This superb edited collection seeks to demonstrate the advantages of an interdisciplinary approach to the topic of popular culture. Drawing on papers from conferences held at the Universities of Edinburgh (2012) and Wroclaw (2014), the scope of the volume is wide-ranging, boasting coverage from fifth-century b.c.e. Greece to sixth-century c.e. Gaul and Augustine's North Africa. The collection takes as its focus the questions: ‘Was there such a thing as popular culture in the ancient world? And even if there was, how on earth can we, as scholars, access it?’ (1); the contributors also explore whether there was a single popular culture which can be tracked over the chronological and geographical span of the papers. Lucy Grig provides a substantial introduction considering approaches to the study of popular culture, including the now-famous remarks of Holt Parker that we ‘know it when we see it …’. Although some will wish to take issue with the idea that ‘when popular culture does come their way, classicists have tended to look upon it with a considerable degree of condescension’ (1), the survey of historiographical as well as theoretical developments in approaches to the definition and study of popular culture provided in this chapter will undoubtedly become a standard and accessible starting place for future considerations of the topic.

The chapters which follow are divided chronologically and geographically into four parts: classical Greece; Rome; the wider Roman Empire and Late Antiquity. Each chapter, in different ways, takes up the challenge to define and find a place for popular culture in the study of the ancient world. Mirko Canevaro's chapter (39–65) argues that since, in Athens, the institutions of Athenian democracy (the Council, the Assembly and the courts) were not controlled by the elite, they should not be thought of as repositories of elite culture. Instead, since ordinary citizens felt comfortable in and were familiar with the workings of state institutions it was elite culture which ‘was, in fact, “unofficial” and “unauthorized”, and therefore could become subversive’ (42). James Robson's examination of Aristophanic comedy (66–87) highlights the extent to which these works deliberately appealed to and drew inspiration from both ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture and were thus able successfully to exploit the full range of an audience's ability to engage with the performance.

Cristina Rossilo-Lόpez examines popular first-century b.c.e. nicknames (91–106) in order to ask (91) ‘did the popular classes have an alternative memory of the past and an autonomous interpretation of the political present?’. She demonstrates that popular nicknames give an important insight into the ways in which non-elite citizens might appropriate and reinterpret the commemoration of the past. Cyril Courrier looks at the culture of the Roman plebs (107–28), noting the paradox of a plebs which thought of itself as both masters of the world and, simultaneously, subjects of a dominant elite. He suggests that modern sociological insights into popular culture as a culture of resistance may help to explain the relationship between the culture of the plebs urbana and elite cultures at Rome (119–20). Tom Hawkins’ chapter concentrates on political invective (129–48), noting that where the success of Octavian and the coming of the Principate served to constrain elite discourse, ‘non-elite invective, because of its diffuse nature, could engage the emperor more freely’ (129). Alexandre Vincent draws much-needed attention to the sound-scapes of Roman political life (149–63). The ‘music of power’, he argues, was an ‘an efficient, familiar and indeed effective tool of communication for the Roman population’ (163). Jerry Toner's study of the intellectual lives of the non-elite (167–88) is a clarion call for a reassessment of the importance of the study of popular culture. Victoria Jennings demonstrates that the Life of Aesop can prove fertile ground for understanding the importance attached to divination in popular culture (189–207), and April Pudsey provides an analysis of different ways in which children's culture may be studied and understood (208–33); this should become a standard introduction to the study of children's experiences in the ancient world.

The final four chapters, on Late Antiquity, are particularly rich in examples of material evidence for the study of popular culture. Lucy Grig uses late antique ceramics to investigate the ways in which popular cultural practices (like dressing up as animals) associated with festivals such as the Kalends continued to inform people's experience (237–56). Nicola Denzey Lewis provides a re-reading of evidence for magical symbols and expressions in the catacombs (257–76) which suggests that, for many people, magic and Christianity were not viewed as mutually exclusive, but were instead part of their experience of ‘lived religion’. Jaclyn Maxwell (277–95) and Julio Cesar Magalhães de Oliveira (296–317) both challenge the distinction between ‘elite’ theological knowledge and popular religious experience. Maxwell demonstrates significant and informed popular engagement with theological issues of the day, and de Oliveira studies the ‘everyday practices of communication’ which informed the ‘formative experiences of plebeian life’ (298), in order to show the multiple ways in which theological and other issues of the day formed part of a conversation between the elite and the common people.

Several papers in this volume will, I believe, become essential reading on the study of popular culture in the future. Theoretically rich, the papers also provide exemplary models for the use of a wide range of evidence from the ancient world: from evidence for gambling practice (Toner) and children's toys and apprenticeship documents (Pudsey), to the re-reading of texts such as Macrobius (Courrier) and the Life of Aesop (Jennings). Published collections of this kind which draw on the expertise of multiple scholars and represent the culmination of a fruitful exchange of ideas developed via conferences and collaborations and in which papers are ‘developed and revised in a spirit of collegiality’ (ix) are important, and increasingly rare. G. and her collaborators, as well as the editorial team at Cambridge University Press, are to be congratulated for producing a valuable volume, and for championing interdisciplinarity and collegial endeavour so successfully.