posted with permission:

Edith Hall, Richard Alston, and Justine McConnell, eds., Ancient Slavery and Abolition: From Hobbes to Hollywood. Classical Presences. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Pp. xviii + 509. Hardcover, £90.00/$150.00. ISBN 978-0-19-957467-4.

Reviewed by Fábio Duarte Joly, Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto

The reception of ancient slavery in modern culture has been the subject of growing academic interest in recent decades. Ancient Slavery and Abolition: From Hobbes to Hollywood reinforces this trend by bringing together papers presented at an international conference held at the Centre for the Reception of Greece and Rome at Royal Holloway, University of London, in 2007, on the occasion of the bicentenary of the parliamentary act that abolished the slave trade in the British colonies. Within the domain of cultural history, the aim of the book is to provide studies of the non-academic reception of ancient slavery. After an introduction by Edith Hall, highlighting the themes and methodologies covered by the book, there are eleven chapters which deal with the appropriation of Greco-Roman ideas in debates about slavery in England, the United States and South Africa, in literature from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, and even in Hollywood. A postscript by Ahuvia Kahane on “Slavery, Abolition, Modernity, and the Past” concludes the book.

The first chapter, by Richard Alston, draws attention to a central point of the reception studies throughout the book. If, on the one hand, the appropriation of ancient ideas of slavery by various social agents during the modern period helped to minimize the otherness of the ancient slave system vis-à-vis modern ones, it also represented, on the other hand, a substantial rupture between Antiquity and modernity, since the respective notions of freedom and slavery were located in quite different socioeconomic and ontological contexts. Examining the concepts of freedom in Pliny the Younger and Hobbes, Alston indicates that while for the former, slavery and freedom were embedded in a web of social and status relations, for the latter freedom meant the absence of impediment to action, something inherent in every individual regardless of status. By reinforcing this liberal perspective, the insertion of transatlantic slavery in the capitalist system prevented any actual recovery of the intellectual background of ancient slavery. However, such a rupture did not prevent the generalized use of classical ideas in the debates about slavery triggered by abolitionism. This is illustrated by the numerous citations of the first book of the Politics of Aristotle by pro-slavery writers of the antebellum United States, a subject analyzed by S. Sara Monoson, and by appropriations of the image of Spartan helotage by British abolitionists, which reveal, as Stephen Hodkinson and Edith Hall argue, both positive and negative evaluations of this historical phenomenon according to the political interests and actors on scene. This ambivalence of the modern reception of ancient ideas about slavery is also noted in the chapters by John Hilton and Margaret Malamud, who treat the use of classical ideas in the abolition debates in South Africa and the antebellum U.S., respectively.

In this sense the figure of Prometheus, bound and unbound, analyzed by Edith Hall, proves to be a fine example of the difficulties of the appropriation of classical culture by the abolitionist movement, since it involved selecting some aspects akin to the abolitionist cause (such as victimhood and suffering) and discarding others related to social disorder (such as the desire for revenge). The presence of Greco-Roman culture in poetry, novels, historical accounts, and films related to abolitionism and its legacy is treated in five chapters. Brycchan Carey points out the relations between classical form and content in eighteenth-century abolitionist poetry and Emily Greenwood examines the work of Phillis Wheatley, an enslaved African poet in late eighteenth-century Boston. The novel The Last Days of Pompeii (1834) by Edward Bulwer is analyzed by Leanne Hunnings, who focuses on the characterization of Nydia, a blind slave. Lydia Langerwerf addresses L. R. James’ portrait of Toussaint L’Ouverture as influenced by the representation of two ancient slave rebels (Aristomenes of Messene, as depicted by Pausanias, and Drimakos, whose story is preserved in Athenaeus), while Justine McConnell demonstrates how the script of the film Sommersby (1993) was inspired by the plot of Homer’s Odyssey to represent the impact of slavery and abolition in the Deep South.

All these chapters have some points in common: the present-mindedness of the representation of ancient slavery, the tensions between the “outsideness” of slaves and their possibilities of actual agency, and the classical education of the modern writers. This latter theme is well explored in the chapter by David Lupher and Elizabeth Vandiver on Basil L. Gildersleeve, one of the founders of the professional study of Classics in the United States, who illustrates the close link between the development of classical studies and pro-slavery ideology.

