Bravely stepping into the arena, we first tackle Paul J. Burton's Friendship and Empire,Footnote ¹ which strikes a blow for the Romans, though he disclaims participation in the ‘defensive/offensive’ imperialism debate. He uses theory, the comparatively optimistic I(nternational) R(elations) Constructivism rather than IR (Neo-)Realism, though without abandoning the latter completely, to show that Roman foreign relations in his period were conceived in terms of amicitia rather than of Ernst Badian's clientela; and, more importantly, that language has an impact on how we construct global realities. History matters, and Roman diplomatic concepts should be considered on their own terms. Once individual friendship and its uncertainties and dissolution have been analysed, three empirical core chapters follow, which apply theory to cases in the categories of ‘Beginnings’, with discussion of socii, deditio voluntary and involuntary, and fides; ‘Duties’ (cf. le don); and ‘Breakdown and Dissolution’ (usually simultaneous). This sensitive contribution is detailed and persuasive, though least strong on breakdown. Look at the outbreak of the Third Punic War: the Romans were disturbed by an ‘internal unilateral adjustment in status-perception’ (323). Action spoke louder than fair words.

The great debate is dealt with in Imperialism, Cultural Politics, and Polybius, edited by Christopher Smith and Liv Mariah Yarrow,Footnote ² which contains essays presented at a conference of 2009 held in honour of the much missed Peter Derow (a portrait would have been welcome). Appropriately, the editors' Introduction itself contains a critique of Realism and A. Eckstein's anarchic Mediterranean, freeing the body of the work for three sections, the first on literary and lexicographic influences on Polybius’ writing, the second on approaches to investigating the mechanisms of imperialism, and the third on the cultural engagement between Rome and the Greeks. Contributors to this book worthily represent the work and influence of a fine scholar and fine teacher. Their subjects range from Polybius in the Roman cave to attitudes ancient and modern to the spoliation of cultural property. The book is also an encouragement to the study of Polybius and his world as much as Thucydides in the post-Cold War era. But ambitious Rome has to be taken into account.

Nathan Rosenstein's Rome and the Mediterranean 290–146 Footnote ³ is part of a series, sibling of Jill Harries' volume reviewed below. In such series one wonders how often such words as ‘consul’ and ‘imperium’ have to be defined (I wish he had resisted ‘The imperium strikes back’), but Rosenstein does it well. Indeed, his alternating narrative and analysis is penetrating and fresh, familiar as the ingredients are; familiar, but controversial. In his first chapter Rosenstein is firm on governance: Polybius was wrong: an aristocracy governed the Republic until Caesar overthrew it. His book ends with the first signs of cracking with the Scipios. There is no revisionist democracy here but passages beginning ‘Scholars used to hold…’ are frequent, with footnotes taking the student to recent (2010) as well as standard works. Chapter 2 is a straightforward account of Pyrrhus, and early relations with Carthage; it is followed by an exposition of the way that Italy and the army were organized, and of the effect of warfare on farming communities (Rosenstein takes a favourable view). This is essential to understanding Rosenstein's next chapter, on the Hannibalic war. With Chapter 5 (Gaul, Greece, and Spain), the author is rightly unafraid of exploiting multiple explanations, as for the Senate's attitude toward Philip in 200 bc; and Antiochus III cuts a sorry figure. But now in Chapter 6 emerge the new brutality and the arrogance of the Scipios, together with population pressure (Rosenstein on the fig from Carthage as an economic threat to Masinissa is not wholly convincing). Chapter 7, on the impact of imperium, brings a magnificent story, worthily told, to an end. There are six good maps (battle maps in the text use minute print), a Chronology, and three pages of further reading.

