Ray Laurence and Francesco Trifilò, Mediterranean Timescapes: Chronological Age and Cultural Practice in the Roman Empire (Abingdon: Routledge, 2023). 9781138288751.
Reviewed by Eleanor M. Vannan, University of Victoria, eleanormvannan@gmail.com.
Historians have long privileged written sources as the paramount form of primary source evidence. Yet, the historiographical role of epigraphy in studying the ancient world has been a matter of prolonged controversy. As Bodel points out, we have moved past the view that the study of epigraphy is not an integral element in constructing ancient histories.1 However, questions remain about how epigraphical data should be used in scholarship and the extent to which funerary epigraphy can form the basis for quantifiable demographic models. In Mediterranean Timescapes: Chronological Age and Cultural Practice in the Roman Empire, Laurence and Trifilò focus on age-at-death inscriptions in funerary commemorations—the key form of epigraphical evidence used by scholars attempting to establish statistical models of the Roman population. Mediterranean Timescapes explicitly aims to expand our understanding of the subjective experience of life phases in the ancient Mediterranean, a goal that can only be achieved by addressing the ongoing conversation about the role of funerary epigraphy in formulating a picture of Roman demographics. Laurence and Trifilò skillfully call attention to the cultural plurality that existed in the Latin-speaking western Mediterranean world and demonstrate how spatiotemporally specific conceptions of time intersected with gender, socio-economic class, military service, and geographical location to develop a sense of identity for the dead. Simultaneously, Mediterranean Timescapes highlights the evidentiary limitations of applying a macro-quantitative analytical methodology to epitaphs with recorded ages at death and furthers the case for adopting a quali-quantitative methodology when engaging epigraphical evidence.
Laurence has devoted a considerable amount of his career to the material covered in Mediterranean Timescapes and the book acts as a continuation of his work with Harlow on the Roman life course.2 Trifilò, who now works in financial services, brought his considerable knowledge of data analytics to this project. Laurence also acknowledges the work of the many graduate students whose research he supervised, and it is clear that this work was informed by epistemic exchange provided through the pedagogical process. While Laurence and Trifilò acknowledge that some readers may find parts of the authors’ methodology pedantic and state that they were cautioned against undertaking such a monumental project, Mediterranean Timescapes is a meticulous work of scholarship that shows the value of academic collegiality.
Mediterranean Timescapes is divided into three parts. Part 1, “Age-at-Death in Epitaphs—Issues and Possibilities,” primarily focuses on the question of methodology. In Chapter 1, “Introduction,” Laurence and Trifilò outline the data set used in this book, which came from Manfred Clauss’s work digitizing inscriptions originally published in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum and L’Année épigraphique and uses geographical data mapping to show the east–west division in the practice of age-at-death inscriptions in funerary commemorations (pp. 3–5).3 The clear divide between the epigraphic habits of the East and West should not be overlooked. As Rhoby notes, the study of Byzantine epigraphy remains an underdeveloped area of scholarship.4 The variations in Eastern and Western funerary formulations offer an opportunity for Byzantinists to contextualize the origins of the Eastern epigraphical tradition.
In Chapter 2, “‘Demography’ and the Measurement of Time in Epitaphs,” Laurence and Trifilò proceed to engage with the existing scholarship on epigraphy-based demographic models and chiefly push back on Paine and Storey’s attempt to revive this methodology in the early 2000s (pp. 25–26).5 Laurence and Trifilò examine the scholarly exchange between Shaw and Saller on the topic of age at first marriage in the 1980s as a case study on the weakening of demographic models when rigorously scrutinized (pp. 24–25).6 The authors take care not to overstate the inability to reach some demographic conclusions based on epigraphy, and their findings are consistent with many of those proposed by Brughmans et al. and Pflaumer’s work on data–mining (pp. 24–25).7 However, Laurence and Trifilò conclude that the true value of lived-age epitaphs is in their ability to communicate an understanding of culturally dependent subjective experiences and, thus, move towards a mixed-methods approach (p. 26). The remainder of Part 1 contextualizes the practice of inscribing age at death.
