Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Giovanna Galimberti Biffino, Ermanno Malaspina, Gregor Vogt-Spira (ed.), Was ist ein amicus? Überlegungen zu Konzept und praxis der amicitia bei Cicero/ Che cosa è un amico? Riflessioni sugli aspetti teorici e pratici dell'amicitia in Cicerone, Marburg, 18. - 19. Mai 2017. Ciceroniana on line, I-2. 2017​. Torino: Università di Torino​, 2017. Pp. 229-412. ISBN 2532-5353.

Reviewed by Marie-Adeline Le Guennec, École française de Rome​ (leguennec.marieadeline@gmail.com)

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Conference Program

Ce dossier spécial de la revue Ciceroniana on Line (N.S., I, 2, 2017) constitue la publication des actes de la conférence éponyme qui s'est tenue à Marburg les 18 et 19 mai 2017, sous la direction de Giovanna Galimberti Biffino, Ermanno Malaspina et Gregor Vogt-Spira. Cette publication ne reflète toutefois pas totalement la teneur de la conférence originelle : certaines communications (à savoir celles de Maria Luigia Dambrosio, "Su Cicerone, Mazio e Cesare o su un singolare triangolo amicale : note a fam. 11, 27 e 28" et la lectio magistralis de Gernot Michael Müller, "Ciceros Kritik am epikureischen Freundschaftsbegriff in De finibus bonorum et malorum") n'ont pu être intégrées au dossier final, sans doute du fait de la rapidité de la publication, qui intervient quelques mois seulement après l'organisation de la conférence; inversement, une contribution a été ajoutée au programme originel, celle de Elena Köstner, "Falsche Freunde: der captator als dystopischer Gegenentwurf des idealen amicus". Signalons par ailleurs que ce recueil d'article fait l'objet d'une seconde publication, cette fois comme volume d'actes indépendant disponible via la plateforme Open Access de l'Université de Turin.

Le dossier Was ist ein amicus? Überlegungen zu Konzept und Praxis der amicitia bei Cicero / Che cosa è un amico? Riflessioni sugli aspetti teorici e pratici dell'amicitia in Cicerone se compose dans sa version publiée de huit articles de longueur inégale, en allemand, anglais et italien. Chaque article est doté d'un résumé développé bilingue (l'ensemble des résumés étant réuni en fin de volume, pp. 457-463), qui facilitera la compréhension du détail d'un propos parfois ardu pour les lecteurs moins familiers de l'une ou de l'autre des langues des contributions. Le volume des Ciceroniana on Line comprend également une série de comptes rendus et un panorama de l'actualité bibliographique cicéronienne, sur lesquelles je ne reviendrai pas dans le cadre de cette recension.

Ce dossier s'inscrit à la rencontre des deux orientations historiographiques qui caractérisent les recherches actuelles sur l'amitié dans le contexte culturel romain, parfois étendues à l'Antiquité classique. La première cherche à se saisir de la notion d'amicitia dans sa dimension affective, dans le cadre plus général du développement de l'histoire des émotions dans l'Antiquité¹; la seconde à considérer la portée socio-politique des relations d'amicitia au sein de la société romaine, ce qui invite à s'intéresser davantage à l'amitié en pratique, afin de mettre en lumière les circonstances dans lesquelles ces relations jouaient un rôle particulièrement marqué dans la vie des acteurs²; cette seconde orientation, héritière d'une longue tradition d'étude, a été renouvelée par l'attention croissante des historiens à la notion de réseau pour rendre compte des rapports sociaux dans l'Antiquité. La documentation, majoritairement de nature littéraire (même si l'étude des usages épigraphiques d'amicus/a peut aussi s'avérer fructueuse) et les enjeux politiques liés à l'amitié, nous orientent, pour la période romaine, vers les élites, et tout particulièrement vers les luttes entre aristocrates qui marquent la fin de la République. À ce titre, l'œuvre de Cicéron est naturellement exceptionnelle, puisqu'elle est riche en approches théoriques de l'amicitia (avec en leur centre le traité philosophique Laelius de amicitia de 44 av. J.-C.), mais qu'elle permet aussi d'observer cette amitié en actes, tant dans les lettres (et en particulier dans la relation épistolaire à l'ami par excellence, Atticus) que dans les discours politiques et judiciaires de l'orateur.

Le volume s'ouvre sur la contribution de Sandra Citroni Marchetti, qui peut être envisagée comme une forme d'introduction développée aux enjeux de l'étude de l'amicitia chez Cicéron ("Cicerone alla ricerca dell'amicizia: dalla domus alla res publica", pp. 235-260). Au gré d'une lecture fine (qui porte une attention marquée au vocabulaire) des occurrences du corpus cicéronien où les relations entre amici (ou entre inimici, comme dans le cas emblématique de Verrès) se donnent à voir, l'auteur nous propose une forme de panorama des lieux et des temps de l'amitié aristocratique à la fin de la République; elle met en lumière la manière dont ces relations amicales se répartissent selon un subtile équilibre entre affection et formalisme, qui n'est parfois pas dénué d'ambiguïté.

Le deuxième article, "Alte Freunde im Gespräch: Anspruch und Wirklichkeit der amicitia bei Cicero" (Meinolf Vielberg, pp. 261-289) entend démontrer que derrière le couple amical fictionnalisé Scipion-Laelius, dont l'amicitia est prétexte au traité Laelius de amicitia, se cache en réalité la relation entre Cicéron et Atticus. L'auteur pointe ainsi des similitudes frappantes entre certaines des circonstances dont les lettres à Atticus se font l'écho et d'autres évoquées dans le traité, dans lequel l'ami de Cicéron, qui avait d'ailleurs poussé ce dernier à rédiger son étude philosophique de l'amitié, pouvait à bon droit se reconnaître.

L'article de David Konstan, "Cicero's Two Loves" (pp. 291-305) revient à une approche plus conceptuelle de l'amicitia, en s'attachant à différencier l'affection que se manifestent deux amis de celle qui unit les membres du groupe familial: là où les seconds, selon le Laelius, obéissent aux lois naturelles, les amis étendent cette loi de la nature, au-delà des bornes de la parentèle, à l'amour que s'attire la vertu au sein du genre humain.

