Greek epigraphy can be daunting for those uninitiated into its mysteries, but annotated selections of important and representative inscriptions have long provided help. They bridge the gap between specialists and this excellent volume's intended audiences (p. 7): advanced students, historians and Hellenists who are not epigraphers, budding epigraphers and (in this case) epigraphers not conversant with the inscriptions of Delphi. W. Dittenberger's Sylloge inscriptionum Graecarum ³ (SIG ³; 1915–24) is still valuable. Historians are well served by R. Meiggs and D. Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century b.c. (1988²) and P. Rhodes and R. Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions 404–323 bc (RO; 2003). Francophone selections include J. Pouilloux, Choix d'inscriptions grecques (2003²) and the Institut Fernand-Courby's Nouveau choix d'inscriptions grecques (2005²).

As against those selections, the Choix under review offers inscriptions from only one site: 303 texts from Delphi, about ten percent of the surviving corpus. It is therefore an especially important selection, since Delphi's inscriptions are comparatively difficult to access (pp. 26–8). The main epigraphical genres are documented with well-preserved, representative examples of various periods. Entries run from a seventh-century b.c.e. graffito (no. 2, the name or ethnic ΣεϙυϜόνιιος) to the fifth-century c.e. epitaph of the deaconess Athanasia (299), as well as three nineteenth-century texts (1 and 300 A–B). The majority of entries date to the periods of greatest epigraphical activity, from c. 360 b.c.e. to the Severans. The Hellenistic period was especially active, and the Choix reflects that; but readers develop a sense of epigraphical change and continuity over six centuries.

The selection is in itself a very useful tool for historians, and it illustrates the historical value of Delphi's epigraphic corpus with, for example, dedications of states and leaders (no. 25 = CEG 819 is the Lysander epigram on the Aegospotami monument); honours and statues as moves in dances of euergetism (pp. 297–8 for the Attalids, nos 256–64 for Herodes Atticus); official acts of the polis and Amphictyony; and documents for interstate relations such as arbitrations, grants of asylia, recognitions of festivals, lists of thearodokoi and proxenoi, and letters from Roman authorities. We sample an epigraphic treasure trove for central Greece, for example, names of magistrates and others in decree-headings and lists that facilitate prosopographical and chronological investigations; and documents illustrating the Aetolian domination of the third century (cf. pp. 133–6). Social historians will turn to honours for private individuals, texts naming women (index, s.v. ‘femmes’) and manumission inscriptions. The introduction of the manumission dossier (pp. 234–9) explains the features of that genre (1,300 texts from Delphi), and the ten examples (nos 127–36) illustrate the dominant form of sale to Pythian Apollo and clauses of paramonê, a requirement of continuing service. The dossier on the fourth-century temple (37–45) offers economic historians information about sources of funding for construction, large payments for transporting architectural elements, small ones to contractors such as stone-cutters, and the valuation and reminting of the Phocians’ ‘fine’ paid in numerous currencies.

The Choix also illustrates what Delphi's inscriptions offer non-historians. Religion figures prominently, as in promanteia honours and texts concerning the god's buildings and other property, although Delphi lacks inscribed oracles and inventories of dedications. Administrative documents of festivals help bring those occasions to life: musical events and competitors in the Sôtêria (nos 70 and 79), contracts let to prepare venues for the Pythian games (116), a list of thearodokoi (125), etc. Dedications commemorating athletic victories include 19 (= CEG 397) associated with the bronze charioteer, 21 (= CEG 844) for Theogenes of Thasos, 48 (= CEG 795) for Daochos’ monument and 286 for three sisters who won young women's competitions in the first century c.e. One sister was a musician and athlete, and the Choix contains several honorary decrees for musicians as well as other cultural figures such as Aristotle (49) and Plutarch (255). Texts from the Athenian treasury include five concerning the Athenian technitai of Dionysus (68, 194–6, 202) and records of celebrations of the Pythaïs at Delphi (201–3). Lists of ritual acts, poets, didaskaloi and performers (instrumentalists, vocalists, actors) in 202 illustrate the splendour of the Pythaïs of 98/7. Nos 203 A–B are hymns with musical notation composed for the festival of 128/7, although the entries contain only extracts by A. Bélis, with modern musical notation and reflecting her Corpus des inscriptions de Delphes (CID) III (1992); cf. W. Furley and J. Bremer, Greek Hymns (2001), no. 2.6. No. 60 lists three fourth-century hymns (Furley and Bremer, nos 2.3–5), without texts or translations; for such abbreviated entries, see at no. 125.

If the Choix is, then, a very useful book, it is also a user-friendly one. The introduction orients users with excursuses (pp. 11–23) on the history of Delphi and the two institutions that erected most inscriptions, the Amphictyony (responsible for buildings, the Pythian festival, etc.) and the polis (promanteia honours, manumissions, etc.). Finding one's way around the selection is aided by a subject index that is also a glossary (on the lack of a Greek index, cf. p. 8), a concordance between the Choix and major editions, and a full table of contents. Individual entries include museum inventory numbers, brief descriptions of the object and inscription, main edition(s) used and select studies, Greek text, French translation, commentary (often with cross-references to other entries) and additional comments on specific points. The organisation is generally chronological, although several dossiers collect thematically related items, and some of these groupings cover a considerable span of time, for example, manumissions date from 197 b.c.e. to the first century c.e.

Since the authors do not claim to present new editions (p. 7), one judges the texts’ quality by their faithfulness to cited editions. A check of the 726 lines of Greek in the dossier on the fourth-century temple (nos 37–45) produced eight minor typographical mistakes (plus four in translations) and two more serious errors: τέτορες for τρεῖς at 38.25; Εὐκράτει omitted from 40.144. In 43, vacats are not marked until line 48. Nos 37, 39 and 40 appear in RO (45, 67 and 66, respectively): RO's placement of text and translation side-by-side is easier to use than translation following text in the Choix; line-numbering in Choix 40 complicates cross-referencing to other editions, in which column II restarts with line 1 as in RO 66; commentaries in the Choix and RO are comparable, but the Choix brings bibliography up to 2012.

A few small concerns. Apart from two line-drawings and the book's front cover, inscriptions are not illustrated. The editors promise additions to the website of the French School at Athens (p. 7 n. 3: http://www.efa.gr); but at the moment, although CEFAEL contains illustrated editions of many of these inscriptions, my attempt to find images by inventory numbers at ArchIMAGE produced few hits (2 of 129 entries at Choix p. 531). Many inscriptions at Delphi are placed on earlier retaining walls, buildings and monuments that came to serve as repositories of often related texts; the Choix reports these provenances in individual entries and gathers some in dossiers, but summaries in the index would be helpful. This bulky Choix raises a question about size. The largest of the selections listed above has only 102 entries (RO; the page count, however, is comparable). Do we need renewals of earlier documents (e.g. both nos 68 and 194) or simple statue inscriptions for so many Roman imperial personages (nos 212–20, 222–3, 241, 248–9, 253–4, 268–70, 272–5, 277)? Given the size, variety and importance of the Delphian corpus and the difficulties in accessing it, however, most readers will welcome such inclusivity. In fact, they will find this volume an important and excellent addition to the genre of epigraphical selection.