Imperial power was subject to change. The nature of this power, its shape, and the impact of change upon empire are concerns addressed by both Lukas de Blois and Emma Dench, albeit from different perspectives. Image and Reality of Roman Imperial Power, the product of B.'s extensive research on third-century Roman imperial history, offers a detailed examination of the nature of imperial power over the period a.d. 193–284, notably in terms of both the erosion but also adaptation and refashioning of such power, framed within the overarching impact of war in the period. D.'s Empire and Political Cultures in the Roman World, on the other hand, tackles the broad spectrum of Republic and Empire, together with provincial cultures to assess the ‘local experience of change attendant on empire’ (1).

B., while acknowledging the diversity in social and ethnic groups (2), places emphasis on the interconnectivity of empire as opposed to explicitly foregrounding regionalisation. The study articulates clearly the impact of war and other forms of violence through a region-by-region analysis (140–54), examining regional specificities in relation to war zones, hinterlands and local structures of taxes, supply requisitions and liturgy. Nevertheless, the overall conclusions on the escalation of problems as regards the impact of war on the economic and fiscal sources of power stress that there was ‘no regionality of crisis’ (153). The empire is presented as a delicately balanced system of power-relations not only between the emperor, centralised administration, and local structures, but also between different regions and neighbouring areas. While different regions experienced the locally specific consequences of wars both external and internal, they also suffered and adapted to ‘a spreading and shifting of burdens’ (24) as part of the imperial system.

The foundation for B.'s analysis of impact is a substantial chapter surveying the wars of 193–284 (ch. 2), which provides the most up-to-date survey of the period. The subsequent chapters examine thematically the different sources of imperial power, based on Michael Mann's Sources of Social Power (Vol. 1, 1986): economic (ch. 3), military and political (ch. 4) and ideological (ch. 5). Throughout, B. provides the reader with a survey of scholarship and draws on a vast range of sources acknowledging the diversity of regional necessities and local responses. The repetition of certain case-studies serves to illustrate the interconnectivity of the different sources of power, although this does lead to frequent reduplication of information in the endnotes.

The sources of social power required propagation and communication throughout the system. This representation of power is ‘a process through which people construct the world around them; it presupposes rituals and adaptive ways of looking’ (11). As B. paints it, we have a picture of political imperial power as a monopoly of violence (Max Weber's theory of state power) and authority in order to procure the necessary finances to manage the empire, which B. terms ‘an extraction-coercion cycle’ (12). The administration of the empire was reliant on fiscal, military and administrative networks at imperial, regional and local levels, but also on its subjects accepting the legitimacy of power. In his chapter on ‘Ideological sources of Roman imperial power’ (ch. 5), B. convincingly articulates the use of imperial presentation to train people in what to expect of imperial power, acting as ‘a school of ideology’ and that ‘[i]n this way representation and perception of imperial power were mutually reinforcing processes’ (229). Over the course of chs 3–5, B. presents a clear evaluation of both the sources of power as actual reality and the representation of power, demonstrating their interconnectivity within the imperial system.

B.'s overarching thesis considers whether the changes which the Roman imperial system underwent as consequences of the wars of the third century undermined or in fact strengthened imperial authority. He coherently charts the decline in productive capacity, eroding economic and fiscal power, which had a potentially negative impact on military power, but also stresses the positive reaction in the form of Gallienus’ reforms and new mobile army. These both strengthened the military source of power and developed new administrative structures, effective for military and logistical needs, and the promotion of equestrian career paths. Whilst this ‘bureaucratisation’ of imperial power was demonstrably fit-for-purpose, creating a more integrated, homogeneous administrative apparatus and providing new forms of social mobility, it also weakened the relationship between the emperor and the urbs, and opened up space for estrangement of the senators. This adaptation to the crisis of the third quarter of the century was ultimately not sufficient to correct serious areas of erosion to economic, fiscal and military power, as the continued usurpations demonstrate. Indeed, B. frames usurpations as, in part, military groups and leaders placing a heavy demand on supplies, which suffered continuous problems due to the economic erosion of the period.

On an ideological front, B. persuasively demonstrates the potency of perceived values and expectations: even when, or indeed perhaps because, in actuality the sources of imperial power were eroding, there nonetheless continued to be an emphasis on maintaining imperial representations of military victory and dynastic stability, and more generally on impressing upon audiences the fiduciary nature of the coinage. Ultimately, it would seem, the desire or need to maintain such representations of power contributed to the erosion of ideological power, for rulers were unable to ‘find an effective new ideological foundation for their power’ (259).