Partant d'un constat simple (si tout le monde savait que les larmes versées par Cicéron dans ses plaidoyers judiciaires étaient dictées par les circonstances, quelle pouvait être leur efficacité oratoire ?), Angela Ganter, dans "Patronus und amicus. Ciceros Tränen als Grundlage sozialer Integration" (pp. 307-324), s'interroge pour sa part sur la signification des pleurs de Cicéron lorsque ceux-ci, à l'instar de ce qu'il en est dans le Pro Plancio, sont instrumentalisés par l'orateur comme symbole de la relation personnelle qu'il entretient avec le client qu'il défend, gage de l'envergure socio-politique mais aussi de la vertu de ce dernier. L'auteur, dont le propos croise amicitia et patrocinium (distinction importante et complexe dans le corpus cicéronien, qui aurait pu être envisagée de manière plus nette que ce qu'il en est pp. 312-314), conclut que Cicéron, en versant des larmes devant le tribunal, manifestait pleinement la dévotion et l'engagement qu'exigeait le statut de patron et d'ami. Si la réalité des affections individuelles telles que mises en scène dans ces discours peut être mise en doute, Cicéron n'en obéissait pas moins en agissant de la sorte à un ethos de classe aristocratique que partageaient ses auditeurs et qu'ils ne pouvaient manquer de soutenir, en particulier face aux menaces que faisaient peser sur cette lex amicitiae les ruptures socio-politiques des dernières décennies de la République.

L'article suivant ("Falsche Freunde: der captator als dystopischer Gegenentwurf des idealen amicus", par Elena Köstner, pp. 325-342) revient au corpus philosophique, en se centrant non sur le Laelius, mais sur un passage des Paradoxes des Stoïciens (39, 3-4). L'auteur établit une opposition entre le captator (c'est-à-dire le captateur d'héritage, évoqué dans ce passage) et l'amicus, et entend utiliser cette distinction pour affiner, cette fois par ses marges, notre connaissance de l'amitié selon Cicéron. La rupture se fait autour de la question des officia et des beneficia que le captator prodigue à sa cible, tout comme l'ami à l'ami: mais là où dans l'amicitia, telle du moins qu'elle devrait être conçue et pratiquée, prévalent la réciprocité et le sens de l'honestum, les services du captator s'expliquent par ses seuls intérêts et gains escomptés.

La contribution de Christian Rollinger, "Beyond Laelius. The orthopraxy of friendship in the late Republic" (pp. 343-367), s'intéresse cette fois plus directement à l'amitié "dans la pratique", en proposant un échantillon de situations où les relations amicales apparaissent au cœur du fonctionnement social et politique des élites tardo-républicaines. L'auteur met ainsi au clair un certain nombre des codes propres à la lex amicitiae à laquelle se doit d'obéir l'honnête homme.

L'article suivant, "Der tröstende Freund – Epistolares Rollenbild und kommunikative Verhaltensweise in Ciceros Epistulae ad familiares", par Raphael Schwitter (pp. 369-394), centre le regard sur une circonstance spécifique où l'amitié se donne à voir au sein du corpus cicéronien, notamment dans la correspondance: la consolation à l'ami en deuil. Celle-ci obéit à des règles morales et rhétoriques très précises, que l'auteur s'attache à restituer dans sa contribution.

Enfin, le dernier article du recueil ("Amicitia and caritas in the 7^th Century: Isidore of Seville and his sources", de Sergey Vorontsov, pp. 395-412) s'intéresse à la réception, entre Antiquité tardive et Haut Moyen Âge, de la théorie cicéronienne de l'amitié, en partant du commentaire d'un passage des Sententiae d'Isidore de Séville (3, 28-32). Dans le contexte chrétien tardif, l'amicitia semble perdre de son importance au profit de la caritas, car là où la relation entre amis est dictée par l'amour terrestre, la caritas est une des manifestations de la dévotion à Dieu. Isidore pour sa part choisit de fondre l'amicitia dans la caritas, en appuyant son raisonnement sur la lecture du Laelius de Cicéron ; en ce sens, il obéit également à l'exigence d'intertextualité avec les œuvres du passé caractéristique des pratiques littéraires de la fin de l'Antiquité.

L'intérêt premier de ce recueil d'articles est de mettre directement en regard théorie et pratique de l'amicitia chez Cicéron, en tirant pleinement partie des opportunités offertes par la diversité du corpus cicéronien: l'étude la plus poussée en ce sens est celle de Meinolf Vielberg, qui fait du Laelius une forme de récit à clé de l'amitié unissant Cicéron et Atticus. La lecture du volume offre également un bon aperçu des multiples circonstances dans lesquelles l'amitié entre deux individus peut entrer en jeu: aide pendant des difficultés familiales, défense judiciaire, soutien politique, collaboration économique, échanges intellectuels etc. L'ensemble confirme enfin, dans le prolongement d'une historiographie déjà nombreuse sur le sujet, combien l'amicitia est partie prenante de l'ethos aristocratique à la fin de la République (et du reste au-delà, comme en témoigne la contribution finale de Sergey Vorontsov qui traite de l'amitié au sein des élites Wisigoths de la péninsule ibérique au VII^e s.). Des pistes de recherche partagées s'esquissent d'un article à l'autre, qui pourraient donner lieu à des approfondissements intéressants: notamment l'étude des lieux de cette amitié aristocratique, de la domus au forum, en passant par les tribunaux, qui est particulièrement présente dans les contributions de Sandra Citroni Marchetti et de Angela Ganter. En revanche, l'analyse des distinctions (mais aussi des points de contact) entre l'amicitia et d'autres types de relations bilatérales essentielles au fonctionnement socio-politique des élites romaines aurait pu être davantage poussée par les auteurs: si le cas du patrocinium est envisagé à plusieurs reprises au sein du recueil, il n'est en revanche jamais question de l'hospitium, l'hospitalité, dont l'étude orienterait cette fois le regard vers les relations entretenues entre Cicéron, ses pairs et des notables locaux, italiens ou provinciaux; or, nombreux sont les passages du corpus cicéronien où est établie une gradation entre hospitalité et amitié (cf. par exemple Cicéron, epist. 14, 4 ; II Verr. 2, 110), qui aurait pu être convoquée à profit. Enfin, on regrettera peut-être le manque d'unité du volume, qui est souvent la marque des publications d'actes de rencontres. Si l'article de Sandra Citroni Marchetti peut aisément faire office d'introduction à la problématique du dossier, celui-ci aurait gagné à être doté d'un plan plus net, marquant une réelle progression entre les articles, et, peut-être, de propos conclusifs; une bibliographie commune et des indices, au moins des sources, auraient pu s'avérer d'une grande utilité pour le lecteur, tant littéraire qu'historien. Mais il est vrai que ce travail éditorial supplémentaire se serait fait au détriment de la rapidité de la publication; et ces quelques remarques ne retirent rien à la qualité des articles de cette contribution importante à notre connaissance des rapports sociaux à la fin de la République romaine.