In general, by its range of topics and insightful analysis of different sources, the book will surely give new impetus to reception studies. However, its focus on the Anglophone world suggests that future research should also consider the cultural framework of both pro- and antislavery movements in a broader Atlantic perspective. The Iberian slave system, for example, in which Brazil and Cuba played a central role, was strongly affected by the emergence of the British antislavery movement, the Revolution of Saint-Domingue, and the American Civil War. The debates on the abolition of slavery throughout the Iberian system also mobilized images of ancient slavery, and a comparison of them with those circulating in England, the United States, South Africa and the Caribbean would allow a more interconnected view—and one, therefore, less restricted to national boundaries—of what David Brion Davis has called the “problem of slavery in Western culture.”

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C. P. Cavafy, Selected Prose Works. Translated and annotated by Peter Jeffreys. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2010. Pp. xix + 163. Paperback, $24.95. ISBN 978-0-472-05095-6.

Reviewed by James Nikopoulos, Rutgers University

Despite the numerous translations into English of C.P. Cavafy’s poetry that have appeared in recent years—no less than seven in the last decade alone—Cavafy’s prose output has been ignored by translators. Peter Jeffreys has stepped in to fill this void. The result is an admirable compilation of a notoriously idiosyncratic body of work. Among the forty pieces included in this volume one finds essays and reflections on such diverse subjects as The Elgin Marbles to Shakespeare to Lycanthropy, written both in English and Greek. Jeffreys provides enough notes to allow the reader to contextualize each piece, and his translations of Cavafy’s Greek are accomplished and clear.

Thus the goal of introducing the non-specialist to heretofore neglected work has been achieved. However, as the one who has taken upon himself the responsibility of introducing Cavafy’s prose to a larger English-speaking audience, Jeffreys also takes on the responsibility of explaining it. To be more precise, Jeffreys is left with the unhappy task of trying to justify the presence of what is essentially mediocre work by one of the twentieth century’s greatest poets.

That this is a task the book feels obliged to perform comes across clearly in the introduction, in which the reader is presented with what amounts to a series of excuses for why the Alexandrian’s prose is so inferior to his poetry. My problem is not that Jeffreys does this, for it needs to be done. Any reader of Cavafy’s poetry expecting to come across the same caliber of thought and style in these pieces as one habitually finds in the poems will be strongly disappointed; therefore some explanation is in order. My problem then is not the presence of a defense but how Jeffreys goes about formulating it.

The Introduction begins by pinning the blame on necessity:

Cavafy’s Greek readership expected a peculiar style of learned journalism that consisted of a formulaic blend of encyclopedic dilettantism interspersed with choice translations of foreign authors and foreign journalists.

Many of these pieces are journalistic, thus Cavafy had to keep an eye firmly fixed on the requirements of the job, but to pin the blame on an expected readership is an inadequate explanation for lackluster work, especially when one considers that many of these pieces were either never published or remained fragments. Jeffreys continues in this vein in the following sentence:

The fact that the literary preferences of late nineteenth-century fin-de-siècle readers diverged greatly from those of the early twentieth century and post-World War I era—the period during which Cavafy found his mature poetic voice—surely induced Cavafy to view his early prose as unfashionably dated and even embarrassingly pretentious.

It is as though the zeitgeist is more to blame for a writer’s immature work rather than the author’s immaturity itself.

Jeffreys’s comments also speak negatively of Cavafy’s use of katharevousa—the artificial language that emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with a view towards “cleansing” modern Greek of its foreign impurities. He writes:

As nearly all prose during this period was written in puristic Greek, Cavafy had to display his journalistic mastery of this cumbersome idiom for the public while simultaneously satisfying his more private creative impulses, attempting in the process to craft a lucid, effective and learned prose.

It is true that Cavafy progressively moved away from katharevousa in his writing, both in his prose and his poetry, but Jeffreys implies that Cavafy’s early use of it was a kind of necessary evil, as though forced against his will to cultivate an unwanted idiom. Cavafy, however, is not like the many Greek writers of the twentieth century who argued against the unnatural language. He is even recorded to have been disgusted by the debate between katharevousa and demotic, stating that both sides aimed to “throw half our language away.”[[1]] Jeffreys himself admits that Cavafy did not consider katherevousa to be such a horrible thing. The lead note to the essay, “Professor Blackie on the Modern Greek Language,” reads: “John Stuart Blackie, Professor of Greek at the University of Edinburgh, was, like Cavafy, favourably disposed towards the purist ‘katharevousa’.”