Now for the nitty-gritty of two volumes in a series devoted to Roman Conquests, and very handy for anyone who needs a summary account – undergraduates, sixth-formers, and the general reader. First Richard Evans' Asia Minor, Syria and Armenia,Footnote ⁴ which elucidates Rome's complex dealings with major eastern powers. He begins by explaining how Rome came to be interested in the lands beyond the Aegean. The Seleucids come first, but before Antiochus III there is an account of the states of Asia Minor. The fifth chapter brings us to the Asiatic Vespers, and five more are devoted to the wars with Mithridates (chronology is dealt with in an appendix). Pompey's settlement concludes the volume, and there is another appendix on the sources. So readers must not expect anything from the Parthians. There are boxes of reigns, clear, hefty maps, and colour illustrations that, when they get down to battle scenes, become lurid. Battles not illustrated by plans are fully described (the author is especially well informed on Magnesia). Of course, dealing with these easterners meant diplomacy as much as war, and the Bibliography might have contained A. N. Sherwin-White's Roman Foreign Policy in the East (London, 1984).

The companion volume to this is Michael M. Sage's Gaul,Footnote ⁵ where again troublesome opponents, invaders this time, coalesce into a major enemy, but there is the additional complication of an unreliable witness – Caesar. Him Sage subjects to proper scrutiny and impeaches for blunders. He despatches the tribes, Cimbri and all, in a long introduction and a chapter called ‘First Steps’. That leaves us free for ‘Caesar and Gaul: The Prelude’, which involves an exposition of contemporary Roman politics. After that the chapters cover one year each, with an epilogue on post-Caesarian Gaul. The style of maps and colour photos is the same as in the preceding volume, with similarly lurid battle scenes. The Appendix on the ‘Development of the Roman Army’ of the first century bc is particularly welcome. Sage's volume is more accurate from the copy-editing point of view, but he does administer one shock: Quintus Caesar, the orator's brother, who served from 53 to 52 (64).

From conquest to policing. ‘There wasn't any’, says everyone, and Christopher J. Fuhrmann, in Policing the Roman Empire Footnote ⁶ rebuts them all, though he admits that police proper began with Peel's Bobbies; not policing by men with official status, however (27 bc–ad 260). For Fuhrmann the role of the military is especially important. Policing happened at four levels: civilian, imperial, gubernatorial, and detached-service military. Organizing this material is not simple: one chapter, on the preoccupying issue of fugitive slaves, shows all types in operation; then comes self-help and civilian policing (and its limitations), followed by three chapters on military policing. The author pays tribute to the imagination of Roman efforts and stresses development towards weightiness as time went on. He can also make a justified claim for the gaps that his own work is filling, though he pays tribute to other scholars, notably Wilfried Nippel (who focuses on Rome and the Republic), and it is extraordinary how much material he has been able to deploy. Readers will appreciate the Index of Ancient Sources – and the author's candour in concluding that the next step is a serious study of approaches to maintaining order that did not involve the Roman state.

With the Roman Empire safely founded, you can put it into a case with other specimens: hence The Roman Empire in Context, edited by Johann P. Arnason and Kurt A. Raaflaub.Footnote ⁷ This is one of a series of comparative histories embracing everything from 3000 bc to ad 600, plus societies ancient in the structural sense such as those of pre-modern Japan and America before the Spanish conquest. The series editor commends it for throwing light on common patterns, illustrating the responses developed to meet common challenges, enhancing appreciation of differences among cultures, and illuminating the relevance of the ancient world. Four other volumes are published, two are in the pipeline, and as far as I can see they could go on indefinitely. Arneson's Introduction attempts to show how the essays are related. Part I (‘Expansion and Transformation’) is cohesive: Raaflaub on transition from city-state to empire; Egon Flaig on the coming of the Principate, with loss of legitimacy, revolution, and acceptance; then D. A. Cohen and J. E. Lendon ‘Comparing the Principate with the Medieval Crown of Aragon’ for their strong and weak voices. By Part IV we have Assyria, China, Iran, and Peter Fibiger Bang opening his ‘Universal Hegemony, Imperial Power, and a New Comparative History of Rome’ at Topkapi Palace. Dip, then, unless you are an aficionado of comparative history.

