The Complete Letters of Pliny the Younger

Pliny's 240-odd letters reveal the Roman world of roughly 100 CE in all its complexity and sophistication. Russell Bentley enters into Pliny's many roles--lawyer, judge, landowner, poet, government official--not only by expressing the sense of the letters clearly, but also by illuminating Pliny's varied moods and emotions, often implicit and only subtly indicated. Bentley's voice and British accent are likable and his pacing good. His tone becomes notably deferential in the last section, when Pliny corresponds with his emperor, Trajan. Ben Onwukwe's deep, incisive-sounding voice is suitably authoritative in Trajan's responses, and his narration is illuminatingly sensitive to the text. The two adept actors give an intelligent, expressive rendering of these historically important and, to the patient listener, fascinating documents. W.M. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine