Since I first began research on women in Pliny's letters, nearly ten years ago, the work of Pliny the Younger has gone from abject neglect to hot topic, with an entire issue of Arethusa devoted to Plinian scholarship in 2003 and the publication of a number of books, including a consideration of Pliny's self-representation by John Henderson (2002). The latest contributions, alas, postdated the completion of this manuscript: Nicole Méthy's Les lettres de Pline le Jeune: Un répresentation de l'homme (Paris: Presses de l'Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2007) and Ilaria Marchesi's The Art of Pliny's Letters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). But the reinvigoration of Plinian scholarship is exciting, and it pleases me greatly to know that I have so many companions in my affection for Pliny.

The fundamental work on Pliny's letters remains the historical and social commentary of A. N. Sherwin-White (1966), which, although it has been superseded in consideration of certain individual letters, remains an invaluable resource and starting point for any researcher. The prosopographical sections of my work are particularly indebted to the monumental contributions of Werner Eck and Sir Ronald Syme, with whom I occasionally disagree but whose insights are always crucial to any understanding of Roman family structures, and of course to Marie-Thérèse Raepsaet-Charlier (1987), whose work on elite women of the early empire is seminal.