Bryn Mawr Classical Review

The question of the decline or perseverance of the polis in the Hellenistic and Roman periods has become a perennial issue in ancient studies. In the age of very large hegemonic units (the Hellenistic monarchies, followed by the Roman Empire) individual city-states lost their military importance, as well as a most important aspect of their autonomy, namely, control over their foreign relations. The latter development was even more true under the Romans than previously under the competing Hellenistic kings. But a question remains regarding the extent to which a vibrant internal political and intellectual life continued in Greek city-states even under Roman domination, and what the self-concept of these cities was--i.e., how strong was the self-concept of their citizenry and their leaders as part of a living community. Lafond tackles one part of this problem in this new book.

In an epoch in which cities could not be envisaged except as integrated into a larger empire, Lafond offers reflections on the society and culture of the Greek city of the Peloponnese and its self-image. Lafond seeks to depict, via an investigation of the discourses and practices of which we have (limited) evidence, the consciousness which civic communities could have of themselves and to depict a consciousness of the civic (and moral) values which they, or rather their elites, sought to promote in public. In terms of literary texts, the study is based on Pausanias (on whose work Lafond has written a scholarly commentary), plus local rhetoric from orators such as Dio of Prusa. The other pillar of the study is epigraphical; numerous inscriptions are available from the Peloponnese into the late first century A.D., although from the early second century the inscriptions that Lafond chooses to focus on are limited to the Argolid and Laconia (it is interesting that we learn in passing that the Achaean League continued to exist into the second century A.D., complete with an annually-elected strategos). The period covered in the study is from the beginning of Roman hegemony into the third century A.D. Lafond's approach allows an author such as Pausanias to be employed both as a witness to contemporary practices and as our interpreter for those aristocrats who, in the cities, appeared as the repositories of collective memory.

Notions of memory certainly helped to shape a still-vibrant identity among the cities studied by Lafond. An excellent example is the occasional struggle over boundaries between neighboring poleis. Thus, in a dispute of very long-standing between Sparta and Messene over the frontier region of Dentheliatis (the area of modern Kalamata), the region was given to Sparta under the Triumvirate, but Antony gave the region back to Messene, while (perhaps in a natural reaction) Octavian returned it to Sparta after Actium, but then the Roman Senate in A.D. 25 under Tiberius returned the region (definitively) to Messene (pp. 144-145). The dispute, and the embassies to the Romans it evoked, is a testimony to the continuing vigor of polis identity; the arguments of the embassies must have been based on (versions of) local history, and of course the dispute involved the working out of an enmity between the Lakonians and Messenians which all involved knew stretched back hundreds of years, and included the famous Spartan enslavement of the Messenians in the Archaic and Classical periods. In an earlier age, (say, the mid-third century B.C.) there might well have been a full-scale war over the Dentheliatis, but now the dispute was handled via embassies of complaint to the Romans, and in that sense the dispute demonstrates not only the vigor of the polis but also the efficacy of the pax Romana at work. Another example of both these phenomena: the rivalry between Athens and Sparta, which had riven the Classical age, continued to find expression under Roman rule, but was in part reduced now to regular contests in oratory at Plataea over their respective achievements against the Persians in the fifth century (p. 191).

Identity and memory also helped during this period to define the relationship of cities to the phenomenon of the euergetism exercised by their powerful local elites. These notions, evident or implied on surviving inscriptions, allow us to analyze how the collective memory of poleis in the Roman period constructed itself via official and private elogia of the euergetist local aristocracies. These wealthy families were now completely preponderant in the political and social life of the cities, their influence everywhere, replacing strongly democratic structures even in the places where those structures had previously existed. But the elite needed legitimacy and (even) popular support: they gained it through benefactions, and ensured that the memory of those benefactions endured in the public space.

The many inscriptions which praise euergetism are prominently concerned with aristocratic support of traditional religious institutions and practices; equally prominent is the financial support of traditional educational institutions (pp. 67-68). Given the political conditions of Roman domination, which restricted foreign relations, it is noteworthy that praise of the benefactor as a "hero", which (as before) continues to occur in these inscriptions, has taken on a new meaning. There is a striking slippage of vocabulary, a transformation of the "heroic" from the staunch military defense of the polis and its interests--still to be seen in late second century B.C. inscriptions--into"heroic" support of cultural life.¹

Lafond concludes, and this is hardly controversial, that the widespread praise lavished on aristocratic benefactors, praise for their "greatness of soul", their "generosity", their "love of humanity", even their philoponia, far from being mere clichés, reflects the real civic ideology of the aristocracy itself. These are sincere and self-defining gestures of identity, and probably are a reflection as well of broader public opinion (and memory) in the cities about euergetist aristocrats (pp. 72-73). Meanwhile the link of the local aristocrats to the ruling power is shown by the fact that almost all the men and women praised as benefactors of the city in Lafond's inscriptions are Roman citizens. Hence the evocatively-named C. Julius Demosthenes, a benefactor of the little town of Oinoanda, or T. Julius Agesilaus at Sparta.

Yet there are striking omissions in the book. The historical memory on which Lafond concentrates is either to be found in the mythological past--e.g., the legends of the Heraclidae, or the mythological genealogies of the local aristocratic families--or in the very recent past (the benefactions bestowed on the polis by members of the local elite). But Greek cities even in the Roman period spent considerable funds on large processions celebrating their power and their famous victories of the Classical era, and discussion of this is mostly missing from Lafond. In the age of Plutarch (ca. 110 A.D.), for instance, the Athenians still annually celebrated the anniversaries of the victories at Marathon (490 B.C.), Salamis (480), Plataea (479), Mantineia (418) and Naxos (376) with large ceremonial processions and sacrifices (Plut. Mor. 349F); clearly these were important moments of public memory and collective identity. Plataea itself celebrated the anniversary of the great victory of 479 over the Persians every year for at least 600 years (Plut.Arist. 21.3-5). To be sure, these are celebrations of history in poleis outside Lafond's Peloponnese, but they establish a general cultural framework in which we know the Peloponnesian poleis themselves partook. Thus the marble stele and the inscribed golden shield which the Spartans erected at Olympia to celebrate their victory over the Athenians at Tanagra in 457 B.C. was still visible at Olympia 600 years later; Pausanias tells us (5.10.4) that the golden shield stood in the great temple of Zeus Olympios, along with the accompanying stele. This surely must have evoked pride in Spartan visitors to the shrine (one wonders what visiting Athenians thought), but Lafond does not mention it. The only exception to the absence of the great events of the fifth century B.C. from the book is Lafond's interesting discussion of the cult-celebration of Leonidas (the hero of Thermopylae) at Sparta in the second century A.D.; and here Lafond makes the good point that the annual ceremonies honoring Leonidas were not merely the province of the Spartan elite, but involved--as inscriptions show--the enthusiastic participation of ordinary people, the demos (p. 192). This surely was true of the commemorations at Athens and Plataea as well.