A striking argument that comes from the examination of impact at the local level and edges of empire is an insistence on a perhaps unexpected outcome of the loss of an imperial monopoly of violence in localised contexts. Power relations shifted as communities invested in self-help and militia initiatives against invading forces. For B., this is evidence of a greater integration into the Roman imperial system: local communities act in defence of the system, providing testimony to an increased sense of loyalty, and not (just) to a loss of imperial monopoly of power. Certainly, in borderlands and war zones, the blending of local militia and imperial forces demonstrate the necessity of local networks and structures for the maintenance of imperial power.

The identification of loyalty to the Roman empire, particularly at the edges, is something that D. strongly cautions against in her essay. More specifically, D. is reacting to what she terms the ‘conversion model’ (13, 157) of the twentieth century, which sought to perform a ‘totalizing shift’ in the process of ‘becoming Roman’. D. argues that instead we should rather focus on the ‘ongoing processes of conceptualizing, enacting and claiming modes of power’ (17) and consider local experiences, purposes and alternative loci of power. As the title implies, plurality is an important framework for D.'s compact but wide-encompassing scope. This is not to deny a consensus or acknowledgement as to the efficacy of Roman power for numerous peoples and groups within their own particular contexts of performance, but this does not, as D. repeatedly stresses, ‘necessarily entail loyalty to Rome’.

Empire and Political Cultures is a part of CUP's Key Themes in Ancient History series, and as such it provides an accessible and lively engagement for understanding the interaction and impact of Roman power on local articulations of ‘political identity and self-direction’ (16), from the early third century b.c. to the high empire of the second and third centuries a.d. Because of the emphasis on plurality and competing systems, D. stresses the study is open to ‘fuzziness’ and that the essay has ‘no pretension of comprehensiveness’ (17). She stresses the importance of processes, that frame her discussion in which she frequently talks of ‘reproduction’, ‘translation’, ‘naturalization’, ‘localization’, and ‘internalization’. Over the course of some 160 pages, D. provides the reader with both a broad overview of ‘the thinly stretched nature of Roman power’ and specific engagements in the processes of empire ‘at its edges and in times of crisis’ (157). The work is structured so as first critically to evaluate modern scholarly debate and engagement with the impact of the Roman empire on cultures and communities. In the introduction, D. cogently surveys the shifts in thinking from Haverfield's Romanization of Roman Britain (1905) to Woolf's Becoming Roman (1998) and Ando's Imperial Ideology (2000): the shift from a belief in generalised homogeneity and loyalty to Rome, through the possibility of asymmetric and multiple relations at the intersection of ritual and practices within the empire to complex processes of a shared value system or consensus on Roman power. Out of this survey, D. highlights the singularity of the process, the issues of conversion or co-option into the system, which offers little space to explore the ‘alternative or more immediate systems and loci of power’ (156) observable at the intersection of the imperial and the local.

D. frames her study with an examination of a ‘Roman Dialect of Empire’ (ch. 1) that seeks to explore the dynamic, ongoing processes involved in the translation of Roman power from the wider context of the negotiation of diverse ideas of the forms of imperial power in the Mediterranean world to the spectacle of power and the ‘habituation of subjects to particular expectations and opportunities’ (30) — a similar concept to B.'s ‘school of ideology’. The following four chapters explore thematically various means by which communities, peoplehoods and grouphoods experienced and articulated power within the Roman world: ‘Territory’ (ch. 2), ‘Wealth and Society’ (ch. 3), ‘Force and Violence’ (ch. 4) and ‘Time’ (ch. 5). Over these chapters, D. provides a whistle-stop tour across the chronological and geographical breadth of the Roman world, providing an immensely succinct and articulate journey through the multi-faceted diverse ways in which Roman power was ‘felt and enacted to different degrees in different ways across place and time’ (57). Whilst there may be the inevitable fleeting references which will elude the intended audience (and note the erroneous dating of the La Turbie monument to 17 rather than 7 b.c.: 113), D.'s handling of the breadth of sources covering multiple languages and media is masterful, shedding light on the multiple ways in which Roman power was reproduced for specific, personal and local reasons.

As promised (16), D. certainly achieves a bridge between republican and imperial governance and the shape of imperial power, and between imperial governance and provincial cultures. As a result, D. persuasively and convincingly shapes a flexible and dynamic diagnostic for her readers to break from the ‘conversion’ model and to allow the value of Roman power within a complex, competing system. Local consent to Roman power, in the many forms it might take, may not necessarily indicate loyalty or ‘Romanness’ in any explicit form, but should rather be seen as placing the political currency of Roman symbols and articulations of power within the broader scope of complex Mediterranean identities.