Reviews
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Antioch in Syria: A History from Coins (300 BCE–450 CE)
21–31 minutesKristina M. Neumann, Antioch in Syria: A History from Coins (300 BCE–450 CE) (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 2021). 9781108837149. Reviewed by Melissa Ludke, Florida State University, mludke@fsu.edu. Reminiscent of Christopher Howgego’s Ancient History from Coins (London: Routledge, 1995), Neumann’s ambitious numismatic survey of Antioch in Syria, originally based on her dissertation, provides just that: a chronological historical narrative of the ancient city that demonstrates the applicability of numismatic data for unraveling the complexity that…
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Military Departures, Homecomings and Death in Classical Athens: Hoplite Transitions
8–12 minutesOwen Rees, Military Departures, Homecomings and Death in Classical Athens: Hoplite Transitions (New York: Bloomsbury, 2022). 9781350188648. Reviewed by Stuart McCunn, University of New Haven, smccunn@newhaven.edu. Military Departures, Homecomings and Death in Classical Athens is a monograph that positions itself to play an important role in the debate about PTSD in the ancient world. Was it present and can we legitimately attempt to diagnose it from offhand references at such a great remove? To what…
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Imagining Ithaca: Nostos and Nostalgia Since the Great War
14–20 minutesKathleen Riley, Imagining Ithaca: Nostos and Nostalgia Since the Great War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021). Benjamin Jasnow, William Jewell College, jasnowb@william.jewell.edu. Kathleen Riley has written a richly ornamented appraisal of nostalgia in works of literature, film, theater, and television since the end of World War I. Riley situates each modern work within its social, historical, and cultural context, so that each brief essay provides a window into the world of the work and its…
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New Rome: The Empire in the East
10–16 minutesPaul Stephenson, New Rome: The Empire in the East (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2022). 9780674659629. Reviewed by Andrew J. Pottenger, Nazarene Bible College/Kansas Christian College, ajpott@hotmail.com. This latest offering by Paul Stephenson (noted for his earlier biography of Constantine) focuses on the end of Greco-Roman civic life in the Eastern Roman Empire by examining a wide range of evidence beyond merely literary and archaeological sources.1 His particular interest is to apply recent trends in environmental science—such…
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Lapithos Vrysi tou Barba, Cyprus: Early and Middle Bronze Age Tombs Excavated in 1913; Tombs 1–47
11–16 minutesJennifer M. Webb, Lapithos Vrysi tou Barba, Cyprus: Early and Middle Bronze Age Tombs Excavated in 1913; Tombs 1–47 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021). 9782503590950. Reviewed by Laura Ursprung Nerling, Columbia College, lsursprungnerlin@ccis.edu. Originally excavated in 1913 by Leonard Halford Dudley Buxton, under direction of John Linton Myres and in cooperation with then Director of the Cyprus Museum Menelaos Markides, Vrysi tou Barba and its associated objects finally received a thorough study and treatment by Jennifer M.…
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Continuity and Rupture in Roman Mediterranean Gaul: An Archaeology of Colonial Transformations at Ancient Lattara
5–8 minutesBenjamin P. Luley, Continuity and Rupture in Roman Mediterranean Gaul: An Archaeology of Colonial Transformations at Ancient Lattara. Oxford & Philadelphia: Oxbow Books, 2020. 9781789255669. Reviewed by Vivian A. Laughlin, Wake Forest University, laughlv@wfu.edu. This book is a study about Ancient Lattara, an ancient Etruscan port city in southern France, south of Montpellier, that synthesizes over 35 years of archaeological data from 500 BC to AD 200, which includes transformations between the Celtic, Etruscans, Greeks,…
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The Triumph and Trade of Egyptian Objects in Rome: Collecting Art in the Ancient Mediterranean
13–20 minutesStephanie Pearson, The Triumph and Trade of Egyptian Objects in Rome: Collecting Art in the Ancient Mediterranean, Image & Context, Volume 20 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021). 9783110700893. Reviewed by Katherine A. P. Iselin, Emporia State University, iselinkatherine@gmail.com. In The Triumph and Trade of Egyptian Objects in Rome: Collecting Art in the Ancient Mediterranean, Stephanie Pearson sets out to accomplish one critical goal: to place Egyptian art objects properly within the milieu of Roman art, as…
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The Grotesque in Roman Love Elegy
11–16 minutesPietropaolo, Mariapia, The Grotesque in Roman Love Elegy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). 9781108488693. Reviewed by Natalie J. Swain, University of Winnipeg, nataliejswain@gmail.com. The aesthetics of love in Roman elegy is a prevalent theme throughout the surviving elegiac texts. In accounts of the amorous relationships of Roman men (and occasionally women) with the beautiful of their city, the elegiac puella (and iuvenis) is often defined by their beauty. In Pietropaolo’s book, however, the author takes…
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Leadership and Initiative in Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome
12–18 minutesRoman M. Frolov and Christopher Burden-Strevens, eds., Leadership and Initiative in Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome, Mnemosyne Supplements 453 (Leiden: Brill, 2022). 9789004511408. Reviewed by Stephanie Murphy, University of North Texas, Stephaniemurphy3@my.unt.edu. When we study Roman politics, we often consider how the political systems should have worked (and how those same systems crumbled). In Roman M. Frolov and Christopher Burden-Strevens’s collection of eighteen essays, the contributors seek to look beyond the formal political structures…
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Greek Cities and Roman Governors: Placing Power in Imperial Asia Minor
12–18 minutesGarrett Ryan, Greek Cities and Roman Governors: Placing Power in Imperial Asia Minor (Abingdon: Routledge, 2022). 9780367756840 Reviewed by Fraser Reed, Independent Scholar, FraserReed2@gmail.com In Greek Cities and Roman Governors: Placing Power in Imperial Asia Minor, Garrett Ryan provides an innovative exploration of how the built environment of provincial cities in western Asia Minor shaped perceptions of imperial and gubernatorial power among the urban populace from the late first to early third century CE. The…
Rhea Classical Reviews 