Similarly, regarding the dramatic historical events of the Hellenistic period, and turning to Argos (a city of great interest to Lafond), we know from Pausanias again that the shield of King Pyrrhus of Epirus, taken off his dead body following the failed Epirote attempt to seize the city in 272 B.C., was still on display in the Argive shrine of Demeter in Pausanias' time 400 years later (2.21.4). One cannot imagine a better site to evoke civic memory and pride than this--yet it is unmentioned by Lafond. Similar are the commemorations of Hellenistic victories at Megalopolis in Arcadia: there, in the center of the city, were four bronze statues and a marble altar in honor of the Achaean general Philopoemen (a native of Megalopolis) for his great victories of the 180's B.C., victories which engineered the conquest of the entire Peloponnese for the Achaean League (Syll. 624). The historian Polybius of Megalopolis strove successfully to prevent the Romans from taking these statues away to Italy after the Achaean defeat of 146 (Polyb. 39.3), an action which reveals their political importance. The statues remained in Megalopolis and elsewhere with (Polybius claims) the deep support of the populace (39.3.1). In Pausanias' time a copy of the Philopoemen statue, with its accompanying historical explanaton of his great deeds, was still set up at nearby Tegea (8. 49.1 and 52.6); there was a statue of Philopoemen at Corinth as well, and a famous statue at Delphi, and Plutarch of course wrote an entire biography of the general. Yet Philopoemen does not even appear in Lafond's index. Similarly, in a world where in the second century A.D. the Achaean League still existed and held annual elections, the statues of Aratus (fl. 230 B.C.)--the true founder of the League-- preserved for his home city of Sicyon by Polybius in 146 (39.3.10) must have helped foster a proud civic identity among the Sicyonians; but neither Aratus nor Sicyon are mentioned by Lafond.

In the Roman imperial period, probably the most politically controversial arena of memory would have been that stretching from the late third to the late first century B.C., the period when the Greek states came under Roman domination in the first place and then were ravaged in the course of Roman civil wars. Pausanias, on whom Lafond is an expert, would have been a good source on the memories here: Pausanias provides much information on the monuments he saw in the central Peloponnese erected to the historian Polybius himself, monuments still preserved in Pausanias' own day, which proclaimed that Polybius' intervention with the Romans had saved Achaea (8.30.8-9, 37.2, 48.8). Still extant is a famous statue and inscription honoring Polybius from Elis (Inscr. Olymp. 302). Yet Polybius was a controversial figure in his time, with many political enemies in Achaea; he accused some of his enemies of scandalous collaboration with and sycophancy towards the Romans, while he in turn is sometimes viewed by modern scholars as a collaborator and comprador intellectual.² Yet Lafond has nothing to say about the monuments to Polybius at Megalopolis and other cities in the Peloponnese--nothing to say about Polybius at all--though surely these monuments were important sites of memory, all the more important because of their overt political biases. The only Polybius in the book is the historian's evident descendant the Roman citizen T. Flavius Polybius of Megalopolis (and this intriguing magnate only appears as one name in a list of names, with no discussion of the implications). Again, both Pausanias and Plutarch well understood the catastrophe inflicted upon the Greeks by the Roman civil wars of the first century B.C.: Pausanias recounts Sulla's exactions in European Greece in the 80s. (9.7.6), while Plutarch records the bitter memories of his great-grandfather (Ant. 62 and 68) concerning the enormous and economically disastrous requisitions demanded in Greece by Antony to support his armed forces during the War of Actium.³ Clearly there was a vivid memory of those dramatic times even in the second century A.D.; the collapse of Antony was, for instance, a major event in the history of the polis of Anticyra in Phocis and saved it from starvation (Plut. Ant. 68). But there is little mention of such material here.

Then there was the physical presence of Romans in a city, which is found reflected as a political memory in official Peloponnesian inscriptions celebrating the civic virtues and benefactions of these Romans. But aside from the Roman colonia at Corinth (see below), the actual references to Romans living in the Peloponnese even in the first and second centuries A.D. are not very numerous. Lafond shows that there were, however, rich Romans living especially in Elis and Messene in the western Peloponnese, assimilated into the local elite and engaged in traditional euergetism--the support of (Greek) religious cult and (Greek) education. In addition, inscriptions officially memorialized the benefactions of special Roman officials, true outsiders, who intervened temporarily in the political life of a city for (allegedly) its own good. These were usually imperial financial administrators (curator; epimeletês), whose purpose was to get the town accounts in good order; but occasionally, as after the disruptions caused by the civil wars of 68/69 A.D., they appear as general political overseers (corrector; epanorthotês). Further,--and this is not surprising--we have inscriptions memorializing the benefactions of the Roman proconsular governors of the province of Achaea (as southern Greece came to be termed after 27 B.C.); but these men are distant figures. One striking element that inscriptions which commemorate the benefactions of the governors do reveal is that at least two of these Roman governors were in fact Greeks: Tib. Claudius Frontinus Niceratos, and C. Julius Eurycles (pp. 129-130). Beyond the memorializing of this level of government, there are also numerous inscriptions recording the subvention of the imperial cult, or of festivals denominated the Kaisareia or the Rhomaia (pp. 296-315). Yet festivals specifically honoring Rome often became merged with traditional ones, such as the Sebasteia at Argos, which came to be celebrated conjointly with the traditional Nemea. It is possible to see in other cases an enduring (or resurgent) Hellenism. Sometimes a Roman religious connection was intentionally forged with strong local traditions right from the beginning. Thus there was no separate Rhomaia or Sebasteia at Megalopolis, but the traditional festival honoring Zeus Lykaios and celebrated annually on the summit of the great mountain that overlooks the city became the Lykaia Kaisareia under Augustus--and so it remained for the next two centuries. Though the festival eventually came down from the mountain and was celebrated in the agora of the city, those local aristocrats who provided funds for the Lykaia Kaisareia (wherever it was held) were acknowledging not merely Zeus Lykaios but a connection to the emperor--and they were being careful to memorialize their political and financial support of the connection.

There is much of value in this book, and much evidence of deep learning and research. Few scholars know more about the Peloponnese in the Imperial period than Lafond. Hence besides the discussion of the memorials to actual Romans in the Peloponnese, there is an interesting discussion of how the communities of Corinth and Patras, which became Roman coloniae under Caesar and Augustus respectively, gradually came to acknowledge or even emphasize their Greek pasts. Patras was always actually ethnically Greek, whatever its legal status; but the new Colonia Laus Iulia Corinthiensis established in 44 B.C., was settled by thousands of Romans and Italians, demobilized Caesarian veterans. Yet even at Corinth we find over time an increasing re-Hellenization of the city. A useful example of the process is the increasing primacy at "Roman" Corinth given to the cult of the Greek hero Palaimon (the Boy on the Dolphin); hence the dedicatory inscription for the refurbished cult site of Palaimon by P. Licinius Priscus Iuventianus, ca. 150 A.D., an action supporting the local cult worship of a Greek hero taken by a man with a Roman name, a stalwart benefactor of the city--but the inscription commemorating it is in Greek (IG IV 203: pp. 290-291). As for Patras, where the colonia was established after Actium by the synoecism of several small Greek towns, in Pausanias' description of the cult of Artemis Laphria in the city we have not memory but rather its suppression: for Pausanias either does not know or does not care about what an earlier Latin inscription from the city reveals, that the cult of Artemis Laphria at Patras was linked with the cult of Augustus himself (CIL III 510: p. 295). By Pausanias' time, this connection had evidently become so minor as to disappear. Again, there is an interesting discussion of how the emphasis on civic virtues such as generosity and traditional piety among the local elites in the imperial age, as opposed to the military and soldierly virtues we find memorialized in earlier periods, led to the appearance and the honoring (and hence to the public memory) of more and more female aristocrats on inscriptions. The numerous aristocratic women honored on inscriptions constitutes a sharp change even from the late Hellenistic period (pp. 249-253).

