Reviews
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The Life of Comedy after the Death of Plautus and Terence
11–17 minutesMathias Hanses, The Life of Comedy after the Death of Plautus and Terence. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2020. ISBN 9780472132256. Mali Skotheim, Ashoka University, mali.skotheim@ashoka.edu.in. In this riveting volume, Hanses argues against the idea that the age of Roman comedy ended in the mid-first century BCE, and demonstrates that in fact, Roman comedy was not only widely appreciated as literature but also performed in Rome well into the Imperial period. He devotes the…
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The Grotesque Body in Graeco-Roman Antiquity
9–14 minutesAnastasia Meintani, The Grotesque Body in Graeco-Roman Antiquity, Image & Context 21 (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2022). 9783110691733. Reviewed by India Watkins Nattermann, University of Cologne, inatterm@uni-koeln.de. The Grotesque Body in Graeco-Roman Antiquity, a reworking of Anastasia Meintani’s dissertation, provides a much-needed reevaluation of the Graeco-Roman corpus of grotesque miniatures. She sheds light on these often-overlooked figurines, arguing they “embodied a grand agenda of joys as well as of fears and social anxieties” (p.…
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Rhetorical Economy in Augustine’s Theology
8–13 minutesBrian Gronewoller, Rhetorical Economy in Augustine’s Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021). 9780197566558. Reviewed by Zachary Taylor, University of Chicago, zjtaylor@uchicago.edu. In Book IX of his Confessions, Augustine dramatically describes his retirement from an ambitious career as a rhetorician in the imperial Roman bureaucracy. In accordance with a frequent theme in the text up to this point, he draws a sharp contrast between the vain ambitions of his former peers and pupils at Milan and…
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Characterizing Old Greek Deuteronomy as an Ancient Translation
9–14 minutesJean Maurais, Characterizing Old Greek Deuteronomy as an Ancient Translation, Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 203 (Leiden: Brill, 2022). 9789004516571. Reviewed by Joseph Scales, University of Agder, joseph.scales@uia.no. Jean Maurais frames this study as an exploration of the active decisions made by the translator of the Old Greek (OG) Deuteronomy. Rather than viewing the translation of Deuteronomy as simply the rendering of a Hebrew text in Greek, he seeks to understand…
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Mediterranean Timescapes: Chronological Age and Cultural Practice in the Roman Empire
20–29 minutesRay 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…
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Aspar and the Struggle for the Eastern Roman Empire, AD 421–71
8–12 minutesRonald A. Bleeker, Aspar and the Struggle for the Eastern Roman Empire, AD 421–71 (New York: Bloomsbury, 2022). 9781350279261. Reviewed by Stuart McCunn, University of New Haven, smccunn@newhaven.edu. Ronald A. Bleeker’s Aspar and the Struggle for the Eastern Roman Empire, AD 421–71 is the first English-language biography of the East Roman warlord and patrician Aspar. Students of the fifth century will almost certainly recognize the name of the man who served as the chief power…
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Roman Self-Representation and the Lukan Kingdom of God
17–26 minutesMichael Kochenash, Roman Self-Representation and the Lukan Kingdom of God (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2020). 9781978707351. Reviewed by Robert D. Heaton, Anderson University, rdheaton@anderson.edu. Recent decades have witnessed no shortage of attempts to contextualize the two Lukan volumes that loom large over early Christian historiography. In particular, scholars have attempted to elucidate, among other worthy subjects, (1) the evangelist’s sources, (2) his proximity to the stories he narrates, and (3) his orientation with respect to the reigning…
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Atomism in the Aeneid: Physics, Politics, and Cosmological Disorder
7–10 minutesMatthew M. Gorey, Atomism in the Aeneid: Physics, Politics, and Cosmological Disorder (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021). 9780197518748. Reviewed by Robert E. Hedrick, III, University of South Florida, hedrick@usf.edu. Matthew Gorey’s recent monograph, Atomism in the Aeneid, presents an intriguing study of philosophical allusions in Virgil’s epic. The author argues that Virgil engages with Epicureanism as filtered through Lucretius’s De rerum natura not just as poetry but as philosophy. He claims that the poet…
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Roman Ionia: Constructions of Cultural Identity in Western Asia Minor
7–11 minutesMartin Hallmannsecker, Roman Ionia: Constructions of Cultural Identity in Western Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022). 9781009150187, 9781009158510. Reviewed by Joshua P. Nudell, Truman State University, jpnudell@gmail.com. Archaic Ionia has traditionally received the bulk of attention in Anglophone scholarship when compared to the region’s later history. This earlier period, it is often supposed, was when the cities of Ionia were free bastions of Greek culture where literature and philosophy flourished before being eclipsed by…
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Performing Gods in Classical Antiquity and the Age of Shakespeare
8–12 minutesDustin W. Dixon and John S. Garrison, Performing Gods in Classical Antiquity and the Age of Shakespeare (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021). 9781350098145. Reviewed by Amy K. Vandervelde, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, amykv2@illinois.edu. Dixon and Garrison posit that gods onstage can open doors to new ways of thinking about plays, focusing on cases from the classical world to the early modern era. The authors explain that the inclusion of gods within plays enhances metatheatricality, pointing…
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