Of particular value in Chapter 3, “Understanding the Use of Chronological Age: From Life Course to Timescapes,” is the comparison of age-at-death inscriptions to provincial-age inscriptions; Laurence and Trifilò note far more imprecision in recorded age lived than the age of the province inscriptions (pp. 42–43). Indeed, the authors show a clear capacity to record accurate birth information in the astrological papyri from Egypt (p. 37). While the inaccuracy of recorded age lived is not a novel concept in the field of classical epigraphy, the side-by-side comparison of precise and imprecise dating casts doubt on any claims that inaccurate age-at-death inscriptions can be solely attributed to numerical rounding to facilitate inscribing Roman numerals or the inability to record birth-dates accurately (pp. 35–39).8 Laurence and Trifilò conclude that irregularities in age-at-death inscriptions must have had a communicative purpose (pp. 40–41, 45).
Chapter 4, “Inscribing Age-At-Death as a Cultural Practice,” picks up the thread of recorded lived age as a means of conveying a message to the living. Laurence and Trifilò examine MacMullen’s proposition that the proliferation of elogia in the provinces is a sign of romanization (p. 65).9 The epitaph of Euhemeria (p. 56, fig. 4.4), which only contains the deceased person’s name, is contrasted with the epitaphs of Marcus Lollius Primitus (p. 54, fig. 4.2) and Hermes (p. 55, fig. 4.3), which contain additional information including age, familial relations, and citizen/slave status. The comparative analysis is effective in making the reader question if we can truly reduce all funerary epigraphy into the product of one homogeneous Roman culture. Here, Laurence and Trifilò explain formulaic structures and the structure of abbreviations and isolate trends within specific geographical locations (pp. 56–63). Key to this work is Laurence and Trifilò’s concentration on frequently ignored inscriptions found in North Africa. Mediterranean Timescapes accepts that the expanding Roman Empire drove the proliferation of funerary inscriptions but finds that consistent forms of inscribing lived age in specific regional areas show culturally distinct conceptions for life phases and variations in commemorative prioritization (p. 64).
Chapter 5, “Birthdays, Numbers and Centenarians,” addresses specific matters, including modes of counting, sacred numbers, and the development of the symbolic connection between specific ages and life phases. Laurence and Trifilò’s diagram depicting the Roman practice of finger counting (p. 71, fig. 5.1) is an excellent tool in helping the reader engage with the physicality of numbers in the Roman world. Similarly, Laurence and Trifilò address shifts in associated ages and life phases in the writings of Jerome, which provides a reminder to the reader that we cannot interpret culturally specific practices of pagan Romans through a Christianising lens (p. 72). Chapter 5 connects the previous chapters’ findings to our existing knowledge of the Roman understanding of measuring time and the human lifespan. Laurence and Trifilò make a connection between age-at-death inscriptions and other forms of ancestor worship and address how recorded lived age contextualized the identity of dead relatives (pp. 69–70). For scholars familiar with Webb’s work on women and the imago, this observation lays fruitful ground for furthering our understanding of women’s identity within their families.10
Part 2, “Age and Society,” moves on to examine how funerary commemorations intersect with other elements of constructed identity. As demonstrated by Lott, there is a tendency to view epigraphical evidence as free from the narrative inventions introduced by Roman historians (p. 38).11 Yet, Laurence and Trifilò provide a reminder that commemorations of the dead are not free from the authorial intent of either the ancient Romans or the modern historian. In Chapter 6, “Towards a Geography of Age and Gender in the Western Mediterranean,” Laurence and Trifilò see a disparity in male and female commemoration when examining recorded lived age between men and women at a global level (pp. 89–91). As Hope states, the wording of the sepulchral inscription was subject to what information was prioritized.12 One might assume the global discrepancy in recording lived age for men and women showed a cultural prioritization in recording men’s age. Yet, Laurence and Trifilò move to examine the intersection of gender and age at a local level and find that this discrepancy is not uniform. Laurence and Trifilò find recorded age at death in a greater percentage of women’s commemorations in the African provinces (pp. 100–101). Indeed, the authors find unique gender distribution patterns not only between provinces but also between cities (pp. 101–2).