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Notes:

1.   Voir par exemple comme représentatifs de cette approche de l'amitié les travaux de Peter Astbury Brunt ("Amicitia in the late Roman Republic" dans The Fall of the Roman Republic and Related Essays, Oxford, 1988, p. 351-381) ; ou de David Konstan (Friendship in the Classical World, Cambridge 1997).
2.   Dans la continuité des travaux de Lily Ross Taylor, de Joseph Hellegouarc'h et d'Elisabeth Deniaux, parmi tant d'autres, voir notamment à date récente Michael Peachin et Maria Letizia Caldelli (éds.), Aspects of friendship in the Graeco-Roman world, Portsmouth, 2001 ; Katarina Mustakallio et Christian Krötzl (éds.), De amicitia. Friendship and Social Networks in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Rome, 2009 ; ou encore Koenraad Verboven, The Economy of Friends. Economic Aspects of amicitia and Patronage in the Late Republic, Bruxelles, 2002.

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Bonnie Effros, Guolong Lai (ed.), Unmasking Ideology in Imperial and Colonial Archaeology: Vocabulary, Symbols, and Legacy. Ideas, debates, and perspectives, 8. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press; University of California, 2018. Pp. xxxi, 467. ISBN 9781938770135. $85.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Richard Hingley, Durham University, UK (richard.hingley@durham.ac.uk)

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This ambitious volume reviews the entanglement between archaeology, imperialism, colonialism, nationalism, capitalism and war from a global perspective. It comprises an introduction and sixteen articles that challenge the colonial legacy of archaeology by addressing the perspectives of 'indigenous' populations and the often negative impacts of colonial archaeological investigations, and the continuing legacy of these actions. The papers derive from a workshop held at the University of Florida in January 2015 that took a comparative approach to the historical role and legacy of archaeological research in colonial discourse, conflict and contested regions during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (p. xxiii).

An Introduction by the editors reviews the global reach of imperial and colonial archaeology. This is followed by two chapters, by Margarita Diaz–Andreu and Hubert Fehr, that explore how imperial and colonial archaeology may be defined and studied. Feur includes a helpful definition of colonialism (pp. 30–1) that he quotes from the work of Jürgen Osterhammel:

Colonialism is a relationship of domination between an indigenous (or forcibly imported) majority and a minority of foreign invaders. The fundamental decisions affecting the lives of the colonized people are made and implemented by the colonial rulers in pursuit of interests that are often defined in a distant metropolis. Rejecting cultural compromises with the colonized population, the colonizers are convinced of their own superiority and of their ordained mandate to rule.

The various case studies presented in this volume indicate, however, that all definitions have their limitations. Fourteen additional articles, written by contributors from four continents, present individual case studies that address contexts from China and Japan to Africa, Siberia, Europe and North and South America.

Although the analysis of imperial and colonial archaeology has been a significant theme in the archaeology of the Roman empire,¹ there are comparatively few references to the classical world in this volume, largely as a result of the ambitiously global perspective of the project. I will focus my comments in this review on issues that are particularly relevant to classical studies and thus mainly discuss the three introductory chapters and the two additional papers that address the Roman empire.

The Introduction identifies some widespread features of colonial and imperial archaeology in different regions, including the recognition of material remains as powerful bearers of meaning and the use of antiquities along with written sources in creating colonial world-views (p. xxvi). It also defines changing agendas and the need to take a more balanced view with regard to the rights and needs of 'indigenous communities'. There has been a great deal of discussion of how archaeologists may best work with local communities in undertaking their fieldwork and research;² a number of papers in this volume contribute to this literature.

Diaz-Andreu addresses how imperialism related to nationalism and how they influenced archaeology during the nineteenth century in Britain, France and, at a later date, Germany, Italy and Japan. She reviews the prominent role given to the antiquities derived from classical Greece and Rome in these imperial narratives, the colonial expeditions mounted by Western Empires to excavate and collect antiquities from the southern and eastern Mediterranean, and the downgrading of other ancient peoples who were seen as less 'civilised' (pp. 7–12). Another section reviews the re-emerging role of nationalism in archaeological contributions to the creation of post-colonial nations (pp. 17–8), an issue that retains considerable currency with the present re-emergence of nationalism across the globe.

Feur addresses a definition of colonial archaeology as a practice and an attitude, exploring the activities of the German archaeologists who were working in the occupied parts of Eastern Europe during the Second World War. He uses his case study to challenge the usual practice of not designating activities in Europe as colonial (p. 30). I was reminded at this point of the idea that the English and the Lowland Scots learned their imperial practices during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries while colonising Ireland and Highland Scotland before exporting these models across the globe.³ Colonised communities existed within Europe in addition to territories more usually associated with Western imperialism.

Feur observes that many of the WW II-era German policies at home and across Eastern Europe derived from concepts of ancestry that drew upon the idea of Germanic roots. Contemporary populations were related back to the ancient peoples described by Tacitus (pp. 32–5). Elsewhere I have defined 'Images of Rome' as a multivalent concept to address the contradictions between ideas of classical and barbarian origins.⁴ The models available to construct imperial archaeologies included concepts that drew upon the idea of a 'civilised' Roman pasts but also those based on classical accounts of the 'barbarian' peoples on the periphery of their world. As Feur adeptly demonstrates, it is not only the 'civilised' Roman past that has been used for nationalistic purposes in imperial and colonial contexts.

Two other papers address French colonial archaeology in North Africa and the narratives articulated by ideas about classical remains, adding well-informed studies to the body of published literature on this theme.⁵ McCarty explores French archaeology in colonial Magreb (modern Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco) and the complex ways in which archaeological remains were used to promote colonial agendas. He particularly emphasises the claims made by French officers to genetic (and cultural) descent from the Roman military commanders who formerly colonised these lands, eliding the passing of nearly two millennia to make a direct claim to territory. McCarty's paper includes a fascinating study of how the archaeological remains of classical monuments were used as 'backdrops and props' for these colonial fantasies, including the reconstruction of Roman funerary monuments and the staging of Roman festivals and plays at ancient monuments (pp. 363–7).

Effros addresses French colonial archaeology in nineteenth-century Algeria and again demonstrates how French military officers were inspired by ancient Rome. The French have long claimed descent from the ancient Gauls who fought against Julius Caesar, drawing on a very different origin myth from that of genetic descent from Roman officers. Effros explores the occasional claims that the dolmens and ancient tombs of Algeria had been constructed by the Gallic ancestors of the French, thus using "Gauls" rather than McCarty's "Romans" to underpin French assertions of primacy in North Africa (p. 215).