We advance boldly into scholarly contention with another recurrent theme: Italian population. Luuk De Ligt's Peasants, Citizens and Soldiers,Footnote ⁸ part of an ongoing Dutch enterprise, takes the side of ‘Low-counters’ in the controversy that was fuelled by Malthus and began with Beloch. He also favours the view that the population of Italy was not in decline during the first century bc. Population increase can be reconciled with the testimony of Appian and Plutarch. But the most significant point of these (explicitly so titled) studies is their critical examination of the evidence, dismissing some of it (clearances, climate change) as irrelevant to the argument (Chapter 1). There are five other such studies: Polybius' figures; the census; peasants, citizens, and soldiers (rural slavery had not driven off free farmers by 133); the intractably problematic Augustan census figures and the urban network (which figures largely); and survey archaeology. Each is helpfully divided into sections, with subheadings, so that readers can turn at once to the points that engross them most. It is evident that this ongoing and segmented work is not for beginners, but for those who already know the problems and want to see what the evidence tells after a thorough scrubbing.

Timothy Barnes's pugnacious Constantine Footnote ⁹ is based on evidence newly appreciated and on much work, including his own articles, done since his first volume (1981). The evidence is too poor to allow continuous narrative, but there is a synopsis in the Epilogue, which also sums up motivation for the book: historians have ‘denied the validity or distorted the meaning of ancient evidence that has not conformed to their own predilections’ (175). Eusebius and Lactantius do better. Despite lack of continuity the book carries the reader along irresistibly, with six major topics: mother and wives; the Tetrarchy until 305; ‘The Road to Rome’; ‘Brothers-in-law’; the East; and dynastic politics after Nicaea. Seven appendices include a translation of Eusebius' On Easter. Another justification for this bout is the redating of Palladas, which presents a traditionalist lamenting the end of Hellenism in Constantine's reign; as to other evidence, Roman Imperial Coinage provides no justification for regarding Constantine as an unrelenting solar monotheist. Barnes provides coherent solutions to various puzzles: he follows P. Weiss's explanation of Constantine's visionFootnote ¹⁰ and offers his own unravelling of the deaths of Crispus and Fausta (plausible, but I shall not spoil things by revealing it). The ‘Edict of Milan’ suffers reduction, while Byzantium was (altogether?) ‘razed’ (111) before building of the new city began. Pro-Christian legislation is another weapon in Barnes's armoury. Throughout he argues for Constantine's Christianity and his concern for the succession. This book – vitality and drive combined with mature scholarship – is essential; I hope for equally lively responses.

A slighter work deals with another controversial emperor, Aloys Winterling's Caligula,Footnote ¹¹ a translation, revised and slightly expanded, of the author's German original of 2003. Winterling has two aims: using narrative both to make the work accessible to the general reader and to solve the historical problem. The idea that Caligula was ‘mad’ has surely long passed; however, interpretation of his behaviour still puzzles. Winterling's hypothesis has him cruelly exposing to the aristocracy the realities of the Principate, its hypocrisy and theirs: Caligula was a joker. Five chapters, the main body of the book, display the phases: ‘Childhood and Youth’, ‘Two Years as Princeps’, ‘The Conflicts Escalate’, ‘Five Months of Monarchy’, and ‘Murder on the Palatine’. Some weaknesses survive from the German edition; reviewing that I noted the author's handling of Tiberius and wished that he had given his young hero more of a role in the downfall of Sejanus. But Winterling has made excellent use of stories that illuminate the Romans' construction of Caligula, and his own. Throughout, alluring problems remain of what information is to be taken seriously: the horse as consul, the pearl dissolved in vinegar; I would be more sceptical than Winterling. But the overall view of a young man too clever for his own good and fatally pushing the limits of his power is not far from his. This really is a volume for the well-informed general reader; although students will learn from it, the bibliography and notes, or rather references, are quite sparing.

Imperial Romans' contentious recall of their Republican past is a theme that is rightly attracting attention. The very subject of our next volume, Sam Wilkinson's Republicanism during the Early Roman Empire,Footnote ¹² is contention, his aim being to show that it was a political, intellectual, and eventually moral force during the first century ad. The author is not naïve; as the comprehensive bibliography shows, he has read Foucault and the rest; discourse shapes action. He starts with definitions (ideology) and goes on to present the evidence for Republicanism, then that for opposition in the forms of overthrowing the Principate, or of a moral programme. Part II offers the discourse, in respect of law, morality, and the behaviour of the Princeps. The author stuffs his book with citations from the sources, relying much on Pliny's Panegyric and Seneca's De clementia. Sometimes the exposition, as on law, seems unrelenting, especially to someone who believes that the author is attacking a straw man. But there is forthright discussion of previous views and interesting observations, such as Augustus as part-creator of Republicanism. If only a competent reader had saved him from typing slips, misuse of ‘due to’, and, worse, mos and plebs as plurals; and from such assumptions as that Tarquinius Superbus was assassinated and that ‘Primus’ was tried by senators and also lost his life.