All to the good--yet one still wishes that Lafond had tackled some of the more dramatic memories that existed in the Peloponnese in the first and second centuries A.D. However powerful the local euergistic elite was in, say, Megalopolis, however much it strove to preserve the memory of its recent benefactions, and however much it funded the Lykaia Kaisareia and hence indirectly supported the connection to Rome (see above), the annual ceremonies honoring the glorious memory of the conquering general Philopoemen (or the statues and inscriptions honoring the saving benefactions of the historian Polybius) must have been very significant in terms of preserving the local civic identity of the city--an identity different from the connection to Rome. One imagines the same was true with the Shield of Pyrrhus, memorializing the military victory of 272 B.C. which saved Argos from Epirote (and royal) domination, and which was lovingly preserved at Argos. Discussion of these more obvious aspects of civic identity would have rounded out Lafond's study. Finally, the book is written in a turgid and (one must say) "deconstructionist" French, and its always convoluted sentences can run a paragraph long. This is unnecessary and detracts from the study; Lafond needed a better editor for this interesting book.

1.   See B. Dreyer and H. Engelmann, Die Inschriften von Metropolis I: Die Dekrete für Apollonios: Städtische Politik under den Attaliden und im Konflikt zwischen Aristonikos und Rom (IGSK 63:1) (Bonn, 2003).
2.   For discussion of the conflict, see A. M. Eckstein, Moral Vision in the Histories of Polybius (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1995), Chapter VII.
3.   See the important observations of F. Millar, "The Mediterranean and the Roman Revolution: Politics, War, and the Economy," in H. M. Cotton and G. M. Rogers, eds., Rome, the Greek World and the East, vol. 1: The Roman Republic and the Roman Revolution, by F. Millar (Chapel Hill, 2002), pp. 232-237.

Table of Contents

The Roman triumph -- its pageantry, ritual, and role in the commemoration of the past -- looms large in the literary and material record of the Roman Republic. In recent years, the triumph has begun to receive the critical analysis that it certainly merits. Between 2005 and 2009, four monographs and one edited volume have explored the historical and material records for the triumph in the Republican and Imperial periods.¹ Miriam R. Pelikan Pittenger's Contested Triumphs approaches the topic from a different, specifically historiographic, angle, and analyzes the process of debate that surrounds the award of the triumph in Livy's narrative. These debates emerge as a venue for the recognition of a commander by his senatorial peers, in which the process can be as important as the result.

In the two main sections of her beautifully crafted book, Pittenger examines the mechanics of triumphal decision-making and examples of triumphal debates in Livy. She argues persuasively that these debates were about much more than who might triumph, or why; rather, they provided an essential arena for the enacting of Roman, elite, collective identity, and both the acclamation of success and the resolution (or, at least, recognition) of conflicts. Ancient sources are translated, and two appendices and a supplemental index give the reader immediate access to triumphs as listed in Livy and the Fasti. Although the ideal audience is surely classics scholars and graduate students, the clarity of her prose and this level of accessibility should encourage researchers in related fields to engage with Pittenger's work.

Pittenger approaches the triumph through its presentation in the text of Livy, an author who experienced his own scholarly renaissance in the 1990s. This makes for a fruitful intersection, as Pittenger is able to take advantage of this recent reconsideration of Livy's methods -- which has tended to focus upon the first ten books -- while adapting and modifying that reconsideration in the light of Livy's later decades. Her chronological focus (on the triumphal debates of the late third and early second centuries B.C.E.) and careful exegesis of the debates' literary context combine to produce a welcome contribution to the political and social history of the Middle Republic and to Livian studies. In addition, the use of separated "Summary" sections at the close of most chapters, and the occasional chapter "Epilogue," will help the reader less familiar with the material obtain a clear sense of what is at stake.

Although Pittenger notes in the preface that her topic might strike many classicists as "frightfully arcane" (xi), her Introduction establishes the wider context and broader interests of a study on triumphal debates in Livy. Her point of origin is the important assertion that the most successful public figures in the Republic were those who possessed superior talent in both the "art of war" and the "art of self-promotion" (1); the triumph and its attendant monumental and textual commemoration is the venue where these abilities combined to generate political capital for the triumphator and exempla for historians such as Livy (1-2). Pittenger frames the body of her introduction around one such example, the disputed triumph of M. Fulvius Nobilior (187 B.C.E.). In this extreme case, Nobilior faced consular opposition but eventual senatorial approval. Before the celebration, the objecting consul attempted to return to Rome from his province -- whereupon Nobilior advanced the date of his triumph, aiming to avoid having "more of a struggle over his triumph than he had in the war" (3; Livy 39.5.12). War may be Politik by other means, but had Clausewitz seen Pittenger's Rome, he might have reversed his nouns.

Part I, "Setting Standards: Imperio Auspicio Ductu Felicitate," addresses the mechanics of triumphal decision-making in six chapters, preceded by an introduction of the question "who deserved to triumph?" The answer, it seems, is the general whose independent and successful military activities in the field might be most articulately linked to the mos maiorum, and its understanding of "independent" and "successful," in senatorial debates -- that is to say, it varied, but within certain limits. Thereafter, Pittenger devotes a chapter apiece to six of the factors that might complicate or challenge the idea of triumphal regulations in the Middle Republic.

Chapter 1, "Triumphal Decision Making and the SPQR," addresses the question of which groups within Rome had the authority to grant a triumph, concluding that while the commander might technically be able to triumph without senatorial approval, the collective approbation of the commander's peers was necessary to give the triumphal award its full symbolic force. Pittenger's focus here, though, is on instances where a commander invoked the people's authority, or his own, in making his bid. The "Summary" makes clear Pittenger's intent: to highlight the vexed nature of these exceptional events, and thus explain the senatorial focus in what is to come.

Chapter 2, "Consular Tribunes and Privati cum Imperio: Magistracy and Triumph," argues that no triumphs were celebrated by either military tribunes with consular power or private citizens invested with imperium. The consistent denial of (or decision not to seek) triumphs suggests a firm requirement of the possession or prorogation of a higher magistracy, although Pittenger does not dismiss other explanations.

Chapter 3, "Crossing Provincial Boundaries: Joint Campaigns and Overlapping Jurisdictions," tackles a similarly focused problem. Pittenger concludes that triumphal awards in cases of a commander's unclear authority were decided on individual bases. Here too commanders might respond to senatorial decisions, strategically yielding honors to a colleague or modifying the formal traditions of the triumphal procession. Problems of succession -- when a commander's imperium might technically have passed to another before a subsequent victory -- could cause the Senate to deny a triumph, grant an ovatio, or in fact award a triumph, without a clear system emerging for imposing consistency in the future.