The exploration of examples derived from the Roman empire forms only a minor part of this substantial volume, although Roman myths of origin were fundamental to Western imperial nations. The geographical scope of this volume is, however, far wider, and its focus upon a global perspective can help to challenge the primacy of the Eurocentric conceptions of origin derived from Greece and Rome that continue to retain considerable power.

All the papers provide a wealth of comparative material for studying the use of the classical past for imperial, colonial and nationalistic purposes. The volume is very well produced and illustrated and makes a highly significant contribution to exploring the ideologies inherent in imperial and colonial archaeologies, and the continuing impact of imperialism and colonialism (however defined) on the definition of archaeological narratives.

Table of Contents

Bonnie Effros and Guolong Lai, Introduction: The Global Reach of Imperial and Colonial Archaeology.
Ch. 1: Margarita Diaz-Andreu, Archaeology and Imperialism: From Nineteenth-Century New Imperialism to Twentieth-Century Decolonization.
Ch. 2: Hubert Fehr, German Archaeology in Occupied Europe during World War II: A Case Of Colonial Archaeology?
Ch. 3: Neil Brodie, Problematizing the Encylopedic Museum: The Benin Bronzes and Ivories in Historical Context.
Ch. 4: Guolong Lai, Digging up China: Imperialism, Nationalism, and Regionalism in the Yinxu Excavation, 1928-1937.
Ch. 5: Talinn Grigor, "They have not changed in 2,500 years": Art, Archaeology and Modernity in Iran.
Ch. 6: Chip Colwell, The Entanglement of Native Americans and Colonialist Archaeology in the Southwestern United States.
Ch. 7: Wendy Doyon, The History of Archaeology through the Eyes of Egyptians.
Ch. 8: Bonnie Effros, Indigenous Voices at the Margins: Nuancing the History of French Colonial Archaeology in Ninteenth-Century Algeria, 1830-187.
Ch. 9: Ann McGrath, Critiquing the Discovery Narrative of Lady Mungo.
Ch. 10: Ursula Brosseder, In the Shadow Zone of Imperial Politics: Archaeological Research in Buryatia from the Late Nineteenth Century to the 1940s.
Ch. 11: Jian Xu, Imperial Archaeology or an Archaeology of Exoticism? Victor Segalen's Expeditions in Early Twentieth-Century China.
Ch. 12: Lothar von Falkenhausen, Four German Art Historians in Republican China.
Ch. 13: Matthew McCarty, French Archaeology and History in the Colonial Maghreb: Inheritance, Presence, and Absence.
Ch. 14: Peter R. Schmidt, The Colonial Origins of Myth and National Identity in Uganda.
Ch. 15: Yangjin Pak, Japanese Colonial Archaeology in Korea and Its Legacy.
Ch. 16: Maya Stanfield-Mazzi, The Cloth Colonization: Peruvian Tapestries in the Andes and in Foreign Museums.

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Notes:

1.   D. Mattingly, Imperialism, Power and Identity (Princeton, 2011).
2.   Including the recent publication, C.N. Cipolla and K. Howlett Hayes (eds), Rethinking Colonialism: Comparative Archaeological Approaches (Gainesville, 2015).
3.   R. Hingley, The Recovery of Roman Britain (Oxford, 2008), 60–6.
4.   R. Hingley, 'Images of Rome', in R. Hingley (ed.), Images of Rome (JRA, Portsmouth RI), 7–22. Cf. K. Kristiansen, 'European Origins – "civilisation" and "barbarism"'. In P. Graves-Brown S. Jones and C.S. Gamble (eds), Cultural Identity and Archaeology: The Construction of European Communities (London, 1996), 138–44.
5.   D. Mattingly, Imperialism, Power and Identity (Princeton, 2011), 43–73.

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Elizabeth S. Bolman (ed.), The Red Monastery Church: Beauty and Asceticism in Upper Egypt. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2016. Pp. xxxix, 390. ISBN 9780300212303. $85.00.

Reviewed by David Brakke, The Ohio State University (brakke.2@osu.edu)

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A landmark in multiple fields in the study of late antiquity, The Red Monastery: Beauty and Asceticism in Upper Egypt documents the surviving church of the Red Monastery near Sohag in Egypt following the conservation of the wall paintings in its triconch apse and adjacent rooms. Elizabeth S. Bolman, the book's editor, directed the conservation project, which was funded by the United States Agency for International Development through a grant administered by the American Research Center in Egypt. Luigi De Cesaris, Alberto Sucato, and Emiliano Ricchi led the team that conserved the wall paintings, an astonishing collection of polychromatic figural and decorative works that were made in multiple phases beginning in the late fifth century. In this lavishly illustrated book, Bolman and other scholars describe the conservation effort and interpret and contextualize its results. Although interested scholars should try to see the church for themselves, the volume represents the best possible substitute for such a visit. Thanks to the efforts of Bolman and her collaborators, the Red Monastery church contributes transformative new evidence for historians of art and architecture, of Christian monasticism and worship, and of late ancient and early Byzantine Egypt.

Bolman's Introduction provides an orientation to the monastery, its church, and the painting program. The so-called Red Monastery was one of three monasteries (two for men and one for women) in a federation that was based at the larger White Monastery to its south. Pcol founded the federation in the fourth century, but its most famous and consequential leader was its third, Shenoute, who guided the federation for approximately eighty years until his death in 465. The triconch church at the Red Monastery was modelled on the larger such church that Shenoute built at the White Monastery in the 440s. The painting of the apse and its adjacent rooms took place over several phases, the first four of which are dated from the late fifth century to the turn of the seventh. In some phases new painting covered previous work, with the first phase almost completely no longer visible. Much of the striking ornamental work belongs to the second phase (ca. 500–525), while most of the visible images belong to the third and fourth phases. Appendix II provides key drawings of the walls, with differing colors indicating to which phase elements belong. A numbering system enables abbreviated reference to specific areas of the walls.