Professor Jeffreys’s best means of defending these pieces is also the most obvious. As he writes, the prose “remains fertile ground for furthering our critical understanding and evolving appreciation of the poet.” Thus, whenever possible, the notes seek to connect the piece at hand to Cavafy’s verse. For example, we learn that the essay, “Coral from a Mythological Perspective,” testifies to Cavafy’s lifelong interest in ancient mineralogy, which can be seen in the poems “Indian Image” and “The Footsteps” as well as in the prose poem “The Ships.” Why Jeffreys would fail to mention that coral also appears in perhaps Cavafy’s most famous poem, “Ithaka,” I do not quite understand.

Despite these flaws, there is much that deserves praise here, especially considering the lackluster material Jeffreys is presenting. The defense he offers may be flawed, but the spirit behind it is commendable. Overall, for those seeking that quintessential Cavafy voice, the prose works are sure to disappoint. However, anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Cavafy’s development as a thinker and as a writer will surely find much to his liking in this volume.

NOTE

[[1]] See Roderick Beaton, An Introduction to Modern Greek Literature (Oxford 2004) 338 n. Beaton’s note also mentions a review Cavafy never published in his lifetime of the second edition of H. Pernot’s Grammaire du Grec Moderne (1917), in which Cavafy makes his most overt comments on the “Language Question.” This review can be found in the standard edition of Cavafy’s prose: Πιερής, Μιχάλης. Κ.Π. Καβάφης: Τα Πεζά (1882–1931) (Athens: Ikaros, 2003). The review is not included among Jeffreys’s translations.

posted with permission:

David Potter, The Victor’s Crown: A History of Ancient Sport from Homer to Byzantium. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. (First published in the UK by Quercus, 2011.) Pp. xxx + 416. Paperback, $24.95. ISBN 978-0-19-984275-9.

Reviewed by Stephen Brunet, University of New Hampshire

The last decade has seen a series of introductions to ancient sports, all by authors possessing both extensive experience teaching this subject and substantial scholarly achievements to their credit.[[1]] To this collection can now be added The Victor’s Crown, which reflects the many years David Potter has spent researching Roman entertainment and teaching classes on ancient sports. Potter is particularly concerned with presenting the history of the ancient games in a way that will be readily understandable and appealing to non-specialists. Yet when considered as a potential textbook (as is the focus of this review), this approach can represent a drawback. In trying to make the story of the ancient games straightforward and compelling, Potter sometimes glosses over cases where students need to be informed that the evidence presents us with problems or that scholars hold widely divergent opinions about significant phenomena.

After an introduction pointing out how ancient and modern society share an interest in watching competitive sports, Potter proceeds in the first three chapters to cover the various topics involving Greek athletics that students would normally encounter in a sports course, such as Homeric sports and what it was like to attend the Olympics. A few subjects, notably athletic nudity, are treated in less depth than some teachers might like. This is balanced out by the fact that others, notably the gymnasiarchical law of Beroia and athletics under the Ptolemies, receive more attention than in similar books. Not surprising given his research interests, Potter devotes the last two chapters, nearly half the work, to the Roman games including some less commonly treated topics like the fate of the games as Constantinople became the center of the empire. While the nature of the evidence used to reconstruct the history of the ancient games is not specifically discussed, a student would get a good sense of the written sources from the many passages quoted, including from some less familiar authors like John Malalas. Visual evidence is not particularly prominent but the twenty-three nicely reproduced color illustrations include the “before and after” of the Minoan bull-jumping fresco (the re-restoration removed any evidence for the participation of women) and two wall paintings from Paestum with early evidence for gladiatorial combat and chariot racing.

More than other introductions to Greek and Roman sports, Potter’s arrangement of topics appears to be governed by his sense of how best to convey the story of ancient athletics to readers with little prior knowledge of the ancient world. So instead of treating all the Olympic events in a separate section, as is standard in most books, Potter combines his description of the various events with a discussion of nudity and of the agony of competing in the Olympics under the heading “Winning.” In the process of trying to show readers that the history of ancient athletics does not just involve technical details, he brings to the fore some interesting features of the ancient games. For example, his thoughts on the parallels between the diets of modern and ancient athletes (139–44) would certainly provoke some discussion among the kinesiology students I have taught. As well, his extensive list of tombstones set up by the wives of gladiators (259) suggests that we may have underestimated the number of gladiators who were free men or were freed during their careers. Above all, Potter constantly has his eye on making sure the reader realizes that ancient sports did not develop in a vacuum, as he does in his lively section on athletics and the polis (“Sport and Civic Virtue”).