Chapter 4, "The Importance of Closure," outlines another area of inconsistent senatorial decision-making. Determining when a commander had brought his war to an end, and whether or not that determination ought to rest with the Senate, generated a variety of solutions but no firm criteria or reliable pattern. In consequence, political and personal influences may have exerted both greater and more subtle effects. At this point in her narrative, Pittenger's frequent anticipation of the case studies of Part II creates a certain amount of repetition -- a disadvantage for the reader proceeding from introduction to conclusion, but a decision that allows each chapter to stand on its own.

Chapter 5, "Body Counts; or, Who Killed Whom," addresses another potential source of triumphal criteria, the number of Roman and enemy casualties sustained. After acknowledging the textual and practical unreliability of casualty figures, Pittenger suggests -- interestingly, for the historian seeking a means of using these details -- that these numbers can be read as "a political and cultural artifact rather than as a guide for reconstructing" battles (105), although her subsequent analysis relies more upon adjectives of scale and the inclusion of quantitative details than the numeric figures themselves.

Chapter 6, "Patterns of Success," concludes Part I. Pittenger proposes that the Senate's reluctance to impose impersonal standards for triumphal decision-making arose from a belief that debate was essential to the process. It was not in the interests of the republic to have honors easily awarded or denied. Rather, mechanisms of elite competition relied upon this formal venue for the voicing of political and personal concerns: "triumphs were by no means the only thing at stake in triumph debates" (124). While triumphs were not the only recognition of success, and commanders who were denied or who did not seek triumphs had a range of less formal commemorative options, it was the triumphal debate that allowed a commander and his peers to define and perform their political identities.

In the introduction to Part II, "The Performance of Politics and the Politics of Performance," Pittenger conceptualizes her approach to Livy's triumphal debates. Essentially, the process begins with the historical victory itself: victorious commanders immediately began the promotion of their accomplishments, employing various traditional means in the hopes of determining the reception of their triumphal request well before it came to be made. Other public figures might offer supporting or contradictory views, and whatever images emerged would form the Roman public's "collective memory" of the events and the genesis of later historical accounts (in this, Pittenger compares Livian debates to Homeric heroes' self-fashioning (143-45)). In commemorative terms, the public reception of the event was inseparable from the event itself. This near-codependence of the past upon its present, literary, representation may give some ancient historians pause, but those contemplating graduate seminars on the Roman Republic will welcome Pittenger's meticulously referenced assessment of the performance of elite competition.

The following eight chapters present the case studies upon which the preceding analysis is based. After a short chapter on the triumphal debates of the Second Punic War (Chapter 7), Pittenger devotes one chapter apiece to L. Furius Purpureo in 200 (Chapter 8), L. Cornelius Merula in 193 (Chapter 9), P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica in 191 (Chapter 10), M. Fulvius Nobilior in 187 (Chapter 11), Cn. Manlius Vulso in 187 (Chapter 12), M. Popillius Laenas in 173 (Chapter 13), and L. Aemilius Paullus in 167 (Chapter 14). The range of these examples is extensive: the selection includes the well-known and obscure, the successful and the rebuffed, and encompasses a host of political, military, familial, religious and purely rhetorical factors that determined the outcome of these commanders' triumphal hopes. In each chapter, Pittenger considers Livy's battle narratives in the light of the tone and substance of the triumphal debates, and discusses the ways in which Livy's representations ofultimately political performances in Rome inform his accounts of the events themselves. Chronologically and structurally, the battles come first -- but in commemorative and historiographic terms here, the debates predate their subjects.

Here, then, is a key for navigating the complex interrelation of Augustan Livy, his sources, and the Roman past (itself having the twin forms of its transmission and the equally shadowy wie es eigentlich gewesen). When paired with the excellent exposition of this complexity presented in the Introduction (7-20), the great benefit of Pittenger's critical approach here is undeniable. That said, each case-study may spark disagreement on specific points -- but the inclusion of her reading of each episode, much like presenting one's own translations, allows the reader to follow the process of interpretation, and thus increases the utility of these episodes as a basis for the generalized arguments of Part I.

Pittenger's Conclusion ("Triumphs and Roman Values") begins with a series of approaches to the ritual of the triumph itself, in terms of its power as spectacle, its origins, and its relation to time and space. Pittenger highlights certain details: the Fasti's ascription of the first triumph to Romulus, for example, literally inscribes the triumph as coterminous with Roman identity (277); the slew of variations among triumphal processions not only defies classification but served a historical purpose, leading Roman viewers to question and explore the notion of tradition and evolution, past and future (279). It is this notion, then, that joins with the specific arguments of preceding chapters to support Pittenger's ultimate conclusion, that the triumphal debates (in Livy's post-civil war context) represent an attempt to reconstruct the Republic's most effective mechanisms of self-governance, wherein the conflicts of commanders and statesmen received a formal venue for their resolution and the performance of Roman values. Livy thus allows the very "real" characters of the Roman historical memory to enact a Roman collective identity, at once inseparable from its present but unimaginable without its past.

1.   In chronological order: T. Itgenshorst, Tota illa pompa: Der Triumph in der römischen Republik (Göttingen, 2005); M. Beard, The Roman Triumph (Harvard, 2007); J.-L. Bastien, Triomphe romain et son utilisation politique à Rome aux trois siècles de la république (Rome, 2007); H. Krasser, D. Pausch and I. Petrovic, eds. Triplici invectus triumpho: Der römische Triumph in augusteischer Zeit (Stuttgart, 2008); and I. Östenberg, Staging the World. Spoils, Captives, and Representations in the Roman Triumphal Procession (Oxford, 2009).

Until relatively recently, the archaic Roman comedies of Plautus (ca. 254-184 B.C.) used to find little favour with classical scholars. His plays were often labelled rude and primitive, lacking in dramatic finesse and psychology, aiming at easy success with his audience, without much sense for serious, moral values. The poet earned some praise, meanwhile, for the liveliness of his works, which offer a unique insight into daily life in early Rome, and for his creative use of the Latin language. In recent years, by contrast, Plautus has been given much attention and he seems to have become almost fashionable among liberal-minded scholars. For example, English translations of some Plautine plays were published by Amy Richlin (2006) and John Henderson (2007), which each in their own way could be described as radical and postmodern (I reviewed both books in BMCR 2006.05.35 and 2007.01.03 respectively).

Obviously in reaction to such trends in Plautine studies, David Christenson has now published a new translation of four comedies by Plautus that aims to steer a middle course between translations that "seemed either ineptly stilted or too far removed from Plautus' Latin and his culture", and between "accuracy and liveliness" (p. 31). That is, Christenson has tried "to navigate between the Scylla and Charybdis of slavish literalism on the one side, and the temptation to over-indulge in contemporary slang and other imminently doomed, ephemeral references on the other." (p. 31).

When an author aims at balance and compromise, he or she will not easily satisfy extreme sides in modern readership, which often make themselves readily heard. Christenson's translation will seem needlessly free to the very strictest of philologists, while it will inevitably be considered bleak and flat to the hard core innovators of classical studies. But readers of Plautus who do not wish to be counted to either extreme (and I hope that this still goes for a large majority) will probably appreciate or even like this book.

