The Vesuvian cities have provided a wealth of archaeological evidence for the day-to-day life of townspeople and an indispensable proxy for urban life in first-century Roman Italy. In spite of such relative plenty, a detailed understanding of money-use in Pompeii and Herculaneum is lacking. An unknown number of coins have been removed over the centuries by pilferers and antiquarians; yet even what has been left behind by foragers includes many coins which were corroded beyond recognition by the acidic soils. Hobbs attempts to make the most of this situation by combining a detailed archaeological survey of the numismatic evidence from Pompeii's north-westernmost insula with comparative evidence from the rest of the city as well as the region at large. His contribution provides not only a helpful and accessible catalogue and metrology of the numismatic data, but his discussion contains several noteworthy contributions to debates over the prevalence, use and function of money in the city and region.

Readers often turn to volumes such as this one for the catalogue of coins, and here they will not be disappointed. In addition to a hoard of ninety coins found in the sewers beneath a Republican bath-house in the southernmost region of the city, all 1,188 coins found in the insula have been photographed and described in detail. Clear illustrations are substituted for photos in cases where specimens are particularly corroded or worn. Thorough notes on archaeological context and dating evidence are included for each and every coin. Generalists will probably struggle a little as they get used to H.'s system. Part of this is not unexpected, but the situation could have been helped on a few occasions. For example, it would have been beneficial to have the key to H.'s phasing at the beginning of the first appendix to help decipher the pages of tables which follow. Instead, the reader is expected to pour back through the narrative in order to excavate the figures from somewhere in the middle of the third chapter. Unhelpfully, there is no list of figures or tables provided. However, apart from small quibbles, the evidence is mostly presented in a useful and accessible manner. References to physical spaces and evidence are almost always accompanied by relevant and easy-to-understand maps and charts.

In addition to the catalogue and metrological datasets, the book's narrative is well worth the read. H. acquaints the reader with the Anglo-American Project in Pompeii's (AAPP) twelve-year excavation of the insula, the occupational history of the space itself (which pottery remains suggest dates to at least the late fourth century b.c.), as well as the city-wide evidence for money use. All numismatic evidence is placed into one of two over-arching categories: ‘live’ coins were being used either as stores of value or as exchange media at the time of the eruption, while ‘dead’ coinage was lost, discarded or otherwise ownerless. Such broad categories could be problematic, yet all the coins found in the insula, save four, have a clear archaeological context associated with them. This is typical of H.'s tendency to take few risks with his material.

Readers searching for theory-driven analysis will need to look elsewhere. Apart from a bit of discussion on methodology in the introduction, H. avoids direct engagement with models and approaches. The skilful presentation of the AAPP's findings, however, makes this volume a critical augmentation to ongoing discussions about indirect exchange in the Roman world. Previous discussions of currency use in Pompeii, particularly from Jean Andreau (in W. V. Harris (ed.), The Monetary Systems of the Greeks and Romans (2008)) and Richard Duncan-Jones (in E. Lo Cascio (ed.), Credito e moneta nel mondo Romano: atti degli Incontri capresi di storia dell'economia antica (2003)) lack the rich archaeological detail which is provided here. These previous works focus mostly on how the Vesuvian evidence fits within wider patterns of monetary use in the Roman world. H.'s book, however, gives us a needed close-up of the evidence within a severely limited geographic space. That he makes regular comparisons with other bodies of evidence from elsewhere in the city only strengthens the importance of the material. The obvious problem of H.'s approach is that we do not receive a clear and explicit idea of how representative the Pompeiian evidence actually is, but there is little question that H.'s discussion and the accompanying catalogue will provide a launch-point for renewed debate about the function and supply of currency in Roman Italy.