Potter is largely successful in his attempt to tell the story of Greek and Roman sports in a compelling fashion. In the process, however, students do not always receive an adequate overview of the field, as can be seen with Potter’s discussion of the role of women in ancient sports (Chap. 25). First, some of his suggestions are sufficiently controversial that he needed to explain more fully the basis of his views. Contrary to his assertion (255), Domitian did include women in his Capitoline games, unless Potter has some unexpressed reason to disbelieve Dio (67.8.1–9.1) and Suetonius (Dom. 4). Conversely, Potter is the first scholar, to my knowledge, to assert that Nero imported female Spartan wrestlers to compete in his Greek games (255). However, the evidence he cites needed to be discussed in some detail; otherwise students will be in the dark about why some scholars might have reservations about his claim.[[2]] A more important gap is that no mention is made of the Heraia at Olympia. As a result, students would not realize that scholars have long debated whether these races were truly athletic or constituted a ritual like the ceremonies for Artemis at Brauron.

While the average reader is likely to find The Victor’s Crown an enjoyable account of the ancient games, it probably does not represent the best choice as a textbook for a sports or classical civilization class. Because Potter tends to be discursive and to eschew technical terminology wherever possible, students would find it hard to determine quickly, say, the dates individual events were introduced in the Olympics or the parts of the Roman circus. Yet I could see assigning or suggesting particular sections to students, since Potter is successful in conveying the sense that understanding the Greeks and Romans requires understanding why their games developed as they did.

NOTES

[[1]] Some of these introductions deal solely with Greek athletics: S. Miller, Ancient Greek Athletics (2004) and Z. Newby, Athletics in the Ancient World (2006); others like Potter treat the Roman world as well: D. Kyle, Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World (2007) and N. Crowther, Sport in Ancient Times (2007); and some just the Roman world: A. Futrell, The Roman Games (2005) (strictly a source book but with a substantial amount of commentary interspersed among the selections). This list is not exhaustive but includes those works which I have had the most experience using with students.

[[2]] He cites the scholium to Juvenal 4.53 but that note simply says that Palfurius Sura wrestled [it may mean “competed”] during the reign of Nero. It is the less than trustworthy Gregorius Valla who says that Palfurius wrestled during the reign of Nero with a Spartan girl in some unspecified contest, not specifically in Nero’s games. Potter also needs to explain why Suetonius would have ignored such a remarkable event.

posted with permission:

M. Rahim Shayegan, Arsacids and Sasanians: Political Ideology in Post-Hellenistic and Late Antique Persia. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Pp. xxx + 539. 9 b/w figs.; 7 maps; 15 tables. Hardcover, £65.00/$110.00. ISBN 978-0-521-76641-8.

Reviewed by Jan P. Stronk, Universiteit van Amsterdam

In this book, aimed at a specialized audience, Shayegan investigates the political ideology of the (early) Persian Sasanian empire. Shayegan envisages such a political ideology in the shape of an “Achaemenid revival,” that may have caused an (alleged) expansionist policy towards the Roman empire. The structure of the book appears conventional: an introduction (“Achaemenids and Sasanians”), four chapters (“Sasanian epigraphy”; “Classical sources: Dio, Herodian, Ammianus Marcellinus”; “Arsacids and Sasanians”; “Imitatio veternae Helladis and imitatio Alexandri in Rome”), followed by conclusion, epilogue, appendix, bibliography, and indices. However, the size of the chapters greatly diverges and so does their importance. Chapter one numbers 15 pages, Chapter two merely 9, and Chapter four 37; Chapter three, on the other hand, numbers some 292 pages and is divided in five subchapters, some of them split up into separate parts. The evident interrelation between the different chapters suggests that they might have been arranged in a more balanced way.