Christenson has given us a clear, readable rendering of four interesting plays, without a desire to surpass or outdo the original in any way, but rather to make the Plautine text and context come alive for a non-Latinist audience. The target group, defined as "students and teachers in literature in translation courses" as well as "the general reader" (p. 32), will profit from Christenson's easy, low-key style, his informative introductions, and practical footnotes, which do not suppose prior experience of Plautus, or indeed of antiquity as a whole, and duly explain all that is needed to understand the text.

Since the book is primarily aimed to be read to get to know Plautus and his world, the translation itself will not be immediately practicable for stage performances (stage directions have been kept to an absolute minimum, particularly in comparison with Nixon's old Loeb versions). But since these are fair, reliable versions of Plautus' plays, the texts might be reworked into stage texts.

In his choices as a translator, Christenson has opted for compromise as well. While avoiding idiosyncratic style or a clearly poetical form (whether metrical or in free verse), he does maintain Plautus' division of lines and adopt what may be called a fairly neutral idiom. This results in texts such as are not often written nowadays, with, at first glance at least, the typographical "look and feel" of poetry, combined with the flow and rhythm of prose. While this style is not distracting or calling for attention to itself, it is also, I have to admit, a bit indeterminate and does not seem quite convincing as a mirror of Plautus' enchanting Latin.

But quite possibly, Christenson did not primarily wish to convey the essence of Plautus' style. A closer look at this particular selection of plays shows that it is rather the themes of the plays, their social "messages", that are of interest to the translator (or "editor", as Christenson calls himself).

In all four plays, Plautus seems concerned with larger social issues, such as the role of women, the position of slaves, and the relations between masters and slaves. Fortunately, Christenson does not go so far as to argue that Plautus is a revolutionary thinker wishing to exert direct influence on Roman society and to introduce real change. Indeed, such a theory would not convince many readers of Plautus, since he mostly seems to care precious little about matters of general interest and rather more about immediate comic effect.

What Christenson does argue is that in these four plays, something serious is happening and that more is at work than merely "letting off of steam". The plays lay bare the conventions both of comedy and of Roman views on status, power and gender at large, and by showing and lightly questioning such conventions, they make their audiences think about what they see. Theatre in such a form challenges common assumptions about larger issues without actually changing them.

Admittedly, it is not easy to accept that Plautus can have a "serious" side, but Christenson does have a point with these plays.

The Captivi in particular is an almost un-Plautine, pure play with no markedly obscene or coarse language, no quarrels or fights, and no disreputable, funny characters (prostitutes, pimps), as is explicitly stated by the speaker of the prologue (lines 54-62). The play's greatest hero is a slave, Tyndarus, who risks his life in order to save his master from slavery. This shows how good or bad character need not be directly correlated with social status: Tyndarus is, indeed, something like "a noble slave". (That is, until he turns out to be not a slave at all, but rather a freeborn son of the very man whom he served as a slave -- the plot is a little too complex to describe in one or two lines.) Yes, this may have made Roman viewers think about the essence of slavery and "the arbitrariness of rank and status" (p. 24) without making them rebellious and ready to change the law on slavery.

Likewise, the Amphitryon, with Jupiter and Mercury appearing on stage, makes one think about the vulnerability of even mighty men when faced with the gods; the Casina shows a woman, Cleostrata, gradually getting the upper hand and gaining control of the play, while Pseudolus seems so full of reflection about being a comedy that it may properly be called "Plautus' most consciously theatrical play" (p. 25).

It is a clear merit of Christenson's book to draw attention to this underrated aspect of Plautus' theatre, in the form of a combined translation of the socially most relevant comedies, if I may call them thus. Of course, there is more Plautus than merely these four plays, I am happy to add. Many readers will, as I do, still prefer Plautus' more raw and funny side, with bawdy talk, bad jokes, laughable stock characters, and brilliant Latin puns, regardless of any ethics and morals.

To sum up: Christenson has offered readers a useful and informative edition of four Plautine plays in neutral, accessible English that, unlike some recent Plautus translations, reaches out to a wide modern audience, both classicist and general, both in Anglophone countries and elsewhere in the world. Within the range of Plautus translations as currently available, this is certainly a most welcome contribution. Christenson's thematical focus on some of Plautus' more serious plays, in which he seems almost like a social critic, is interesting and provides food for thought.

Table of Contents

This is an ambitious book. In The Construction of Authority in Ancient Rome and Byzantium: The Rhetoric of Empire, Sarolta Takács defines the transformations and continuity of imperial rhetoric from the early Republican period until the reign of the Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus (r. 1081-1118), thereby defining as the scope of her study more than 1300 years of Roman history. Just as ambitious as the book's chronological scope is Takács's decision to write this history of imperial rhetoric within the space of 154 pages. One is reminded of Cornelius Nepos, who according to Catullus dared omne aevum tribus explicare cartis | doctis (1.6-7). Takács's account of Roman imperial rhetoric over such a vast period is a qualified success. Although Takács clearly defines her limited audience at the outset ("The reader I have in mind is not the specialist but the person curious about the formative power of political rhetoric" [xviii]) and although Takács manages to condense her subject within a readable narrative, there are also some notable omissions, both of primary sources and of the scholarly bibliography. Moreover her account of the Byzantine period is less than satisfying.

Takács's argument is clear: in its earliest manifestation, Roman political authority was constructed according to a constellation of traditional military and ethical values: virtus, disciplina, fides, pietas, and self-sacrifice for the good of the state. With the emergence of the imperial period, this constellation of traditional virtues became focused around the figure of the pater patriae, and Takács traces the various continuities and ruptures in the rhetoric of paternity from the reign of Augustus onward. When the rhetorical fiction broke down during the reigns of emperors such as Nero, Domitian, or Elagabalus, the expanse of the empire facilitated a transference to the center of peripheral figures who were more adept at employing Rome's traditional rhetoric of paternity to balance and keep in check the interests of the military and the elite. Beginning with the reign of Constantine I, Christian religious ideology is grafted onto the imperial framework: the Father of the empire thus becomes identified with the heavenly Father, and the role of the Emperor is to enact and ensure the will of the Christian god on earth. Finally, with the rise of the emperor Heraclius, the Roman Byzantine period saw the church defining politics and eventually education to such an extent that by the early Comnenian period the Eastern Roman Empire may be identified as a fundamentalist theocracy.

Takács's first chapter, "Republican Rome's Rhetorical Pattern of Political Authority," surveys writers from Ennius to Cicero who contributed to and refined the rhetoric that defined the virtuous Roman man. Particularly helpful in establishing the argument is a consideration of Polybius' remarks about the intersection of past, present, and future in the ritual of elite Roman funerals (6.54.2-3) as well as his theorization about the conditions which would cause a shift in Rome's political system (6.57.8). This leads to a discussion of the negative example illustrated in Cicero's prosecution of Verres, in contrast to Cicero's own nomination as pater patriae by Quintus Lutatius Catulus in 63 BCE for his service to the state as consul during the conspiracy of Catiline. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of Cicero's representation of Julius Caesar as simillimus deo after the latter's political restoration of Marcus Claudius Marcellus. That Cicero could speak of Caesar as having achieved a near-divine status for this act of clemency signals the rhetorical "transformation from an ordinary to an extraordinary being," but a being who was still to be seen as delimited by Rome's traditional values: "a virtuous man sacrificed his own interests to those of the state. This sacrifice, the self for the community, was the crucial, initial exchange" (39).