Chapter 7, “The Family, Age and the Commemoration of the Dead,” places Laurence and Trifilò’s findings on the role of gender in recorded age lived within the context of the Roman family. Laurence and Trifilò engage directly with Saller, Shaw, and Scheidel’s works on the family and funerary inscriptions (pp. 107–8).13 While Mediterranean Timescapes does not reject the existing scholarship on the average age at first marriage, Laurence and Trifilò use inscriptions that list both age at death and a familial relation from the African provinces to show a cultural distinction in the recognition of an individual’s family from the epigraphical pattern found in the European provinces (pp. 111–21). Laurence and Trifilò found a shared practice in Numidia and Africa Proconsularis, where children were commemorated far less frequently than in Italy (pp. 112–13, 116–17). Similarly, spouses in Numidia and Africa Proconsularis were commemorated slightly more often than their Italian counterparts. However, there was a large discrepancy in the recorded age of wives—just over half of the epitaphs for Italian wives were listed as having died under the age of 30, whereas two-thirds of the African wives were said to be over the age of 30 (p. 115, table 7.3). The authors’ observation that women were less likely to receive an inscription that states their familial connections may jump out to the reader familiar with the literature on a woman’s maintained connection to her natal families after marriage.14 Laurence and Trifilò situate this observation within the context of Treggiari’s work on marriage and Champlin’s work on inheritance and show that the complexity of the relationship between a woman’s marital and natal families inhibited the process of commemoration upon death as it was not always clear which family should memorialize the woman (pp. 122–24).15
Chapter 8, “Freed Slaves across the Mediterranean: Commemorating the Dead,” Laurence and Trifilò move to examine the use of lived age in the epitaphs of enslaved people and note that the greatest concentration of these funerary inscriptions is in Italy, Numidia, and Africa Proconsularis. Laurence and Trifilò also note critical differences in the pattern of ages commemorated between imperial and non-imperial freed people, seemingly indicating greater adherence to the Lex Aelia Sentia within the imperial household (pp. 130–34). Laurence and Trifilò also revisit Petronius’s Trimalchio in the context of their findings and point to areas of scholarship in need of revision (p. 139).
Part 2 concludes with Chapter 9, “Cities and Soldiers: The Use of Age in the Cemeteries of Roman Africa,” in which Laurence and Trifilò concentrate on the effect of the military presence in North Africa. Once again, the authors show the value of moving beyond a Eurocentric view of the Roman Empire. While the authors do not deny that the presence of the Roman military in the provinces aided in the diffusion of the epigraphical habit, Laurence and Trifilò show how military recruitment enabled cultural exchange, pointing out similarities between cities and towns with and without a significant military presence (pp. 144, 152). Further, trendlines for funerary inscription formulas belonging to military and civilian individuals follow distinct patterns in Lambaesis (p. 153, fig. 9.6) and Numidia (p. 153, fig. 9.7). Laurence and Trifilò demonstrate geographical isolation in the practice of including veteran status as a form of identification in North African epitaphs, suggesting some limitations of Cherry’s work on the “Frontier Zone” (p. 147).16
Part 3 shifts from matters of individual identity towards an examination of institutions and geography. Chapter 10, “The Roman Armed Forces as an Epigraphic Institution,” picks up from the previous chapter in examining the connection between the Roman military and the proliferation of commemorative epigraphy across the western Mediterranean. A central point in this chapter is the shift towards recruiting soldiers from the provinces and the multiethnic communities that formed within the Roman military (pp. 169–71). Here, Laurence and Trifilò lay a foundation for scholars looking to distinguish our understanding of Roman colonialism from later European colonial programmes that demanded cultural assimilation.
Chapter 11, “Age and Culture in Numidia: Establishing Localized Timescapes,” provides a case study of regionally specific practices of including age-at-death inscriptions in epitaphs and tracks the development of this practice over time. Critically, Laurence and Trifilò make a connection between the cultural significance of elders within North African societies and the introduction of the Roman practice of recording lived age in funerary epigraphy to explain the prioritization of commemorations for the elderly (pp. 181–82). In comparing Numidia to other areas of the Roman world, Laurence and Trifilò demonstrate the reductiveness of sociological models that present one normative version of the Roman life course.
In Chapter 12, “Explaining Variation in the Use of Chronological Age across the Western Mediterranean,” Laurence and Trifilò tie together the evidence and examinations found in previous chapters and study regional variation in the context of population migration and cultural exchange (pp. 200–218). Chapter 12 organically leads into Chapter 13, “Timescapes of Life and Death in the Western Mediterranean,” which concludes the work by presenting the various timescapes uncovered through the study of age-at-death inscriptions (pp. 222–35). The final section of Mediterranean Timescapes is an afterword of significant value, not only for its role in highlighting areas of future research but also as an example of the type of self-critical reflection all scholars should undertake (pp. 236–42).