Andrew Gallia's Remembering the Roman Republic Footnote ¹³ is rich and instructive, for it moves through time (Nero's last year to the Principate of Trajan) for its points of view, offers detailed discussion of its topics, and, as a bonus, provides examples of handling different kinds of evidence. Underlying the project is the author's concern with memorizing as a social process. The six chapter titles are single words, beginning with ‘Freedom’ – the revolts of Vindex and Galba. ‘Rebuilding’ deals with the Flavian restoration of the Capitol, its monuments, memories, and records, including those of previous restorations. In ‘Control’ we have analysis of Domitian's antiquarian brutality against a Vestal, as portrayed by Pliny; while ‘Persuasion’ brings on Tacitus' Dialogus, and ‘Inscription’ ranges from Verginius Rufus' tomb to Frontinus and Silius Italicus. Gallia ends with Trajan's attempt to ‘tame’ the memory of the Republic (annona and libertas are not virtues, 229, 241). Here the author exploits ‘restoration’ coinage, which he lists in an appendix; but it is difficult to fit these emissions to neat theory, hard though Gallia works. Its exemplarity helps to make this book useful for students not put off by section headings in Latin.

This very review will illustrate the point that books on Late Antiquity are now readily found. How to justify another, then? Jill Harries' Imperial Rome ad 284 to 363,Footnote ¹⁴ besides offering a clear and well-written survey of the period, as may be expected from its series (see above, on Rosenstein), has two special attractions: its chapter on women and its stress on legal developments. As to women, Harries does what can judiciously be done, bringing out their role without exaggerating their powers. Other beneficiaries are the sons of Constantine; while Julian meets a severe judge. In the literature, she pays fruitful attention to Lactantius, noting, however, his failure to address an issue central to Cicero, civic and public virtue – how a Roman citizen would fulfil his public duty in a Christian empire. And in passing she addresses points of principle – what makes a tyrannus. Altogether, for balance and protection against fantasy this is a valuable contribution. There are a schematic map, plentiful illustrations, a Chronology, and, more important than the Bibliography, a ‘Guide to Further Reading’.

The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine, edited by Noel Lenski,Footnote ¹⁵ is the revised edition of the volume that came out in 2006,Footnote ¹⁶ with updated notes and bibliography, redrawn maps, and a new preface. Constantine's name appears in many of the section headings, and the focus is deliberately narrow, but it takes in, with Simon Corcoran's essay, the time before him and, with Robert M. Frakes's chapter, the dynasty down to 363. The book notes new iconographic material, conference proceedings, monographs, and, in particular, the revised work of Barnes (see above). It seeks to avoid the controversy about Constantine's Christianity, and piquantly refers to Barnes's 1981 volume as a way of doing so.

A thoroughgoing second edition, Averil Cameron's The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity,Footnote ¹⁷ remains involved in the academic contentions that the original version already shared and helped to stimulate over the last nineteen years. The controversies, about the title, periodization, invasion, decline, barbarian ethnicity, continuity, the colonate, linguistic change, and the impact of Islam, are set out clearly and candidly, with a rich bibliography (there is brief repetition at 176–7), and the author has carried forward her study to a later turning point, adding two new chapters on developments in the east after Justinian (the east naturally dominates in this work). Two factors are particularly striking: Cameron's use of the archaeological and papyrological discoveries that have marked recent decades, and her sturdy scepticism of grand theory, such as that of the collapse of increasingly complex societies. This book, indispensable to anyone interested in late antiquity, is so written as to engage the interest of anyone who is not; its maps are clear and its illustrations above the dim fudges of some recent publications.