Chapter 2 covers the imperial period from Augustus to Commodus. In the first section, Takács focuses especially on the Res Gestae, but regarding the appropriation of the rhetoric of paternity and the overlapping of public and private discourses during the reign of Augustus (48-50), it is surprising not to see any references to the work of Kristina Milnor, whose Gender and Domesticity and the Age of Augustus would certainly have enriched Takács's discussion.¹ The second section treats Horace's second Roman ode, with particular emphasis on the famous line dulce et decorum est pro patria mori (3.2.13). Takács's reading is sensitive to the poem's political ambiguities. As it evokes Rome's military past and alludes even to Aeneas' murder of Turnus on the battlefield, the ode ultimately "is a multivalent literary modulation on this theme of cultural heritage and a reminder that conquest is brutally bloody" (53).

Examining the import of the "extraordinary thought" that "patriotic self-sacrifice gives pleasure to the sacrificing individual" (54), Takács introduces a novelistic parallel: Achilles Tatius 3.22.1. Takács here bases her argument on a 1993 note by Stephen Harrison,² but unfortunately the text of this passage from Achilles Tatius is corrupt. Takács does not provide the original Greek, but her questionable translation ("This is a necessity, a considerable deed, but for friendship, if we must die, then the risk is good, death sweet") seems to reflect the text of Vilborg or Gaselee's Loeb edition, though this is nowhere made explicit, even in the bibliography.³ Garnaud's Budé edition, however, removes the phrase γλυκὺς ὁ θάνατος, since it belongs to a family of manuscripts that is in this instance less reliable.⁴ Takács's point here is simply that "In Roman moral terms, the country took the place of the beloved" (54), a claim that could well have been established without bringing in a corrupt passage from a second-century Greek novel. Takács's final remarks on the challenging political rhetoric of Horace's poem nevertheless remain valid: "war is the last resort of a broken-down dialogue and aggression sets in when words have no longer any effect and diplomatic means fail" (55).

From Augustus, Takács moves directly to the fall of Nero, who unlike Augustus was unable or unwilling to represent himself successfully as the state's "symbolic father figure" (62). This failure at the center of Roman imperial power allowed for the rise of a peripheral figure like Vespasian, whom Takács likens to a hero from a Horatio Alger novel: "If the American myth is one where the economically downtrodden individual makes it to the top, the Roman one was of an elite citizen receiving rewards for his moral uprightness" (65). After summarizing the Flavian dynasty and the reign of Trajan, Takács concludes the second chapter with a brief comparison of Marcus Aurelius and his "psychotic son" Commodus (77-80). Takács directly appeals to her non-specialist audience here by framing her analysis of Commodus' perversion of the symbolic order within a discussion of Ridley Scott's film Gladiator.

Chapter 3 covers the Severan period and moves into late antiquity up to the reign of Honorius. In her narrative of the rise of Elagabalus Takács refines her description of Rome's patrocentric imperial rhetoric. Harkening back to Livia's powerful role in shaping the Augustan principate and to the influence of Julia Domna during the reigns of Septimius Severus and Caracalla, Takács accounts for the successful machinations of Julia Maesa and Julia Soaemia in installing Elagabalus as emperor by theorizing that in times of crisis when a suitable father figure was absent, a mother figure could temporarily provide the authority necessary for transmitting symbolic power from one generation to the next (85-86). The following section, "A New World Order," introduces the theme of Christian appropriation of Rome's imperial rhetoric, with a focus on the The Passion of Vibia Perpetua (89-94), and this is followed by an account of the transformational reign of Constantine I, whose embrace of Christianity and a new heavenly Father necessitated a shift in the rhetoric of authority: "Under this construct, Christian emperors became subordinate executors of an entity that existed outside of, but also encompassed, the world it had created" (99).

The emperor Julian's opposition to Christianity, in particular Christians' use of pagan paideia, posed, according to Takács, an important challenge to which Christian thinkers such as Basil successfully responded, blending Christian ideology with pagan learning as they saw fit (106). Apart from a brief mention of Tertullian, Takács's sources for this section are exclusively Greek (Eusebius, Julian, Gregory Nazianzus, and Basil), and it is surprising not to read here any discussion of Ammianus Marcellinus, for whom Julian represented an ideal ruler. Does the premier Latin historian of late antiquity offer nothing to the subject of imperial rhetoric during the reign of Julian?

The chapter concludes with a discussion of Claudian's Panegyricus de quarto consulatu Honorii Augusti (112-118). Takács's reading of the poem, in which the dead emperor Theodosius appears to counsel his young son Honorius, is compelling, but Takács offers no explanation of the formative role of the half-Vandal general Stilicho in defining Honorius' reign, nor does she bring to her interpretation any of the crucial background provided by Alan Cameron in his seminal 1970 book on Claudian.⁵ The limited scope of Takács's discussion here prevents a more nuanced interpretation of the rhetoric of paternity during this fascinating period. Consideration of, for example, Claudian's Epithalamium honoring the wedding of Honorius and Stilicho's daughter Maria would have revealed how Stilicho's powerful position at court was maintained in part by the proper articulation of his own filial relationship with Theodosius.

Takács begins the fourth and final chapter with the reign of Justinian, though this section would have benefited from consideration of the important works on Procopius by Averil Cameron and, more recently, by Anthony Kaldellis.⁶ Takács nevertheless offers an intriguing reading of the foreword to Justinian's Institutes, identifying a Vergilian allusion to Anchises's moral imperative that Aeneas should parcere subiectis et debellare superbos (Aeneid 6.851-853). Whatever the reality behind the rhetoric, "Valor remained a core virtue in Christian Rome's discourse" (126). Takács's narrative then moves into the Byzantine period, beginning, as she sees it, with the reign of Heraclius, when Greek became the official administrative language and when the empire identified Mary, the Mother of God or theotokos, as its divine patron. Takács's main interest in this section is the panegyric poetry of George of Pisidia, though more could have been made of the later Short History by Nikephoros, Patriarch of Constantinople. Takács duly recounts the story of the exchange between Heraclius and the shamed overthrown emperor Phocas, but in an odd bibliographic choice she cites not Cyril Mango's now standard text, translation and commentary, but a 1975 reprint of de Boor's 1880 Teubner edition.⁷

In an attempt to demonstrate the negative degree to which the Eastern Roman empire had subordinated the concerns of the state to the church, Takács shifts focus to the West and considers the reign of Charlemagne, which liberated Europe from an overwhelming control of the papacy (134-139). The East, where the separation between church and state was not so clearly defined, was a failure by comparison. This leads to Takács's frankly troubling claim that, "The result was an intellectual stagnation that would continue to characterize the Christian Roman Empire of the East until its eventual demise in 1453" (139). After such a statement, Takács's discussion of the years leading up to and including the reign of Alexius I Comnenus is all too brief: Michael Psellos, Byzantium's greatest intellectual, receives but one quotation, and there is no mention whatsoever of Anna Comnena or the literary golden age of the Comnenian period. This uncharitable account of Byzantine intellectual life is by far the book's greatest shortcoming, and even non-specialist readers interested in this subject would be well advised to consider as an alternative the recent study by Anthony Kaldellis.⁸

In the end, this book offers non-specialist readers a brisk (sometimes too brisk) narrative of the history of Rome's rhetoric of authority and how the ideology of the Father changed and was adapted over a very long period of time. To such readers I would recommend the book, with the important reservation that Takács's study serve merely as an introduction to a rich field.

