Regional studies of Roman architecture, especially those which cover more than a single building type, are relatively rare, particularly in Anglophone scholarship. Anderson's monograph is the first attempt to provide such a survey for Gallia Narbonensis, architecturally one of the richest of the Western provinces, covering the best known and best documented examples of different architectural forms organized by building type (cf. 234). The definition of architecture is very broad, encompassing city walls, commemorative monuments, temples, civic architecture, commercial buildings from macella to ports, architecture for ‘entertainment and leisure’ including libraries, ‘hydraulic architecture’ from baths to water-mills, and, finally, domestic architecture and funerary monuments.
Starting with the Greek colonies and native settlements, the book begins with a brief political history of the province (ch. 1), followed by a broad outline of urbanization in the area (ch. 2) by way of a gazetteer-like survey of the major cities of the province (Glanum, Aquae Sextiae, Narbo Martius, Arelate, Forum Iulii, Vienna, Nemasus, Arausio and Vasio), illustrated with schematic city plans from Rivet's 1988 Gallia Narbonensis, now in need of updating. This overview focuses on the difficulties of establishing firm chronologies for the urban development in each case, given the paucity of evidence. Nevertheless, A. argues that many of the monuments have been dated too early, and he therefore proposes a general pattern of triumviral or Augustan foundation or growth, with the real flourishing only in the late first and especially the second century under the imperial patronage of Plotina and Antoninus Pius, both of families from Gallia Narbonensis, followed by a decline in the mid-third century except in the rare areas of fourth-century imperial input, especially Arelate.
The redating question forms the leitmotif of the remainder of the book, consisting almost entirely of ch. 3, a massive (61–233) descriptive survey of Roman architectural forms in Provence by building type, with each section preceded by a very brief account of the general functions and local forms. Detailed discussion, however, is confined to a narrow selection of buildings which are particularly critical for A.'s arguments for a second-century rather than an Augustan architectural heyday. Key to A.'s arguments is his premise that the dating of monuments in Roman Provence by architectural ornament, based on stylistic parallels with the Corinthian order of the city of Rome, is seriously flawed; specifically, it does not allow for local developments in the region, whether derived from Hellenistic models, or evolving independently from Augustan ornament while fashions in Rome moved on (61–4). This is an important point, which deserves more detailed discussion than possible in the four pages given to it. It is partly elaborated in dating discussions of key monuments such as the Arch at Arausio and the Maison Carrée at Nemausus, both based on A.'s earlier articles. The redating of the Maison Carrée is the most difficult to accept, although A. is surely correct in arguing that we cannot use the generally accepted reconstruction of CIL XII.3156 as definitive evidence for the date. While there are some unusual elements in the architectural ornament, the carving of the acanthus on the capitals is pure mid-Augustan Rome (and very unlike that on the temples at Vernègues and Glanum which represent the pre-existing tradition), while the form of the modillions has its closest parallels in the Temple of Apollo Sosianus. Furthermore, A.'s argument for the use of pes Drusianus for the plan but not the elevation of the temple fails to convince (especially as evidence for a Trajanic date), while his doubts about fitting two phases of the temple into a very short time during the Augustan period now appear unwarranted given the identification in the integral forum of an unfinished phase in the last quarter of the first century b.c.e., before a revised version was built in the last decade of the century (NB in the key argument at 110, some dates are given c.e. when they are clearly meant to be b.c.e.).
For building types not germane to the dating arguments, only a few seem to have warranted a detailed description or discussion, while most are treated synoptically. For example, while there are twenty pages on free-standing arches, over half of them on the Arch at Arausio, there are only five pages on baths, despite the over seventy public baths identified in A. Bouet's, Les thermes privés et publics en Gaule Narbonnaise (2003). There are also some oddities in the arrangement of topics. The section on civic architecture, for example, vacillates between colonnades and fora, resulting in the forum of Nemausus appearing under ‘major porticoes’ and those of Glanum and Arelate each featuring in two separate sections; unfortunately, the index is of little help in reuniting them and section headings are not included in the Table of Contents either. Thus, while coverage is broad, it is uneven and not necessarily representative.
Overall, the focus on redating the high point of Roman architecture in Provence detracts from the promise of the title, while not providing sufficient detail for a thorough and convincing demonstration of this challenging hypothesis. This volume does, however, bring together a wealth of disparate and up-to-date material on the impressive architectural remains of Gallia Narbonensis, the most Roman of provinces, providing a potentially useful text especially for undergraduate classes, who would not otherwise find this material easily accessible.