There is no question of repetition in Kristina Sessa's pioneering The Formation of Papal Authority in Late Antique Italy.Footnote ¹⁸ Positing domestic management as a masculine domain (a painful home truth), she cites a ninth-century characterization of the Pope as paterfamilias of the Lord's flock; hence the question of reconciling those duties with the ascetic life – and problems of one-man rule. The author's analysis necessarily involves her in criticism of other approaches, and she is aware of the weaknesses of the Roman Church. The main discussion opens with a two-part examination of household management as it turned towards stewardship. Chapter 3 aims to establish the Bishop of Rome as householder-steward, and the two that follow show him exercising his authority (oikonomia) in lay and clerical households, positive and negative aspects. In Chapter 6, Sessa examines the Laurentian schism of the turn of the fifth and sixth centuries, which she interprets in her own terms: Symmachus was accused not only of following the wrong calendar for Easter but of multiple sexual relations and improper administration of ecclesiastical property. Chapter 7 presents alternative interpretations of relations between bishops and aristocratic householders through the gesta martyrum – ways of reconciliation. This volume has much to offer more than one readership: late Roman social history, gender, and church history.

Moving on even to our own time we meet Clifford Ando's Law, Language, and Empire in the Roman Tradition.Footnote ¹⁹ The author, in a magisterial tone, studies the civil law as an instrument of empire, deployed to deal with far-flung subjects. In particular he expounds two methods devised for the purpose: analogy (‘like’) and fiction (‘as if’); legal decisions are accepted in the place of truth. But there is a twist: after the end of ‘Roman democracy’ (superseded by ‘constitutional monarchy’), devices intended for outsiders were turned to the management of Romans. The first two chapters show how lawyers coped with legal pluralism; the last three examine the relationship between civic, public, and international law. They include a rich discussion of the fetials and their retrojection, and of the legis actio sacramento in rem. The focus is not narrow, however: we are soon with the dehistoricized Athenian demos; the author pursues his enquiry via Gentili and the Bolognese Portius Azo, and his final question is whether the ancient concepts of liberty and citizenship, as applied, can serve the modern one. The author's attention, over his five chapters and Appendix on ‘work-arounds’, is on how the Romans thought, not what. Taking his readers outside traditional limits makes the work exceedingly challenging. They have the chance to see some of the arguments elsewhere, for earlier versions of Chapters 3 and 5 appear in works published in 2010, one reviewed in this journal.Footnote ²⁰

With Greg Woolf's brief Tales of the Barbarians Footnote ²¹ we are at peace, but constantly made to sit up, not only by single opinions but by the overall ways in which Woolf asks us to read the material, in particular by his convincing stress on ‘the middle ground’ where explorers and natives have met, in western Europe and America; specific passages are cited, and such authors as Trogus. The second of his four chapters is called ‘Explaining the Barbarians’: it turns out that contradictory paradigms, say geographical and genealogical, coexist by serving different functions in ancient ethnography; no attempt is made to generalize. The third comes to the familiar topic of ‘Ethnography and Empire’, which is not treated in the conventional way, avoiding facile connections between ethnographic enterprises and military ventures. The final chapter asks how such fictions came to be so enduring, and again is a rewarding read, as the tales salted the reading of literate fourth-century gentlemen. Usefully, there is an index of main passages discussed, Strabo and Tacitus prevailing.

Now to our only text: J. C. Yardley and Anthony A. Barrett's Velleius Paterculus. The Roman History Footnote ²² is intended to make the work available to as wide a range of readers as possible. It should succeed. The editors provide an introduction, offering an account of the man and his work: they are not in love with their subject, but they are fair. It includes Bibliography, notes on the text (W. S. Watt's Teubner, with a few variants), translations, and a map; and sections are introduced by brief explanatory summaries. At the end come a glossary and an index of people and places. Most important, the translation itself is clear, with rare blemishes, and pleasant to read. Following their title, but allowing that Velleius calls his work only opus, they open their translation at 1.8.4 (Romulus), relegating earlier chapters to an appendix. The result is more palatable but untrue to Velleius' intentions. Readers have copious and helpful footnotes, occasionally half a page's worth. Here come misgivings, for they often repeat what Velleius himself says and admit a few slips (mangled tribal names, Caesar as tribune and censor, C. Antistius Vetus as Pontifex Maximus, Thrasybullus, C. Octavius Thurinus as Augustus' father, Tiberius adopting after his own adoption – twice). Nevertheless, we have a useful resource.