The seven chapters of Part I ("The Red Monastery and its Church") provide the historical, liturgical, and architectural context for the paintings. Andrew Crislip (Chapter 1, "The Red Monastery in Early Byzantine Egypt") places the monastery and its federation within the social, ecclesiastical, and monastic history of early Byzantine Egypt. Stephen Emmel and Bentley Layton (Chapter 2, "Pshoi and the Early History of the Red Monastery") reconstruct the monastery's early years, when its founder Pshoi, originally a hermit with disciples, facilitated the transition to a cenobitic institution under the auspices of Pcol of the White Monastery. Bolman (Chapter 3, "'The Possessions of Our Poverty': Beauty, Wealth, and Asceticism in the Shenoutean Federation") contextualizes the construction of the church within, on the one hand, the late antique trend of constructing monumental buildings to create and express power and prestige and, on the other hand, monastic ambivalence about beauty and wealth; she identifies a figure depicted on a wall just outside the apse as a lay patron of the monastery. Ugo Zanetti and Stephen J. Davis (Chapter 4, "Liturgy and Ritual Practice in the Shenoutean Federation") reconstruct the liturgical activities that would have taken place within the church with sources from the federation and the regional context, and they consider how worshiping monks may have interacted with the images in the apse. Dale Kinney (Chapter 5, "The Type of the Triconch Basilica") considers the church's triconch apse in comparison with other examples both within and outside Egypt, and she discusses the vexed question of the type's origin. Nicholas Warner (Chapter 6, "Architectural Survey") describes all the architectural remains, which date from the original construction in the late fifth century into the medieval and modern periods. Kinney (Chapter 7, "Architectural Sculpture") analyzes such elements as columns, niches, and portals; considers their dating in some detail; and finds connections, possibly even shared workers, with the basilica at Hermopolis Magna.

Part II ("Early Byzantine Paintings in the Red Monastery Church") devotes seven chapters more directly to the paintings themselves, including the dipinti. William Lyster (Chapter 8, "Artistic Working Practice and the Second-Phase Ornamental Program") studies the ornamental painting that belongs to the second phase (sixth century), with attention to the materials, methods, and training of the painters. Bolman wrote the next three chapters. Chapter 9 ("A Staggering Spectacle: Early Byzantine Aesthetics in the Triconch") interprets the second-phase ornamental painting in terms of the "jeweled style" of late ancient cultural production, setting it beside examples from Constantinople and Ravenna as well as literary descriptions of multi-colored church interiors. In Chapter 10 ("The Iconography of Salvation") Bolman reads the paintings in the semi-domes theologically, emphasizing their resonances with the Eucharist that was celebrated beneath them. She rightly argues that, although the semi-domes' monumental images of the Mother of God and of Jesus as the Word cohered with either pro- or anti-Chalcedonian theologies, the inclusion of the patriarch Diaskoros among the authoritative figures depicted in the niches below signaled that they were to be understood in an anti-Chalcedonian way (149). Chapter 11 ("Figural Styles, Egypt, and the Early Byzantine World") traces changes in figural styles from the naturalism and illusionism of the first phase to the greater abstraction of later phases. Bolman resists interpreting this shift as representative of a linear stylistic development within Egypt; rather, Egyptian painters drew on a range of stylistic options available in the early Byzantine world, in which they fully participated as cultural producers. Bolman and Agnieszka Szymańka (Chapter 12, "Ascetic Ancestors: Identity and Genealogy") then turn to the monks, martyrs, bishops, and prophets that were painted in niches and other locations during the third phase; the authors chart several genealogical relationships among the figures but find that these ancestors are not necessarily deployed in a clear hierarchical family tree. Paul C. Dilley (Chapter 13, "Textual Aesthetics: Dipinti and the Early Byzantine Epigraphic Habit") studies the numerous dipinti in the church within the context of late Roman and early Byzantine epigraphy and analyzes their forms and functions within the church's aesthetic and religious programs. Bolman (Chapter 14, "Preparation for the Eucharist: Paintings in the Side Chambers") argues, as the chapter's title indicates, that the paintings in the side chambers indicate that these rooms were used to prepare for the Eucharist.

In Part III ("A Diachronic View of the Red Monastery") six chapters tell the story of the Red Monastery, its church, and the paintings after the late antique period of frequent painting up to the present. Mark N. Swanson (Chapter 15, "An Eclipsed History: Toward a Framework for the Medieval History of the Red Monastery") uses literary sources to trace the monastery's history through the medieval and early modern periods, finding that most references are to the White Monastery and thus that the historian must extrapolate to include the Red. In contrast to the paucity of literary sources, Bolman (Chapter 16, "A Medieval Flourishing of the White Monastery Federation: Material Culture") examines material evidence (e.g., paintings and manuscripts) that shows that both monasteries enjoyed continuing cultural production, patronage, and financial well-being into the fourteenth century. Dilley (Chapter 17, "Inscribed Identities: Prosopography of the Red and White Monasteries in the Early Byzantine and Medieval Periods") uses inscriptions and manuscript colophons as well as attestations of official titles, references to monastic houses, and the like to create a prosopography of individuals within and associated with the monastic federation. In Appendix I Dilley provides editions of the church's Greek and Coptic inscriptions. Warner and Cédric Meurice (Chapter 18, "'A Strange Jumble of Roman Detail': Western Explorers and Antiquarians at the Red Monastery, 1673–1926") provide a history of Western explorations of the Red and White Monasteries through the early twentieth century; the primary achievement of these men, who were mainly interested in monumental architecture, may have been to make the importance of these buildings clear to the local Comité de Conservation des Monuments de l'Art Arabe. The same two authors (Chapter 19, "The Comité: Conserving the Red Monastery Church in the Early Twentieth Century") then describe the significant work that the Comité did to preserve the church. De Casaris, Sucato, and Ricchi (Chapter 20, "Wall Painting Conservation at the Red Monastery Church") explain their work clearly enough to inform the non-specialist.

Bolman's Conclusion synthesizes the results of the preceding chapters and emphasizes the integration of Upper Egypt into the wider earlier Byzantine world: the conservation of the Red Monastery paintings should indeed transform "our ideas about the involvement of this region in the cultural world of Byzantium in the fifth and sixth centuries, and its continuing importance . . . under Muslim rule" (287).

Doubtless for some time historians of art and architecture will be assessing and assimilating the evidence of the newly visible Red Monastery Church paintings and the arguments that Bolman and her colleagues make about them. For historians of ancient Christianity and Egyptian monasticism like me, the church and this book constitute something of a revelation. Better than ever before, if still only partially, we can see the setting in which some late ancient monks prayed, heard the Bible read and preached, received the Eucharist, and even carried out manual labor. It was a place alive with color, lush with plants and animals, and populated by faces. Some of those faces were small and anonymous, but others were larger and named, connecting the monks to a past filled with "fathers," which included martyrs, bishops, and their monasteries original leaders. Thanks to Bolman's inclusion of historians of monasticism and liturgy in this book, the paintings not only contribute to a revised understanding of early Byzantine art history, but they also open a door to a world of monastic wealth, aesthetics, and spirituality at which literary sources only hint. The Red Monastery Church—conserved monument and monumental book—is a great achievement.

