In The Scientific Sublime in Imperial Rome: Manilius, Seneca, Lucan, and the Aetna, Patrick Glauthier offers a focused and methodical exploration of one aspect of the sublime, coined as the ‘scientific sublime’, in early Imperial Latin literature. Glauthier is exact with how he defines this term: scientific is a “convenient shorthand that refers to the various subcategories of ancient philosophy…that studied and explained the nature, the mechanics, and especially the causes of different aspects of the material world” (p. 3). It is an expression of the sublime that explores the experience of nature. The book’s primary objective, to deepen and enrich our understanding of the sublime at Rome, is stated clearly from the outset, as is the rationale behind the chosen authors. Manilius, Seneca, Lucan, the unknown poet of the Aetna, and, briefly, the Elder Pliny are selected as they exemplify the book’s aim to trace how Roman authors reflect the intellectual, political, and moral nuances of imperium alongside the evolving images and narrative patterns of the scientific sublime. This clarity of purpose is one of the book’s chief strengths: its ability to guide the reader carefully through often theoretically dense and intricate textual analysis. The literary focus on the scientific sublime takes precedence over detailed exploration of the political and societal concerns of each author. However, this prioritisation does not weaken the study; rather, it sharpens the analytical focus on the scientific sublime and is balanced with comments on the backdrop of the ever-changing landscape in which these authors were writing.
The book is ambitious in its claim that the scientific sublime constitutes a central feature of Latin literary production, but it ultimately succeeds in making this case. As the reader progresses through the chapters, the argument gains strength and coherence, revealing the extent to which the scientific sublime is embedded across a range of texts from different moments in the rapidly changing times of the first century CE. The work is structured into five chapters (plus an introduction and epilogue), which are best understood as three distinct sections. The first section, comprising the ‘Introduction’, and ‘1. Locating the Scientific Sublime’ chapters, lays the theoretical and methodological framework, offering definitions and situating the study within prior scholarship on the sublime in the ancient world. The second section forms the core of the book, consisting of four chapters: ‘2. Manilius and the Aesthetics of the Infinite’; ‘3. Seneca’s Natural Questions: The Promise and Danger of the Sublime’; ‘4. Lucan: Natural Inquiry in a Time of Civil War’; and ‘5. Aetna and the Wonders of the Earth’. These function as detailed case studies of the scientific sublime. Finally, the third section (‘Epilogue: The Scientific Sublime and the Case of the Elder Pliny’) is a coda which synthesises the book’s arguments and provides one further case study of the progression of the scientific sublime through Pliny’s Natural History. This tripartite structure provides a coherent progression through the material. The study first establishes the conceptual framework; it then demonstrates the scientific sublime in action through close literary analysis; and finally, it gestures toward future research while drawing together the argument’s central threads. The result is a well-organised exploration of the scientific sublime.
In the Introduction, Glauthier establishes the theoretical and intellectual framework of his study. The Introduction offers clear definitions, as discussed above, and a concise overview of the history of the sublime, including a brief discussion of Longinus. It also engages with perspectives from modern thinkers such as Burke and Kant, while aligning its own methodology primarily with Robert Doran’s dual structure of the sublime as experiencing the emotional intensity of being overwhelmed and ennobled.[1] A particularly valuable contribution of the Introduction lies in its reassessment of the figures who dominate studies of the sublime in Roman literature. Glauthier shifts focus away from central authors such as Longinus, Lucretius, and, more recently, Empedocles, while continuing to acknowledge their importance. Rather than offering a reception-focused reading of these authors, Glauthier treats them as recurring points of reference. This strategy allows for both continuity and innovation in the analyses to come, maintaining authors such as Lucretius and Empedocles as conceptual touchstones without allowing them to overshadow the primary case studies.
Chapter 1 shifts from broad theoretical considerations to a more focused methodological discussion of how the scientific sublime is located and expressed in texts. It outlines philosophical approaches to aspects of the sublime and discusses some of the figures which will become key depictions for the chosen authors later in the work (for example the flight and subsequent fall of Phaethon as it relates to the scientific sublime). The concluding section of Chapter 1 presents a series of research questions that guide the subsequent case studies, questions such as: where does the scientific sublime lead? With what intellectual or literary traditions does it create dialogue? While these questions are understandable, their placement at the chapter’s end feels abrupt; they might have been more effectively situated earlier, akin to the early series of questions with which authors such as Manilius and Seneca begin their texts, where they could have framed the study from the outset. It is clear, however, that the questions serve as a useful bridge to focalise the arguments to come in the next chapter on Manilius. Glauthier demonstrates a strong ability to move fluidly between texts and authors and the book’s skill in building connections across chapters enhances the study and helps to convince of its position on the importance of the scientific sublime.
Chapter 2 demonstrates the significance of the methodological discussions laid out earlier, as the book moves into close textual analysis. Glauthier explores the scientific sublime as encoded in Manilius’ Astronomica, balancing this with a nuanced understanding of Lucretian influence in Manilius’ engagement with the heavens.[2] The chapter focuses on how Manilius figures the experience of the infinite, drawing on the phrase ‘aesthetics of the infinite’ (taken from Nicolson 1959).[3] Although the concept could have been more fully introduced, Glauthier employs it consistently and effectively enough that the reader is able to follow its application. The chapter is at its strongest in its treatment of Manilius’ self-stylisation as Phaethon and his reworking of that myth in contrast to Ovid and Lucretius. Here, both poet and reader are cast as astronomical daredevils. Glauthier also offers a compelling new reading of the deliberately complex use of mathematics in the Astronomica, not simply as didactic exposition but as a rhetorical strategy tied to poetic self-fashioning and imperial ideology. Glauthier then convincingly maps Manilius’ heavens and its contact with the divine onto the Roman imperial machine. In this way, the sublime becomes a means of conceptualising the Roman Empire as boundless and eternal.
