This volume aims to celebrate Jean-Louis Ferrary on his retirement from the École pratique des hautes études in Paris, where F., who was elected a member of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres in 2005 and who chaired the Institut de France in 2018, taught the history of Roman institutions and Roman political thought from 1989 to 2015. Since the publication in 1988 of his seminal monograph Philhellénisme et impérialisme: Aspects idéologiques de la conquête romaine du monde hellénistique (revised edition 2014), F. has been, in France as well as worldwide, one of the most influential scholars in two historical fields in particular: the political and ideological background of the Roman conquest of the Greek world, and Roman legislation during the last two centuries of the Republic. This book brings together thirty-two papers by colleagues and former students, including many leading scholars, the vast majority of which are in French, but which also include papers in Italian, English, German and Latin (!). The volume is divided into four main sections: I. Law and Power in Rome; II. The East and the World of the Cities; III. Imperium Romanum; IV. Latin Sources. Due to the large number of papers collected in the book, this review will primarily focus on the papers dealing with the two topics mentioned above, which are at the core of F.'s own research.

Most of the papers included in section I address issues closely related to F.'s main interests. F. has devoted a considerable number of works to the history of Roman legislation, especially for the period between the second century b.c.e. and the first century c.e., now conveniently compiled in two volumes of opera minora (Recherches sur les lois comitiales et sur le droit public romain (2012); Dall'ordine repubblicano ai poteri di Augusto: Aspetti della legislazione romana (2016)), in addition to three more books recently edited and authored by him on the topic (ed., Leges publicae: La legge nell'esperienza giuridica romana (2012); ed. with J. Scheid, Il princeps romano: Autocrate o magistrato? (2015); with A. Schiavone and E. Stolfi, Quintus Mucius Scaevola: Opera (2018)). Six papers fit perfectly with the method and approach typically used by F. when exploring the process of drawing up laws in late republican Rome: Michel Humbert explores how Roman law responded to magical spells over time, from the Twelve Tables to the lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficis, and beyond; Philippe Moreau examines the procedure of value assessment of goods which had been illegally acquired by governors in the context of trials de repetundis; Yann Rivière shows that the narratives about the origin and duties of the censorship in Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Livy were influenced by the civil unrests experienced during the first century b.c.e.; and Dario Mantovani studies lawyers’ rhetorical training through the forewords of their treatises. Relying on a passage of the recently published municipal law of Troesmis referring to a commentarius by Augustus, Alberto Dalla Rosa emphasises how the emperor deliberately tried to cooperate with the Senate in order to promote the image of himself acting in a ‘democratic’ way (Dio 55.4.2). Aldo Schiavone's stimulating essay on the concept of equality in Greek and Roman political thought also explores law in its ideological settings and suggests that, unlike in Greek cities, the concept of ius developed independently from the concept of lex in Rome because of the oligarchic nature of the Roman constitution.

The other major focus in F.'s research is the establishment of Roman rule in Greece and Asia Minor during the second and the first centuries b.c.e., as shown by the studies recently compiled in another volume of opera minora (Rome et le monde grec: Choix d’écrits (2017)). Several papers dealing with this issue are included in sections II and III. A first set of papers focuses on the relationship between the Greek world and Roman power, in particular through its representatives in the provinces. Two papers by Maurice Sartre and Glen Bowersock give convenient updates to the previous research devoted by these authors to the historical geography of two Roman ‘client-kingdoms’ in southern Syria and Arabia (the Herodian and Nabataean kingdoms), based on recent epigraphic evidence. Relying on the systematic examination of the evidence provided by dozens of military diplomas mentioning imperial titulature, Werner Eck confirms that, from the reign of Trajan onwards, Roman emperors typically bore the title proconsul only when outside Italy or, interestingly, when they were staying in a free city like Athens, which in theory was not part of the Empire. Christel Müller's important paper reassesses the fiscal context of the famous senatusconsultum de Amphiarai Oropii agris, arguing that publicans had been allowed to collect taxes in Oropos, not because tribute was imposed on the city, nor because its lands were turned into ager publicus (as has hitherto been assumed), but because part of the land-tax was assigned to Rome.

A second, and larger, group of papers deals with the institutional, social and economic history of Greek cities during the imperial period, especially in Asia Minor, reflecting the constant renewal of our knowledge thanks to numismatic and epigraphic evidence. Two papers by Michel Amandry and by Antony Hostein and Jérôme Mairat, on the coinage of the city of Colophon during the second and the third centuries c.e., directly echo F.'s edition of the numerous inscriptions commemorating visits to the oracular sanctuary of Claros, located in Colophon's territory, by delegates from cities all over the Roman East (Les mémoriaux de délégations du sanctuaire oraculaire de Claros, d'après la documentation conservée dans le Fonds Louis Robert (2014)). F.'s edition reaffirms the long tradition of excellence of French scholarship in the fields of Greek epigraphy and institutional history, complemented in this case by important remarks on Roman onomastics in the Greek East and social history. In line with this recent research focus of F., Gabrielle Frija gives some interesting thoughts on the category often described as the ‘provincial aristocracy’ in modern scholarship, corresponding to the people holding offices in the koinon of Asia, as opposed to members of civic elites or persons promoted to the equestrian or senatorial order. Ségolène Demougin deals with the legal implications for women of possessing Roman citizenship, an important factor for local elites in the Greek world when looking for family alliances. In contrast with the predominant discourse of the local elite as benefactors of their homeland, Anne-Valérie Pont explores financial wrongdoing by local officials and the control over municipal finances exercised by the Roman state.

Beyond the eclectic variety of topics covered by the papers collected in this book (as is usual for a Festschrift), the editors have successfully produced a volume which serves both to give an overview of the main themes of F.'s research over the past four decades and to open new paths for future research on Roman law and on Roman rule in the East in the late republican and early imperial periods (an index of ancient sources, however, would have been welcome). Most of the papers recall the main methodological lesson of F.'s scholarship: the study of the interaction between Rome and the Greek world requires a deep knowledge of all kinds of sources, an attention to legal issues within their political and cultural settings, and an equal acquaintance with both Roman and Greek contexts at one and the same time.