The conservation of the church raises difficult questions about access to and responsibility for a building that is not only an important historical artifact, and not only a treasure of past cultures, but also a holy space of deep meaning to a present-day religious community. This issue runs through the foreword and preface written by Gerry D. Scott III and Michael Jones of the American Research Center in Egypt, the prologue composed by Father Maximous El-Antony, a Coptic monk and a leader in the effort to conserve Coptic heritage, Bolman's Introduction, and the chapter by the Italian conservators. To their credit these scholars do not conceal their disagreements on key questions: Should the legibility of the eastern semi-dome's original painting have been sacrificed to that of a later monumental Christ, in order to provide the living monastic community "a clearly visible devotional image in the main apse" (279)? Should the church have been returned to regular liturgical use, even at the costs of potential future damage to the conserved paintings and of limited access to the apse based on religious custom? Even if one, like Bolman, answers No to these questions, one must respect the intelligence and sensitivity that all involved brought to resolving them.

Because it touches on so many vital issues in the study of late antiquity, including the ethics of our work, The Red Monastery Church rightly will be read, debated, and admired by a variety of scholars for years to come.

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Bruno D'Andrea, Bambini nel "limbo": dati e proposte interpretive sui tofet fenici e punici. Collection de l'École française de Rome, 552. Rome: École Française de Rome, 2018. Pp. xiv, 170; 31 p. of plates. ISBN 9782728313365. €27,00 (pb).

Reviewed by Matthew M. McCarty, University of British Columbia (matthew.mccarty@ubc.ca)

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In December of 1921, two French colonial administrators made a shocking archaeological discovery in Carthage: thousands of urns containing the burned remains of infants and/or ovicaprines, many marked by carved stone monuments bearing votive inscriptions in Punic. The find immediately sparked lively debate: were these deposits evidence of the kinds of Carthaginian child sacrifice described in exaggerated terms by Greek and Latin authors, akin to those mentioned in various parts of the Hebrew Bible? Or were they rather funerary deposits in a necropolis reserved for those who had succumbed to the numerous causes of high infant mortality in the ancient world?

Nearly a century later, as similar deposits continue to be excavated at sites across the central Mediterranean, this same debate continues across Classical, Near Eastern, and Biblical Studies. Scholars from different disciplines wrestle with textual, epigraphic, and archaeological sources for "tophet" sanctuaries (the term modern convention has used to label these spaces) and molk rites (an ancient Phoenicio-Punic term occasionally used to describe one of the rites performed in these sanctuaries). D'Andrea's slim volume—itself a kind of companion to his 2014 dissertation monograph that assiduously catalogued the archaeological evidence from North Africa¹—is the latest contribution to examine the diverse body of evidence that stretches from Mesopotamia to Morocco and that was generated over more than a millennium. D'Andrea succinctly synthesizes a century of finds and scholarship, deftly navigating material remains and philology. Readers expecting a characteristically well-researched, nuanced introduction to the problems, evidence, and scholarship surrounding tophets will welcome this work; those expecting resolution to the debate, or a novel interpretation, will be disappointed.

Instead of a new argument, D'Andrea consciously chooses to offer descriptions of data, how those data have been interpreted by others, and the problems with such interpretations. The first chapter summarizes archaeological and epigraphic data from tophet sites with useful tables; the second introduces literary sources and commentary (connected to an appendix helpfully collecting texts and translations of pertinent Biblical and Classical texts), as well as comparable phenomena (child necropoleis, the Athenian Agora's bone well²… surprisingly, discussion of exposure and infanticide is more limited); the third is essentially a well-annotated, chronological bibliography of tophet studies and interpretations. All three will provide useful summaries and resources for researchers. The fourth chapter raises a host of problems with the data sets and offers balanced analysis of many of the claims made from this material. The final chapter synthesizes and problematizes each of what D'Andrea sees as the three main "models" for interpreting tophets:

1) Paolo Xella's sacrificial model;
2) Sabatino Moscati and Sergio Ribichini's arguments that tophets were cemeteries for dead children that also served as places for seeking divine help in conceiving future children; and
3) Hélène Bénichou-Safar's notion of the tophet as a necropolis where the naturally deceased infants were instrumentalized as special vehicles for communicating with the divine.

Indeed, D'Andrea's central claim is simply that none of these explanations works to explain fully the diverse evidence at hand, and that there may never be a single, monolithic interpretation of these sanctuaries and the rites that took place within them. D'Andrea clearly demonstrates that casting the problem as a simple binary—either sacrificial or funerary—is untenable. Still, he maintains these two categories as conceptual poles on a continuum, with the known sanctuaries and rites falling somewhere in between, a hybrid rite that is both funerary and sacrificial.

Yet the fundamental question that shapes tophet studies, and the present volume—were these sanctuaries places where ancient people made live child sacrifices or not?—is one that, after a hundred years, seems somewhat stale. Interpretations and answers are only as good as the questions that prompt them; this question has generally remained unchanged since it was first posed in the 1920s, its framework bound up in colonial politics and orientalist imaginations. D'Andrea's approach is marked by a positivist faith that inductive analysis of evidence will offer final answers: new data are all we need. But recent, high-quality excavations and analyses at a number of sites in Sicily, Sardinia, and across Africa—sites that include both Phoenician colonies and "neo-Punic" tophets—have only created more questions and demonstrated the diversity of sanctuaries and practices that modernity has yoked together in the category of "tophet."

The various models and approaches to tophets that D'Andrea catalogues and critiques may reveal more about the political, social, and cultural milieux of their interpreters than they do about these sanctuaries as an ancient phenomenon. As Brien Garnand has shown, changing claims about tophets are the result not of changing data, but rather a host of wider changes in the intellectual environment in which such claims are made.³ Similarly, the "raw" data produced from excavations are not facts, but discursive claims created by the narrow questions posed (at the expense of others) and the methods employed. To take just one egregious example, the supposed decline of infants in urns and their replacement with greater numbers of ovicaprines from the second century BCE onwards—which D'Andrea accepts—is based primarily on Jean Richard's 1961 dissertation that examined urns from Carthage and Hadrumetum.⁴ The dissertation was written under the guidance of Pierre Cintas, who had earlier claimed that Hadrumetum showed a decline in child sacrifice over time; Richard's conclusion, with synthetic tables counting the number of urns containing infants or animals by period, simply confirms Cintas' claim. The evidence in Richard's catalogue of urn contents, however, complicates this picture. The urns with bone fragments that Richard could not identify as either human or animal were used to bolster the count of "non-infant" urns, creating a false (or at least misleading) sense of the declining burial of children in tophets. The data and numbers that we have inherited as fact were (unconsciously) engineered to demonstrate a predetermined conclusion shaped by social and intellectual pressures. Moving studies of tophets and molk rites forward demands grappling not with data, but with historiography. It demands new forms of questions, rather than simply restating old ones.