Much of the knowledge regarding the Achaemenid empire had vanished during the third century BC in the Near East. Nevertheless, the Arsacids (rulers of the Parthian empire) reinstated the Achaemenid title “King of Kings” (šar šarrāni in Babylonian cuneiform texts dating to the Arsacid period). After the Arsacids had conquered Mesopotamia in 141 BC, Greek and Roman authors suspected them of aiming for a reconstitution of the former frontiers of the Achaemenid empire. Up to now, mainstream conviction has held that the Arsacid “Achaemenid renascence” emanated from Iranian quarters, even though written tradition in Persia itself was very weak: in the medieval Šāhnāmeh, the Epic of Kings, no Achaemenid kings, apart from Darius III (and Alexander the Great, as some will assert) figure. To be honest, apart from some 20 lines, the Parthians (in Persian: the Aškāniān) are absent as well, underlining a firm Sasanian origin of this work.

In spite of the testimonies of some sources, Shayegan makes sufficiently clear that the Arsacid connection with the Achaemenids “owed its existence to the permanence of the Babylonian cuneiform tradition … which held records of Achaemenid history,” as he summarizes the situation (elaborated in Chapter three) on page xiii. This tradition linked both empires, creating a sense of historical continuity and notion of empire. The Arsacids got in touch with the Kingdom of Pontos as well and became thereby aware of how Pontos referred to the Achaemenids to sustain its political legitimacy. Pontos and Babylon thus formed the substratum on which both the “political ideology and cultural identity of the Arsacid empire was formed” (xiii). Shayegan moreover underlines that the Arsacid state was a highly centralized and ubiquitous state, an omnipresence to some extent served by Greek officials and reflected in the Babylonian documents as well. All these factors contributed to a successful state, in which similar values emerged as under the Achaemenids. Altogether, Shayegan adduces sufficient evidence to question the exclusive right of the traditional ascription of the “Achaemenid revival” under the early Arsacids.

Like the Arsacids before them, the Sasanians also were accused in Greek and Latin sources in the third and fourth centuries AD (namely Cassius Dio, Herodian, and Ammianus Marcellinus) of harboring ambitions to reconstitute the Achaemenid empire. Whether this was a mere topos for those authors or their allegation was based on their ability to value actual developments remains to be seen. Cassius Dio is outspoken, but the evidence is too scanty to allow firm conclusions; Herodian’s account is essentially based upon Dio’s. Though Ammianus’ scope is much wider, and may even have a Persian core, it is colored as well. Moreover, one might question how the Sasanians could have acquired any direct knowledge regarding the Achaemenids.

It seems unlikely that there was any (local) literary evidence on the Achaemenids in Sasanian times. Shayegan argues that the Sasanians became predominantly acquainted with the Achaemenids through Roman agency—largely as a consequence of the Romans’ policy (notably under the Severi) to assume Hellenistic ideals, the imitatio Alexandri referred to in Chapter four. Thereby the Romans essentially created their own enemy, presenting him with an almost ready-to-use ideology in the bargain. The literary evidence appears, however, too weak to prove decisively that early Sasanian territorial ambitions did go much further than Mesopotamia, Syria, and Armenia, in spite of those very literary sources. I believe, though, that Shayegan might well be right to assert that the idea expressed by Greek and Roman authors on Sasanian expansion should be regarded as a topos. If there ever was a coherent ideology in post-Hellenistic and late antique Persia, it has, so far at least, not yet unequivocally emerged from local sources.

I find Shayegan’s approach to the issue under scrutiny challenging, but am not yet completely convinced. His focus is predominantly on textual evidence, restrictedly on oral tradition, a very enduring phenomenon in largely illiterate societies. I would have welcomed an elaboration of his views in that field as well. The numismatic evidence is well used, as is art historical (Shayegan calls it archaeological) material. The Appendix (372–429: no page numbers present) is a welcome chronological table of published Arsacid cuneiform documents. The bibliography (430–502) is extensive, the indices (general, Greek terms, and locorum [with subdivisions]) are excellent.

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Michael Pitassi, Roman Warships. Rochester, New York: Boydell Press, 2011. Pp. xii + 191. Hardcover, $90.00. ISBN 978-1-84383-610-0.