After history, Andreas Mehl's Roman Historiography Footnote ²³ offers a compact but scholarly survey, its categories handily numbered. There are ways in which it makes a distinctive contribution, too: its attention to politics and religion, and the fact that it stems from the German tradition and is less concerned than some works in English are with rhetoric. Besides his individual studies the author provides introductory chapters, on ancient and modern views of history (‘the science of history’!) and on early Roman tradition, and a chapter on the basic principles of ancient historical thought. Finally Mehl has a series of seven bibliographies, one for each section, which he and his translator have brought up to date from the German edition of 2001 and made suitable for an English-speaking audience. There are one or two places where origins seem to lead to difficulty: the heading ‘Historiography…between the Fronts of the Civil Wars’, and when Mehl concludes that historiography is ‘the mirror that reflects the thought of the present through the application of the principles of interpretation upon a distant or nearer past’ (251). Losing the last ‘the’ makes an unexceptionable claim.

We now pass from historical controversies to the empyrean of fantasy. Timothy Venning asks what might have happened If Rome Hadn't Fallen,Footnote ²⁴ not unreasonably for a compiler of A Chronology of the Roman Empire. Venning's enquiry, in spite of being a fantasy, and his opening analysis of the factors that led to the ‘fall’ require enormous quantities of information about events that did take place, which he supplies, with scholarly notes. Names and battles do not make for an easy read, but constant explanation would be tedious. Eventually, having satisfied himself in Part I with nineteen ‘turning points’ that the Western Empire might have stood, especially with better leadership, so as to win the Battle of Adrianople, he goes on to the more entertaining Part 2, eight ‘consequences’ in various areas of the surviving empire: Britain, the Vikings, and north-eastern Germany, Rome in the Americas, on the Mongolian steppes, and leading the Reformation. In the East there would have been a stronger response to Avars, Persians, and Arabs, and on the Danube, but the author sees no answer to the Turks' nomad horse.

It would be sad to review a book without finding merit. Donald O'Reilly's Lost Legion Rediscovered Footnote ²⁵ has a strong thesis: the historicity of Eucherius' story of the martyrdom of troops from Thebes at St. Maurice-en-Valais in 286. He pursues it through twenty-six chapters, each snappy (‘History is continuity and change’, 23) and adorned with peripheral material and apposite epigraphs. The sundry evidence includes a damaged and lost inscription from Autun which the author interprets and translates as a memorial tablet to the victims, ending ‘DULCISSImae… They were most gentle men’ (169). There are notes and abbreviations, a proportion of these incorrect. We are in Dan Brown land, and a remarkable feature of the book is the mangling of Latin words and names, French too. The house needs to up its copy-editing. There are also pitfalls for Roman historians: Tacitus beheaded for his blunt honesty; Crassus, partisan of Antony and Octavian, lost at Carrhae in 43 bc. The best pages describe the journey of the Legion north over the Alps, but of course we end up at the Milvian Bridge.

It was a temptation to end this issue's reviews with an appropriately angry squawk at an author above (I shall not name him/her) who writes equites as the singular of equites; enough for it to appear in undergraduate finals papers. Yet the warmth and humanity of Sinclair Bell and Teresa Ramsby's Free at Last! Footnote ²⁶ claim the closing place. Their book is an attempt to recognize the accomplishments of freed slaves and their contributions to Roman life and culture. The seven essays (with a response by Eleanor W. Leach) are largely from North American academies, preparing one for the inclusion, apologized for in the Introduction, of Michele V. Ronnick's paper on white teachers' instruction in Greek and Latin to African American freedmen. It remains a question whether the volume can afford those nineteen pages. The other essays are central: Barbara Borg on portraiture (thought-provoking, a published paper amended); freedmen and communication; the Cena Trimalchionis (sympathetic, as might be expected); the economy (invoking ‘trust networks’); ‘Deciphering Freedwomen’ (on establishing research agenda); ‘Feasting the Dead Together’ (on changes in funeral practice as reflections of social and political change). The volume deserves its place on the ‘freedman’ shelf.