Of course, one might also quibble with some of the claims that D'Andrea lays out as settled fact. The chronology of many of the "Late Punic" tophets D'Andrea discusses remains a problem, but there is evidence that most were established far later than D'Andrea suggests, in the wake of Carthage's defeat and Rome's first substantial efforts to "provincialize" Africa.⁵ Dating, of course, has ramifications for how the material is parceled and categorized; rather than seeing such Hellenistic sanctuaries as part of the Phoenician-colonial "tophet" phenomenon, these sites (which provide a significant portion of D'Andrea's data) become part of a rapidly changing Roman province, re-imaginations of earlier practices rather than reproductions of them. Similarly, while D'Andrea sees the lack of buried urns with burned offerings as part of a clear distinction between (Punic) tophets and (Roman) sanctuaries of Saturn, this distinction may well be the product of how our data-sets were created; few "sanctuaries of Saturn" have been excavated (especially beyond or below their monumental architecture), and most are attested primarily by surface finds or reused stelae.

D'Andrea does not provide a silver bullet that will put an end to the debate over the nature of tophets; evidence, however carefully parsed and examined, is no match for the conceptual frameworks and narratives that history has ingrained in tophet studies. But what D'Andrea sets out to do in this volume, he does well; like his earlier monograph, this will become a standard, encyclopedic reference for tophet studies. His individual observations on the material and the limits of evidence are nuanced and thoughtful, and will demand responses from proponents of each camp of tophet-scholars.

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Notes:

1.   B. D'Andrea, I tofet del Nord Africa dall'età arcaica all'età romana (VIII sec. a.C. - II sec. d.C.). Studi archeologici, Collezione di Studi Fenici 45 (Pisa and Rome 2014).
2.   M. A. Liston et al, The Agora Bone Well. Hesperia Suppl. 50 (Princeton, 2018).
3.   B. Garnand, "From Infant Sacrifice to the ABC's: Ancient Phoenicians and Modern Identities," Stanford Journal of Archaeology 1 (2002). Stanford Journal of Archaeology.
4.   J. Richard, Étude médico-légale des urnes sacrificelles puniques et de leur contenu. Unpublished dissertation, doctorate in medecine, University of Lille (Lille 1961).
5.   M. McCarty, "Africa Punica? Child Sacrifice and Other Invented Traditions in Early Roman Africa," Religion in the Roman Empire 3(3): 393-428.

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Robin Whelan, Being Christian in Vandal Africa: The Politics of Orthodoxy in the Post-Imperial West. Transformation of the Classical Heritage 59. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2018. Pp. xiv, 301. ISBN 9780520295957. $95.00.

Reviewed by Ralf Bockmann, German Archaeological Institute Rome (ralf.bockmann@dainst.de)

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Preview

This is a remarkable first book by a young scholar. It could not have been written ten or fifteen years ago - the image we have of Vandal North Africa today is so much more balanced and differentiated after the recent focus on the Vandal period and the important work that came with it. ¹ Robin Whelan is very familiar with this scholarship and skillfully uses it as a basis on which to build his own arguments. Given the work of recent years, one would have thought that almost all is said and done on Vandal North Africa for the time being, but this book says something new. Whelan's topic is the ecclesiastical conflict in which two churches, one with a stronger local tradition, the other with support by the royal court, were in competition for position, influence and, ultimately, followers. One was the Nicene church of North Africa, a church that considered itself Catholic, especially after its official victory over the Donatist church. The other was the church following the so called Homoian creed (based on the councils of Rimini and Seleucia), established institutionally after the Vandal conquest of the central parts of North Africa, and labelled 'Arian' by its adversaries. ² Whelan starts by pointing out that the major ecclesiastical conflict of Vandal North Africa still appears as a peculiarity and a factor for disruptive change. Although its main source, Victor of Vita's History of the Vandal Persecution, has been reevaluated, ³ it is still influential in the perception of the main features of the conflict. Whelan sets out to contextualise the Nicene-Homoian controversy that unfolded in the Vandal kingdom as part of the general Christian debate of the time. It is a great achievement that the author has identified and unlocked an understudied body of evidence in heresiological texts from North Africa (he gives neat tables of the main authors on pp. 43 and 48) that greatly adds to the understanding of the epoch.

The book is divided into two main parts. In the first part, called 'Contesting Orthodoxy' and comprised of four chapters, Robin Whelan reconstructs the strategies of legitimation used by both churches. The first chapter, 'African Churches', argues that the Homoian church should not be seen merely as a 'state church' of the Vandal court, and their bishops not mainly as politically motivated actors. Instead the Homoian church was in fact a valid alternative for North African Christians on religious terms. The second chapter studies the 'weapons' used in the conflict: heresiological literature in the form of tractates, florilegia and dialogues. Whelan discusses a number of exemplary texts, extracts how they worked as highly polemical texts, and illustrates which tactics writers used to defame their opponents. The following chapter specifically takes the Homoian side into view and uses the few surviving texts with Homoian background as well as carefully extracted evidence from Nicene polemics to show how the Homoian church portrayed itself as orthodox and the Nicene church as heretical. Whelan convincingly argues that the tactics used by the Homoian church, including securing the support of the state to declare their opponents illegal and impose sanctions on them, were not only basically the same as the ones applied by the Nicene church, but also that they were successful enough to make the Homoian church a serious contestant for orthodoxy. The fourth chapter examines Nicene tactics in detail. The Nicene writers linked the Homoian church to the Arians of the early fourth century while portraying themselves as members of a continuously triumphant Catholic church. Arguments used in the conflict with the Donatists were transformed to discredit the Homoian church in the current controversy. Whelan details how Vigilius of Thapsa applied different strategies when creating and editing texts that included drawing on authoritative figures from the past and incorporating them in arguments in the form of the dialogue. He shows how Nicene writers made use especially of historical recreations to declare their opponents heretical and to support their own claim on orthodoxy.

