The academic style of the citations in as follows: Proper scholarly citation. Each author, and work for authors with more than one book, has its own citation style.
Precision is necessary in citation and the citation is not by its page number in the modern printed edition but by the system established (usually by Renaissance scholars for prose works) for citation.
For Pliny, that means Roman numeral (book) followed by Arabic numeral (for section). Footnotes. In your text you can use short forms of citation (the so-called Cambridge method), so Harrison (1995: 303) says that Pliny on Crete is…, if it is just a citation of a single source.
If it is multiple sources or if there are further observations, then it needs to be in a footnote. Why use footnotes?
1. To give extra sources if you found several. Put one source in the text and the rest in a footnote, such as “See also Friedrichs (2007:13), Hamilton (2009: 87), and Rothsay (2012: 115).
2. To give extra proofs of your argument that would otherwise clutter the text. If a Greek vase survives in 27 fragments, talking in the text will bore everyone to tears. Discuss the three most representative fragments in the text; mention (briefly) the rest in a note.
3. To comment on your sources – maybe you think Wylusi (1995: 303) missed something, or is off-base, or perhaps other, more recent, scholarship has gone past his/her views. These belong in a footnote – Wylusi (1995:303) has been superseded by Gorm (2012:92). Wylusi (1995: 312) also did not distinguish, as most scholars do, between the ard and the ‘shoe’ plow, an important consideration in disparities in size and wealth.
4. To dismiss views with which you do not agree. Good scholarship does not ignore views opposed to that of the author; it does, however, bury them in footnotes: ‘For an opposing view, see Appleby (2013: 17) who, however,…’ It makes it clear you have done your research. 5. For modern comparisons, which generally clutter the text, unless it is the point of your paper. For a paper on the religious symbolism and astral orientation of sphinxes in Egypt, a mention of sphinxes in modern Britain and Las Vegas would break the flow in the text but could be a very interesting footnote, or perhaps even appendix.