Laurence and Trifilò’s Mediterranean Timescapes is decidedly a book targeting academics, and that audience will find many virtues in this work. The work engages with the existing scholarship and brings together subdisciplines within the field of classical studies with care and consideration. Mediterranean Timescapes is, in many ways, a continuation of the work Laurence undertook with Harlow, and it is clear that the time spent in this area contributed to the thoroughness of this book. There is considerable value for those researching Roman women and the family unit. Similarly, there is fruitful ground for developing our understanding of Roman colonization. Still, the greatest value of this work is its ability to advance mixed-methods methodology within the study of ancient history.
Paradoxically, the most obvious weakness of Laurence and Trifilò’s work is found in the complexity of its methodology. Mediterranean Timescapes is based on an interconnected reading of quantitative and qualitative data in which Laurence and Trifilò find statistical patterns and analyze the narrative content of funerary epigraphy. However, it should be noted that there is little way to avoid this when undertaking a project of this nature. This intricacy is not inherently a flaw in the work but requires that the reader be well-versed in various forms of data analytics. Similarly, this complexity makes the book shine when read in its entirety but leads to chapters losing the full force of their argument when read in isolation. It would be difficult to excerpt a single chapter without losing some necessary context. However, these are minor critiques; Mediterranean Timescapes is undoubtedly a welcome addition to the literature with the potential to inspire considerable work in the future.
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Commemoration of Age-at-Death (1–14)
Part I: Age-at-Death in Epitaphs – Issues and Possibilities
2. “Demography” and the Measurement of Time in Epitaphs (17–31)
3. Understanding the Use of Chronological Age: From the Life Course to Timescapes (32–49)
4. Inscribing Age-at-Death as a Cultural Practice (50–67)
5. Birthdays, Numbers and Centenarians (68–86)
Part II: Age and Society
6. Towards a Geography of Age and Gender in the Western Mediterranean (89–105)
7. The Family, Age and the Commemoration of the Dead (106–28)
8. Freed Slaves across the Mediterranean: Commemorating the Dead (129–42)
9. Cities and Soldiers: The Use of Age in the Cemeteries of Roman Africa (143–60)
Part III: Mediterranean Timescapes
10. The Roman Armed Forces as an Epigraphic Institution (163–78)
11. Age and Culture in Numidia: Establishing Localized Timescapes (179–99)
12. Explaining Variation in the Use of Chronological Age across the Western Mediterranean (200–221)
13. Timescapes of Life and Death in the Western Mediterranean (222–35)
14. Afterword—the Archaeology of Latin Epitaphs in the Western Mediterranean (236–43)
Notes
1. John P. Bodel, Epigraphic Evidence: Ancient History from Inscriptions (London: Routledge, 2001), 1.
2. Mary Harlow and Ray Laurence, Growing Up and Growing Old in Ancient Rome: A Life Course Approach (London: Routledge, 2002).
3. Clauss-Slaby Database: http://www.manfredclauss.de/gb/index.html
4. Andreas Rhoby, “Challenges of Byzantine Epigraphy in the 21st Century: A Short Note,” Off the Beaten Track (2016): 85.
5. Richard R. Paine and Glenn R. Storey, “Epidemics, Age at Death, and Mortality in Ancient Rome,” in Urbanism in the Preindustrial World: Cross-Cultural Approaches, ed. Glenn R. Storey (London: University of Alabama Press, 2006), 69–85.
6. Richard P. Saller, “Men’s Age at Marriage and Its Consequences in the Roman Family,” Classical Philology 82, no. 1 (1987): 21–34; Brent D. Shaw, “The Age of Roman Girls at Marriage: Some Reconsiderations,” Journal of Roman Studies 77 (1987): 30–46.
7. Tom Brughmans, John William Hanson, Matthew J. Mandich, Iza Romanowska, Xavier Rubio-Campillo, Simon Carrignon, Stephen Collins-Elliott, et al., “Formal Modelling Approaches to Complexity Science in Roman Studies: A Manifesto,” Theoretical Roman Archaeology Journal 2, no. 1 (2019): 1–19; Pflaumer, Peter. “Distributions of Age at Death from Roman Epitaph Inscriptions: An Application of Data Mining,” American Statistical Association (2016): 189–203.
8. Louise Revell, “The Roman Life Course: A View from the Inscriptions,” European Journal of Archaeology 8, no. 1 (2005): 43–63.