1.   Milnor, Kristina. Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus: Inventing Private Life. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
2.   Harrison, Stephen J. "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori: Horace Odes 3.2.13." RhM 136.1 (1993): 91-93.
3.   Vilborg, Ebbe, ed. Achilles Tatius: Leucippe and Clitophon. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1955. Gaselee, S., ed. Achilles Tatius. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd., 1969. First edition 1917.
4.   Garnaud, Jean-Philippe, ed. Achille Tatius: Le Roman de Leucippé et Clitophon. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2002. First edition 1991.
5.   Cameron, Alan. Claudian: Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Honorius. Oxford: Clarendon, 1970.
6.   Cameron, Averil. Procopius and the Sixth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. Kaldellis, Anthony. Procopius of Caesarea: tyranny, history, and philosophy at the end of antiquity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
7.   Mango, Cyril, ed. Nikephoros, Patriarch of Constantinople: Short History. Dumbarton Oaks Texts 10. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1990.
8.   Kaldellis, Anthony. Hellenism in Byzantium: The Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

This is a list of books received by BMCR during the previous month; it does not include books on offer for review or books still available for review. You will find the complete and updated list of books available for review at http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/booksavailable.html.

. Mare Internum: archaeologia e culture del Mediterraneo. 1 - 2009. Pisa; Roma: Fabrizio Serra editore, 2009. 166 p. (pb). ISBN 20350783.

Augoustakis, Antonios C. (comm.). Plautus Mercator. Bryn Mawr Latin Commentaries. Bryn Mawr, PA: Bryn Mawr Commentaries, 2009. 128 p. (pb). ISBN 9781931019064.

Baños Baños, José Miguel (ed.). Sintaxis del latín clásico. E-excellence. Madrid: Liceus, 2009. 838 p. €55.00. ISBN 9788498228441.

Barnish, S., L. Cracco Ruggini, L. Cuppo, R. Marchese and M. Breu. Vivarium in context. Vicenza: Centre for medieval studies, Leonard Boyle, 2008. 140 p. $25.00 (pb). ISBN 9788890203528.

Betancourt, Philip P. The Bronze Age begins: the ceramics revolution of early Minoan I and the new forms of wealth that transformed prehistoric society. Philadelphia: INSTAP Academic Press, 2008. xx, 136 p. $36.00 (pb). ISBN 9781931534529.

Bravo, Benedetto. La Chronique d'Apollodore et le Pseudo-Skymnos: érudition antiquaire et littérature géographique dans la seconde moitié du IIe siecle av. J.-C. Studia Hellenistica; 46. Leuven: Peeters, 2009. xxiv, 268 p. €70.00 (pb). ISBN 9789042921450.

Budelmann, Felix (ed.). The Cambridge companion to Greek lyric. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xxi, 457 p. $39.99 (pb). ISBN 9780521614764.

Camia, Francesco. Roma e le poleis: L'intervento di Roma nelle controversie territoriali tra le comunità greche di Grecia e d'Asia Minore nel secondo secolo a.C.: le testimonianze epigrafiche. Tripodes 10. Atene: Scuola Archeologica Italiana di Atene, 2009. 263 p. €50.00. ISBN 9789609839730.

Cecchini, Enzo. Scritti minori di filologia testuale. Ludus philologiae; 18. Urbino: QuattroVenti, 2008. 507 p. €38.00 (pb). ISBN 9788839208521.

Chaplin, Jane D. and Christina S. Kraus (edd.). Livy. Oxford readings in classical studies. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. x, 523 p. $60.00 (pb). ISBN 9780199286348.

Chiaradonna, Riccardo. Plotino. Pensatori; 3. Roma: Carocci editore, 2009. 202 p. €14.50 (pb). ISBN 9788843047611.

Conti Bizzarro, Ferruccio. Comici entomologi. Hellenica; 30. Alessandria: Edizioni dell'Orso, 2009. 238 p. €20.00 (pb). ISBN 9788862741002.

Corcilius, Klaus and Christof Rapp (edd.). Beiträge zur Aristotelischen Handlungstheorie: Akten der 8. Tagung der Karl und Gertrud Abel-Stiftung vom 08.-11.07.2004 in Blankensee. Philosophie der Antike; Bd. 24. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2008. 216 p. €45.00. ISBN 9783515090575.

Coskun, Altay. 51;kun, Altay. Bürgerrechtsentzug oder Fremdenausweisung?: Studien zu den Rechten von Latinern und weiteren Fremden sowie zum Bürgerrechtswechsel in der Römischen Republik (5. bis frühes 1. Jh. v.Chr.). HERMES - Einzelschriften Bd. 101. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2009. 236 p. €50.00 (pb). ISBN 9783515093033.

Craik, Elizabeth M. (ed., trans., comm.). The Hippocratic treatise On glands. Studies in ancient medicine v. 36. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2009. viii, 169 p. $123.00. ISBN 9789004175631.

Daly, Robert J. (ed.). Apocalyptic thought in early Christianity. Holy Cross studies in patristic theology and history. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2009. 303 p. $32.99 (pb). ISBN 9780801036279.

Daumas, Michèle. L'or et le pouvoir: armement scythe et mythes grecs. Nanterre: Presses universitaires de Paris ouest, 2009. 206 p., [16] p. of plates. €35.00 (pb). ISBN 9782840160427.

De Albentiis, Emidio. Secrets of Pompeii: everyday life in ancient Rome. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2009. 196 p. $44.95. ISBN 9780892369416.

de Hann, Nathalie, Martijn Eickhoff and Marjan Schwegman (edd.). Archaeology and national identity in Italy and Europe 1800-1950. Fragmenta. Journal of the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome 2 (2008). Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2008. 263 p. ISBN 9782503524061.

Delattre, Charles. Le cycle de l'anneau: de Minos à Tolkien. L'antiquité au présent, . Paris: Belin, 2009. 279 p. €23.00 (pb). ISBN 9782701147024.

Eck, Werner, Matthäus Heil and Johannes Heinrichs (edd.). Prosopographia Imperii Romani Saec. I. II. III. Pars viii, Fasciculus 1. Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2009. 140 p. $81.00. ISBN 9783110202953.

Foster, Benjamin R. and Karen Polinger Foster. Civilizations of ancient Iraq. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009. xii, 297 p. $26.95. ISBN 9780691137223.

Fratantuono, Lee (comm.). A commentary on Virgil, Aeneid XI. Collection Latomus 320. Bruxelles: Éditions Latomus, 2009. 339 p. €48.00 (pb). ISBN 9782870312612.

