of the first and greatest visionary of the print age, a man who saw how the explosive expansion of knowledge and information generated by the advent of the printing press would entirely change the landscape of thought and society. He also happened to be Christopher Columbus’ illegitimate son.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Erudite. Stimulating. Rewarding.
- By R. P. RIBEYRE on 10-26-20
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What listeners say about The Shadow of Vesuvius
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 03-20-24
Great narration
An interesting overview of Both Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger. It is written in an accessible and entertaining way.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 08-15-23
good, but could've been better
the book too much depends on uncritical repetition of a few prime sources without questioning them.
it is at its best when it comes to the subject of Pliny's legacy in Renaissance world and later, which comprises 20% of the book.
however, it is still a good analysis of an interesting subject
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- T. McGohey
- 05-25-22
Worth a 2nd reading
So much fascinating detail re both Pliny this period of Roman Empire
that I’d listen to again or read a hard copy, or possibly both together. I listened to all of it while driving and so missed some little but important details when distracted by traffic. Dunn is an excellent storyteller, and though I was a bit skeptical of Grady’s narration at first, he gradually won me over, and by latter chapters I genuinely looked forward to subtly enthusiastic but never gushing tone.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Kindle Customer
- 05-02-20
Well known yet obscure.
Most students of Rome have heard of Pliny the Elder and the Younger, but would struggle to describe their achievements. Ms Dunn does a commendable job in enlivening their lives for us. Her erudition is evident on every page, while wrapped in a fluid prose. One hopes she will go on to portray other important figures in the early empire. My nominee would be Trajan.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Joshua Miller
- 12-16-20
Enjoyable but lost track at times
The lives of both Pliny the elder and younger are intertwined in this story and at times the narrator jumps between them with references that aren’t clear who is being discussed. It also jumps around in time in a confused manner. Despite this, I still enjoyed it because I find Roman life fascinating. I also wish I had the dedication to achieving something in my life as the way both of them felt compelled to do so. There are a number of quotes that I found enlightening and surprisingly relevant to my life.
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5 people found this helpful