9. Ramsay MacMullen, “The Epigraphic Habit in the Roman Empire,” American Journal of Philology 103, no. 3 (1982): 233–46.
10. Lewis Webb, “Gendering the Roman imago,” Eugesta 7 (2017): 140–83.
11. John B. Lott, Death and Dynasty in Early Imperial Rome: Key Sources, with Text, Translation, and Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 38.
12. Valerie Hope, “Status and Identity in The Roman World,” in Experiencing Rome: Culture Identity and Power in The Roman Empire, ed. Janet Huskinson (London: Routledge, 2000), 125.
13. Walter Scheidel, “Roman Funerary Commemoration and the Age at First Marriage,” Classical Philology 102, no. 4 (2007): 389–402.
14. Judith P. Hallett, Fathers and Daughters in Roman Society: Women and the Elite Family (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014).
15. Edward Champlin, Final Judgments: Duty and Emotion in Roman Wills, 200 B.C.–A.D. 250 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991); Susan Treggiari, Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).
16. David Cherry, Frontier and Society in Roman North Africa (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).
Discussion
1. In Chapter Nine: “Cities and Soldiers: The Use of Age in the Cemeteries of Roman Africa,” you wrote about the adoption of lived age inscriptions in North Africa as a cultural shift towards Romanization. You also write about regional variations in this form of commemoration. What does this say about the type of colonialism practiced in the Roman Empire?
I think at page 145 I reject the concept that the cultural shift should be seen as “a simple ‘process of Romanization’”. My sense is that there are two variables at work here – 1) the use of the Latin language for commemoration alongside formulae to commemorate the dead, and 2) the use of these by the living as a form of commemoration of the lives lived of others. If you like 1) is the underlying structure of colonialism in western Africa; whereas 2) shows the agency of individuals and societies under colonialism.
The fact that the study identifies variation across North Africa shows that different societies developed quite different traditions of commemoration utilizing Latin epitaphs over the time period of Roman colonialism. The cemetery was a key aspect of Roman urbanism, as a space of commemoration of life, whether of soldiers or females and by definition civilians. It may be unsurprising that different cemeteries developed their own patterns of commemoration, yet this variation is a jumping off point for further studies of how these cities may be different in other aspects of material culture.
There is also the very real sense that Roman colonialism was a very de-centred affair and to some extent an epitaph is at the same time 100% local and 100% global. It needs to be read in a local context but related to the global context of all other epitaphs that include age. Thus, we are seeing variation in the 100% local rather than in the 100% global in chapter 9.
2. A key element of your book is the use of epigraphy from North Africa, which you point out has been underutilized by scholars. Were there any unique challenges working with lesser-known inscriptions, and do you have any thoughts on why North African epigraphy has been largely ignored?
North African epigraphy was created by French colonialists, who mined the cemeteries for their writing – often paying little attention to other features of the archaeology of northern Africa. This has been shown to be linked to the French imperial project and epigraphy provided a justification for the French occupation. The study of epigraphy today though tends to concentrate in Europe and in some ways creates Latin as a European language or part of a European concept of us. Yet, if we see Latin as obviously as African as it is European (think for example of Saint Augustine of Hippo), we can understand these inscriptions as a vital part of the study of epigraphy. The reason for their neglect is the simple fact of their overwhelming numbers, when compared to those from anywhere but the city of Rome itself. The epitaphs from Africa are also very formulaic and provide quite limited information, but that shows a key point of their functionality and success as a cultural norm – these epitaphs are simple to use and adopt as a key means for commemorating the longevity of a person’s life.
3. In Chapters Six and Seven: “Towards a Geography of Age and Gender in the Western Mediterranean” and “The Family, Age and the Commemoration of the Dead,” you present a tension between cultural prioritization for those who receive their lived age and pragmatic reasons that determined the form of commemoration. What was your approach to this tension when performing a qualitative interpretation?
The book is very much centred on quantification and the representation of that quantification. It is incredibly difficult to shift from the simple epitaph to qualitative interpretations. I suspect we often simply resisted the qualitative interpretations – this is particularly true of Chapter 6 on gender and age. We wanted to set out the data as an alternative to qualitative interpretations of gender based on literary texts and Roman law. I felt in completing the book that I was writing of numbers and their representation, which if you have c. 23,000 epitaphs is what you have to do. I think we decided to represent the data so that qualitative interpretations were easier. For example, by using a moving average to create a wiggly line (rather than a series of bar graphs with peaks at V and X), we made a qualitative interpretation – often to reveal differences of gender or differences between places.
