How does a culture understand itself, its history, and how it came to be? These are the questions Andrew Gallia asks in this book as he looks at the re-establishment and stabilization of the Principate after the overthrow of Nero. That the res publica did not die with the ‘Republican period’ is well known. G. is interested in the tension that exists in the corporate memory of the Principate between the story of a ‘Republic’ that came to an end and an identity rooted in the res publica and a political ideology that emphasized continuity with its past even though the monarchic power of the emperor sat in defiance of the traditions of the ‘free’ Republic. And, in this work, he is interested in the way that emperors after Nero negotiated this tension.

In looking at the way the Roman Principate dealt with its history G. seeks to build on the critical work done by Halbwachs, Assman and Nora in examining the construction and employment of cultural memory as a complex process of negotiation between the people and the élite, and on recent works by Flower and Hölkeskamp which explore the complex process of construction and reconstruction of Rome's political identity throughout its history in the Republic. In taking this examination into the imperial period, G. shows that those engaging in this discourse had to be careful not to overplay their hand or risk the rejection of their interpretation. This is most illuminatingly seen through the close examination in ch. 3 of Domitian's execution of the Vestal Virgin Cornelia and the way that her rejection of his claim to exercise moral authority inherited from the censors exposed the ambiguity of all claims to be acting in a historically-legitimized manner. In this, G. reveals the way that those emperors, such as Domitian, who drew attention to the personal rôle of the emperor as an arbitrator in the negotiation became identified as repressive.

A distinguishing feature of G.'s examination of the Principate's engagement with its Republican past is the way it presents six case studies each focusing on a different locus of negotiation: political ideals (libertas), architecture, religion, senatorial rhetoric, literature, and coinage across a fifty-year period. This provides the work with both its major strength and its main weakness. At its best, in its focus on specific points of negotiation and moments of potential crisis, it adds significantly to our understanding of these moments and demonstrates the way that critical theory can be well used to examine the ancient world — in this case by examining memory and cultural knowledge. However, as the author himself states, the time-frame of the book was selected because of the wealth of material available rather than out of a conviction about the importance, uniqueness, or specific issues of the period (8). He acknowledges the problem that this causes near the end of the book, commenting that, ‘Although it may be true to say that the memory of the republic underwent significant transformation during the period examined in this book, such a claim is meaningless without sufficient contextualization’ (250). Each individual study reveals the way nostalgia for a past that was in itself unstable and dependent upon a similar process of negotiation with its own history created a continual threat of breakdown and failure. However, the text as a whole does not provide a holistic picture of the way the process of memory negotiation worked across the Principate, and whether certain tensions and conflicts recurred in the process of negotiating its corporate memory.

This is frustrating, given the strength of G.'s ideas and the quality of the studies, and one wishes to get further than his final conclusion that, ‘The multiplicity of contexts in which the Republican past could be remembered contributed to the basic incoherence of the “republic” itself as an object of Roman memory’ (251). Early on, the author notes the way that Augustus’ diplomatic regard for tradition and legitimacy in order to ensure stability meant there was no radical shift in ideology, which might have made acceptance of the monarchic elements of the Principate easier in the long run (31). The idea that Rome essentially lived in a state of hypocritical self-denial under the Principate is intriguing, and it would be interesting to explore the ways in which this failure to bite the ideological bullet meant that Rome's political culture essentially fossilized in its own history, and how this affected its stability and the longevity of would-be dynasties.

Given the fact that the difficulties and tensions in negotiating history and memory, and the tendency towards nostalgia for a past that was not really that past are hardly limited to ancient Rome, the reader might like to be able to take their reflections upon G.'s detailed studies further, adding his thoughts to the work that he is using. However, the relative lack of the bigger picture in Remembering the Roman Republic limits its ability to drive such ruminations. We should not demand that works are written with an eye to the opportunity to apply the lessons of the past to the present, but it is a shame, given the quality of his reading of the past, that G.'s choice of focus limits the potential for it.