Frazel, Thomas D. The rhetoric of Ciceros "In Verrem". Hypomnemata Bd. 179. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009. 264 p. €48.90. ISBN 9783525252895.

Gaisser, Julia Haig. Catullus. Blackwell introductions to the classical world. Chichester; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. x, 243 p. $99.95. ISBN 9781405118897.

Gallo, Luciana. Lord Elgin and ancient Greek architecture: the Elgin drawings at the British Museum. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xvii, 344 p. $150.00. ISBN 9780521881630.

Giardina, Giovanna R. La chimica fisica di Aristotele: teoria degli elementi e delle loro proprietà. Analisi critica del De generatione et corruptione. Area 11 - Scienze storiche, filosofiche, pedagogiche e psicologiche; 285. Roma: Aracne editrice, 2008. 309 p. €17.00 (pb). ISBN 9788854815452.

Giarrizzo, Giuseppe and Stefania Pafumi (edd.). Oggetti, uomini, idee. Percorsi multidisciplinari per la storia del collezionismo, Atti della tavola rotonda, Catania, 4 dicembre 2006. Studia erudita 11. Pisa; Roma: Fabrizio Serra Editore, 2009. 230 p. €72.00. ISBN 9788862271530.

Goldhill, Simon and Edith Hall (edd.). Sophocles and the Greek tragic tradition. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xvi, 336 p. $99.00. ISBN 9780521887854.

Gorre, Gilles. Les relations du clergé égyptien et des lagides d'après des sources privées. Studia Hellenistica; 45. Leuven: Peeters, 2009. lviii, 641 p. €105.00 (pb). ISBN 9789042920354.

Gottlieb, Paula. The virtue of Aristotle's ethics. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xix, 241 p. $85.00. ISBN 9780521761765.

Gourinat, Jean-Baptiste and Jonathan Barnes (edd.). Lire les stoïciens. Philosophie ancienne. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2009. vi, 234 p. € 15.00 (pb). ISBN 9782130573739.

Haack, Marie-Laurence (ed.). Écritures, cultures, sociétés dans les nécropoles d'Italie ancienne: table ronde des 14-15 décembre 2007, mouvements et trajectoires dans les nécropoles d'Italie d'époque pré-républicaine et républicaine, ENS Paris. Ausonius Éditions. Études, 23. Pessac: Ausonius 2009. 250 p. €35.00. ISBN 9782356130099.

Heinen, Heinz (ed.). Handwörterbuch der antiken Sklaverei (HAS). Lieferung I-II (2008). Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei 5. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2008. 1 CD-ROM. € 175.00. ISBN 9783515089197.

Herrman, Judson (ed., trans. comm.). Hyperides. Funeral oration. American Philological Association. American classical studies 53. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. xiv, 148 p. $60.00. ISBN 9780195388657.

Hollender, Gabi. Amenophis I. und Ahmes Nefertari: Untersuchungen zur Entwichlung ihres posthuman Kultes anhand der Privatgr äber der thebanischen Nekropole. Sonderschrift 23. Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2009. x, 182 p., [4] p. of plates. $123.00. ISBN 9783110204612.

Howe, Timothy and Jeanne Reames (edd.). Macedonian legacies: studies in ancient Macedonian history and culture in honor of Eugene N. Borza. Claremont, CA: Regina Books, 2009. xvi, 310 p. $24.95 (pb). ISBN 9781930053564.

Hunter, Richard and Ian Rutherford (edd.). Wandering poets in ancient Greek culture: travel, locality and pan-Hellenism. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xiv, 313 p. $99.00. ISBN 9780521898782.

Icks, Martijn. Images of Elagabalus (PhD thesis, Radboud Universiteit). Nijmegan, 2008. 339 p. ISBN 9789090236797.

Jacobsen, Torsten Cumberland. The Gothic War: Rome's final conflict in the West. Yardley: Westholme, 2009. x, 371 p. $26.00. ISBN 9781594160844.

Jasink, Anna Margherita. Cretan hieroglyphic seals: a new classification of symbols and ornamental / filling motifs. Biblioteca di "Pasiphae" 8. Pisa; Roma: Fabrizio Serra Editore, 2009. xiii, 222 p. €185.00 (pb). ISBN 9788862271554.

Kalfas, Vassilis (ed., trans., comm.). Aristoteles. Meta ta Physika. Biblio A'. Archaioi philosophoi. Athena: ekdoseis Polis, 2009. 356 p. (pb). ISBN 9789604352272.

Keaveney, Arthur and John A. Madden (edd., trans., comm.). Sir William Herbert. Ad Campianum Iesuitam eiusque Rationes Decem Responsio.. Noctes Neolatinae Bd. 11. Hildesheim; New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 2009. lii, 91 p. €34.80 (pb). ISBN 9783487139883.

King, Katherine Callen. Ancient epic. Blackwell introductions to the classical world. Chichester; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. ix, 206 p. $89.95. ISBN 9781405159470.

Kubish, Sabine. Lebensbilder Der 2. Zwischenzeit: Biographische Inschriften der 13.-17. Dynastie. 34. Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008. x, 383 p., [12] p. of plates. $151.00. ISBN 9783110204957.

La Torre, Gioacchino Francesco (ed.). Dall'Oliva al Savuto: studi e ricerche sul territorio dell'antica Temesa. Atti del convegno, Campora San Giovanni (Amantea, CS), 15-16 settembre 2007. Biblioteca di "Calabria antica" 1. Pisa; Roma: Fabrizio Serra Editore, 2009. 303 p. €160.00. ISBN 9788862271172.

Lanciotti, Settimio (ed.). Titus Maccius Plautus. Curculio. Editio Plautina Sarsinatis; 8. Sarsina; Urbino: QuattroVnti, 2008. 86 p. €16.00 (pb). ISBN 9788839208514.

Langslow, David (ed.). Jacob Wackernagel. Lectures on syntax: with special reference to Greek, Latin, and Germanic. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. xxii, 982 p. $250.00. ISBN 9780198153023.

Lo Cascio, Elio. Crescia e declino: studi di storia dell'economia romana. Centro ricerche e documentazione sell'antichità classica. Monografie 23. Roma: L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2009. 386 p. €120.00 (pb). ISBN 9788882655624.

Longo, Giovanna (ed., trans., comm.). [Quintiliano], La pozione dell'odio (Declamazioni maggiori, 14-15). Collana scientifica 22. Cassino: Edizioni Università di Cassino, 2008. 227 p. €23.00 (pb). ISBN 9788883170492.

Majumdar, Deepa. Plotinus on the appearance of time and the world of sense: a pantomime. Aldershot; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007. vi, 237 p. $99.95. ISBN 9780754655237.

Mastrocinque, Attilio. Des Mystères de Mithra aux Mystères de Jesus. Potsdamer Altertumswissenschaftliche Beiträge. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2009. 128 p., [7] p. of plates. €39.00 (pb). ISBN 9783515092500.

McIntosh, Jane. Handbook to life in prehistoric Europe (paperback version of 2006 edition). Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. xii, 404 p. $24.95 (pb). ISBN 9780195384765.

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