4. In Chapter Ten: “The Roman Armed Forces as an Epigraphic Institution,” you mention that research into the Roman family and the Roman military is often siloed. There is also a notable absence of rigid periodization in your book. Do you have any thoughts on what we can gain from moving away from the traditional dividing lines scholars use to study the Roman world? Aside from those studying the Roman military and the Roman family, are there any scholars you hope will engage with this work?
Periodization is put to one side in the book for the simple reason that the dating of epitaphs is next to impossible. Where we have formulae associated with consular dates, these can vary from 1st to 7th century CE. On siloes, where do I begin, it is a key feature of “the concept of the expert” on and the conference of experts in. There is a place for looking across into the “other” colleagues topics and to reframe what you yourself understand. I see academia as a place in which we need to keep learning, it is hard to see how we can know about all things in the Roman empire within the span of an academic career of three to four decades. The alternative is to keep focus on one area for three to four decades and to become the ever more knowledgeable expert on that one area without really looking beyond it. I’d hope colleagues across different areas can and will engage with the book and to see it as a jumping off point for further studies that will go deeper than we could. That is kind of the point of putting the book in front of people. But, to be realistic with limited time for reading, I expect colleagues will cherry pick chapters by their titles and how they map on their interests.
5. As you’ve mentioned before, you have dyslexia. I am also dyslexic! Has your relationship with text shaped how you approach and interpret written evidence and did your dyslexia inform how you structured this book?
Being dyslexic means everything I do as a dyslexic (or a person with dyslexia) is simply different to most colleagues in Classics and Ancient History. It is important that there is one non-dyslexic and one dyslexic in the team. Francesco believed very strongly in purity of the data and including only data from the inscriptions themselves. He really shaped the project to be about Cultural Practice, which shaped chapters in Part 1. Then Part 2 has all the things that had to be in the book: gender, family, freed slaves and soldiers/cities; Part 3 takes a much more spatial approach (not that it’s not there in Parts 1 and 2!).
The most dyslexic chapter is “Birthdays, Numbers and Centenarians” – the reviewers of the book proposal could not understand the connection – there could have been a chapter called “Old Age”, but that is not what the epitaphs represent conceptually with large numbers of people said to be over 100 years of age. Earlier approaches to North African epitaphs simply ignored these very high ages because they were improbable demographically. Instead, I saw these ages as statements of someone being so very very old. I think there is a nice thing about the very concept of inaccuracy of the ages and age-rounding in epitaphs that I find attractive, and maybe that links back to how dyslexia can produce omissions, contractions, mis-readings and so on.
The structure of the book has shifted around a lot; chapter 6 started life as chapter 2 or may have been part of chapter 2. The whole project shifted from a focus on Italy to one that had a much stronger focus on North Africa – in that sense it was reshaped by the data itself. Also, several of the chapters may have been split into two chapters in the end. Hence, the end result is probably the third, fourth or fifth structure. Of course, a non-dyslexic may just not see what I think is a logical structure – but that is to just recognize neuro-diversity and that I am writing for a non-dyslexic audience. The important thing as a dyslexic is that the book exists and as a dyslexic book, it might offer something different.
Thank you, Dr. Laurence. You are quite right that in rejecting the idea we should see the cultural shift in these epitaphs as “a simple ‘process of Romanization’” and present a nuanced lens through which we can understand the practice of Roman colonialism. Similarly, I imagine there would be universal agreement that a project of this scale requires a heavy emphasis on quantitative analysis; simultaneously, your work demonstrates the value of connecting quantitative and qualitative methods. I greatly appreciate the honesty in your book and responses about what facets were pragmatic requirements. Still, while practical concerns may have dictated aspects, your work does a tremendous service, showing the new insights that can be made by moving beyond traditional historiographical framing. While I agree with your realism, I hope that scholars read this book cover to cover as you skillfully weave evidence across chapters, making the full force of this work most apparent when consumed in its entirety. Finally, thank you for commenting on dyslexia shaping your work. Your ‘most dyslexic’ chapter was the most logical one to me. Your comments on the value of neuro-diversity and working with scholars whose cognitive processes contrast with yours are well put.
Rhea Classical Review 