Chapter 3 positions Seneca’s exploration of the natural world, and, by extension, his engagement with the scientific sublime, not as a means of attaining definitive truth, but as something ultimately inaccessible. Instead, Seneca acknowledges that the explorer will ultimately fail to reach pure enlightenment, an act which Glauthier reads as emblematic of the Stoic proficiens’ journey on the philosophical path. At times, however, the connection between Seneca’s scientific inquiries and the sublime is not made immediately apparent. For example, the discussion of comets in the Natural Questions initially appears tangential, with references to the scientific sublime emerging only later in the chapter. This balance is more successfully achieved in the subsequent analysis of air (see especially pp. 130-132). The final analysis on the delusions of grandeur and the falsity of sublime investigations in Seneca’s time is a strength of the chapter, although it might have been enriched by fuller exploration of how Seneca’s personal and political context as part of Nero’s Rome would have informed this stance. Glauthier’s observation that, for Seneca, “Rome needs a sublime that aims for what is virtuous and true” (p. 142), offers an excellent synthesis of the chapter’s argument and neatly draws together its analytical threads.
Chapter 4 may initially appear somewhat tangential, given that Lucan is not explicitly concerned with exploring the natural world in his Civil War. However, this chapter ultimately proves to be one of the book’s strongest, particularly in how it articulates the development of the scientific sublime as shaped by and progressing beyond its treatment in Manilius and Seneca. The book’s investigation into Lucan’s engagement with the sublime aligns with dominant contemporary readings of Lucan’s work: namely, a deconstructionist and largely negative interpretation of Lucan’s disintegrating world. Glauthier frames this as ‘dark sublimity’ throughout the chapter (e.g. p. 184). Nonetheless, within this framework, Glauthier offers new and well-developed readings of key scenes. The chapter shows how the study of the natural world retains its capacity to dazzle yet is simultaneously rendered false or futile in Lucan’s world at war. The dissection of the Acoreus episode (p. 187ff.) is particularly compelling, as is the discussion of technological wonder in the account of man-made siege engines in the battle at Massilia, which Glauthier interprets as a pointed juxtaposition to the encoded natural sublime.
Readers with an interest in early Imperial literature will welcome the inclusion of the Aetna as the book’s final case study. Chosen as a text which “emerges from the wreckage of Neronian Rome” (p. 199), Glauthier’s analysis of the poem accepts the scholarly consensus that it was composed in the late 60s or 70s CE, after the works of Seneca and Lucan. Despite Glauthier’s claim that his arguments in the chapter do not depend on this date (p. 199 n.1), the result of the exploration is that the poem becomes a useful interpretative bridge for exploring the scientific sublime beyond the Julio-Claudian period and its collapse. The chapter convincingly shows how the Aetna poet continues Lucan’s rejection of Senecan notions of moral progress through scientific exploration, while ultimately moving the reader from a focus on the realms above to that below their feet. The chapter closes with a particularly thought-provoking discussion of the Aetna’s turn toward the wondrous and mythical, suggesting a return to a moral justice of nature in the mode of paradoxographical storytelling. This chapter is followed by a brief coda on Pliny’s Natural History. While the Epilogue successfully synthesises the book’s main arguments, and refreshingly avoids a traditional conclusion, it feels somewhat underdeveloped as a final gesture toward the future of the scientific sublime in Roman literature. Glauthier acknowledges this limitation and notes that further research on the topic is forthcoming. He chooses wisely to end the whole book with a final note on the preceding study.
Typos and punctuation errors are almost non-existent. Some footnotes that are important for understanding the argument (e.g. p. 102 n.9) would be better integrated into the main text, while more peripheral material, such as information about the structure of a particular ancient work, is sometimes placed in the text and sometimes relegated to footnotes, with no clear rationale. Glauthier is to be commended for consistently translating Latin and Greek passages; however, there are instances where untranslated material appears without explanation, and the same issue arises with some modern scholarly citations. These moments, however, are minor and do not detract from the overall excellence of Glauthier’s work.
In conclusion, this book is an innovative and much-needed contribution to the study of the sublime in the ancient world. Yet it is more than that: Glauthier offers fresh interpretations of well-studied texts and draws compelling connections across a wide range of Latin literature. Its focus and analytical depth make complex ideas, such as the scientific sublime, accessible without oversimplification. This work will undoubtedly serve as a valuable reference for scholars, students, and readers with a strong interest in the intellectual and literary dynamics of early Imperial Rome.
Notes
[1] R. Doran. 2015. The Theory of the Sublime from Longinus to Kant. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[2] Manilius’ use of Lucretian language is key in the chapter. At times, however, this could be pushed further. Glauthier rightly notes that the language of feriatque oculos (Astron. 1.722) is Lucretian, although does not stress where and why. It appears throughout the De Rerum Natura (4.217, 4.257, 4.691, 6.923 as examples) and the dazzlement it imparts is a key part of Lucretius’ rhetorical ἐνάργεια and sublimity.
[3] M. H. Nicolson. 1959. Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory: The Development of the Aesthetics of the Infinite. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.