The second part, entitled 'Orthodoxy and Society' begins with a short introduction in which the author rightfully stresses that, although there were many spheres in Vandal North Africa that were purely secular, Christianity played such an integral part in state and society that it should not be considered purely on its own in a historical study. The following three chapters link the findings of the first part of the book to broader contexts of social life and politics in Vandal North Africa. In a chapter about the relations between Nicene bishops and the Vandal court, Whelan stresses that Nicene bishops effectively remained part of the elite of North Africa, even if temporarily exiled, by discussing the cases of Eugenius, bishop of Carthage in the last quarter of the fifth century and Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspe in the first quarter of the sixth century. The following chapter treats identity, aligning with current scholarship on it as as a multi-faceted and situational concept. Contrary to expectations, Whelan shows that ethnic identity did not play an important role for Homoian identity. He furthermore stresses that Nicene clerics did not often exploit arguments centering on barbarians, but instead built up their case in a more allusive way by stating that heretics had profited from the actions of impious barbarians. Interestingly and importantly, the question of 'right' Christianity was detached from the question of ethnicity in Vandal North Africa. The following chapter further explores this point, looking specifically at the Christian aspects of the representational strategies of the secular and political elite. Examining representative burials of the Vandal period (with particular attention paid to the example of Thuburbo Maius), Whelan underlines that these burials were social, not ethnic representations that were probably purposefully ambiguous when it came to their Christian affiliation. In the same sense, the poems of the Anthologia Latina show that religion did not have to be a divisive factor in social interactions of the elite of Vandal North Africa. Christian piety could be used to universally display social status by carefully avoiding statements on ecclesiastical affiliation.

The epilogue discusses 'Homoian Christianity in the Post-Imperial West' and stresses that Vandal North Africa was not an anomaly. Its Christian controversies unfolded very much like previous ecclesiastical conflicts in North Africa; in this respect (as in many others) Vandal North Africa was a continuation of late-Roman North Africa. Whelan makes the point that Vandal North Africa should not be so much considered an outlier, but rather seen as part of the larger developments in late antique Christianity of the time, as well as the situation in the Vandal kingdom in the western Mediterranean. Vandal North Africa was more confrontational in many ways than other societies, but it still seems to have been possible to be pious as well as pragmatic, as Whelan phrases it (p. 223), depending on the circumstances.

Robin Whelan's book has a clear structure, is very comprehensible and convincing in its arguments, and summarises conclusions frequently. The introduction frames the detailed arguments in the chapters and gives a helpful preview of what to expect in terms of the main ideas and arguments that are to follow. In general, the book is very well written and a pleasure to read. It is complemented by a map and helpful timeline. It is an important addition to the fields of early Christian, late antique and North African studies. Whelan succeeds in contextualising the Nicene-Homoian conflict of North Africa within the larger picture of late-antique Christian controversies, without separating it from its social implications and practicalities. There are only minor points of criticism from my perspective. More consideration could have been given to the internal chronology and the considerable changes in ecclesiastical politics in different phases of the Vandal kingdom. This is admittedly difficult, because the period of the establishment of the Vandal kingdom and the rule of Geiseric, spanning almost the first 50 years of the Vandal period in North Africa, did not produce the same amount and kinds of source material as the latter roughly 60 years. Closely connected to this is the tendency to tip the scales maybe a little too much in the other direction by slightly underestimating the political side of the establishment of the Homoian church—especially in the less well-known early phase. Although I agree with Whelan that the reduction of the Homoian church to its possible political functions should be avoided, I still think that there were practical advantages in the transfer of the assets of the Nicene church especially in the region where the sortes vandalorum that fell to the leaders of the Vandal state lay. Furthermore, more attention to the very important cult of martyrs in Africa and its appropriation by the Homoian church would have further supported Whelan's argument of the Homoian church as serious contestant for the Nicene church.

These points, however, do not diminish in the slightest the great value of the book. The author convincingly makes use of recent scholarship when it comes to material culture, archaeology, and secular literature of Vandal North Africa to contextualise his original work on the Christian literature of the period. Herein lies the book's greatest achievement: it skillfully analyzes Christian texts from Vandal North Africa that have not received enough attention but which, as Whelan masterly shows, nevertheless constitute a significant contribution to the understanding of the period. The result is the addition of a central piece to the mosaic of the image we have of the Vandal kingdom and its complex society today. The interest of Robin Whelan's book goes well beyond the confines of North Africa in contextualising the North African conflict more generally in late-antique Christianity. I highly recommend his book to anyone working on early Christianity.

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Notes:

1.   The following list is not exhaustive, but gives a good overview: Merrills, Andrew H. and Richard Miles: The Vandals (Chichester & Malden: Wiley-Blackwell 2010) is the best general analysis and history of the period; Bockmann, Ralf: Capital continuous. A study of Vandal Carthage and central North Africa from an archaeological perspective (Wiesbaden: Reichert 2013) studies the archaeology; Steinacher, Roland: Die Vandalen. Aufstieg und Fall eines Barbarenreichs (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta 2016) is the most recent historical work on the period in German; Conant, Jonathan: Staying Roman. Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean, 439-700 (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press 2012) is especially important for questions of identity and interaction; Merrills, Andrew H. (ed.): Vandals, Romans and Berbers: New Perspectives on Late Antique North Africa (Aldershot: Ashgate 2004) contains many important articles from the early phase of the 'renaissance' of Vandal studies; Berndt, Guido M. and Roland Steinacher (eds.): Das Reich der Vandalen und seine (Vor-)Geschichten (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 2008) is a good addition to Merrills 2004; Bernd, Guido M.: Konflikt und Anpassung: Studien zu Migration und Ethnogenese der Vandalen (Husum: Matthiesen 2007) deals specifically with questions of ethnicity, and last but not least the work of Philipp von Rummel, e.g. Habitus barbarus: Kleidung und Repräsentation spätantiker Eliten im 4. und 5. Jahrhundert (Berlin & New York: De Gruyter 2007) has redefined how the role of material culture should be viewed in late antique representation, with a special focus on Vandal North Africa.
2.   See for example the recent volume on Arianism: Berndt, Guido M. and Roland Steinacher (eds): Arianism: Roman heresy and barbarian creed. (Farnham & Burlington: Ashgate 2014). Whelan opts for the use of 'Nicene' and 'Homoian' as opposed to the more ideologically loaded 'Catholic' and 'Arian', which very much makes sense in this book.
3.   See e.g. Danuta Shanzer, 'Intentions and Audiences: History, Hagiography, Martyrdom and Confession in Victor of Vita's Historia persecutionis in Merrills 2004 (see note 1) and in general the work of Eric Fournier.

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