Reviewed by Georgia L. Irby, The College of William and Mary

Like Michael Pitassi’s first book on Roman maritime culture (The Navies of Rome, Rochester, 2009), Roman Warships offers more for the general reader than the specialist. This volume, useful for its generous and rich illustrations, technical in tone, affirms an understanding of ships and the underlying technology and engineering. Pitassi’s projected reconstructions of ship types are reasonable and logical, albeit speculative, as he himself frequently admits. His historical contextualizations are valid but generalizing. His work with visual sources is cautious, skeptical and informative: he asks, for example, how accurate are the 16th century drawings of the column of Arcadius, destroyed by earthquake in 1715 (p. 167). The treatment of written sources (primary and secondary) is less satisfactory. One wonders if Pitassi consulted the sources in the original languages. His bibliography includes only translations of primary sources (without supporting data, including place and date of publication), and he often refers to accounts as already filtered by other scholars: e.g., he cites Lionel Casson, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Baltimore 1995) for Pliny on the use of cork floats used as mooring marker buoys and life preservers (pp. 175, 176 n. 4; see Casson, 257; Pliny, NH 16.34; Pausanias 8.12.1; Lucian, Toxaris 20). Citations are more frequently vague than helpful: for the spread of quadriremes, and Alexander’s use of them at Tyre, Pitassi (pp. 89, 113 n. 2) cites Casson (supra) without specifying a page number (Casson’s study comprises 370 pages of text, and 197 illustrations!). For Alexander at Tyre, see Casson, 97-98; Arr. Anab. 2.22.3-5. For the “sexteres” in the fleet of Sextus Pompeius off Sicily in 36 BCE, Pitassi (pp. 90, 113 n. 6) vaguely points the reader to Appian, Civil Wars (five books of over 100 chapters each; for which see App. BC 5.71, 73; Casson, supra, 99 n. 6). Finally, there are slips in historical and cultural comparanda and anecdotes. One example: Hadrian did not visit all of the provinces, contra Pitassi, (p. 134). Neither literary nor archaeological evidence attests Hadrian’s presence in Aquitania, Lusitania, Sardinia, Corsica, Crete, Cyrene, or Cyprus.

Nine chapters divide into two parts: “Interpretation” (Part I) consisting of three general chapters on sources, terminology, and ship Technische; and “The Ships” (Part II) comprising five technical chapters devoted chronologically to ship types. In his “Introduction” (Ch. 1), Pitassi addresses problems with extant sources. Despite over 1,000 recorded wrecks, no actual ship, military or merchant, survives intact. Literary sources refer to, but fail to describe in detail, the ships (Caesar rightly assumed that his readers were sufficiently familiar with Roman warships: BG 4.24-25; BC 1.36, 2.23). Visual sources are interpretive, stylized, and selective by nature (coins show usually only the prow of a ship or a ram, but never the entire vessel). Pitassi treats the universal components of ancient ships in two chapters “Interpreting the Sources” (Ch. 2) and “Fittings” (Ch. 3). Pitassi’s accessible précis of the complex systems of oars developed by the Greeks, bolstered by clearly labeled and plentiful illustrations, including his own models, neither advances nor refutes earlier accounts (e.g., J. S. Morrison and R. T. Williams, Greek Oared Ships, 900–322 B.C. (Cambridge 1968)). The author addresses nautical mechanics (pp. 21–6), exploring technical considerations of mechanical efficiency, the vertical and horizontal challenges of propelling a vehicle by oar power, and the ideal maximum sizes of ships (including ratios of length to beam, and height to draft). Helpful also is Pitassi’s catalogue of ship fittings (Ch. 3) including components (figureheads, foredecks, etc.), rigging (sails and lines), and equipment (artillery, pumps, gangways), with references to literary sources and material remains.

In the second part, Pitassi turns his attentions specifically to Roman warships, cataloguing the types chronologically: Ch. 4, “The Earliest Types: Eighth to Fourth Centuries BC”; Ch. 5, “Naval Ascendancy: Third to Second Centuries BC”; Ch. 6, “Civil Wars and Imperial Fleets: First Centuries BC and AD” (when smaller river craft begin to evolve); Ch. 7, “Height of Empire: Second to Third Centuries AD” (a period of largely unchallenged maritime domination, when the fleet is neglected for the army in the field); Ch. 8, “The Late Empire: Fourth and Fifth Centuries AD” (although Roman sources are abysmally lacking, there survive useful comparanda with contemporary ships of northern Europe; at this time the fleets of the northern provinces were strengthened with the development of new ship types including the triaconter and lusoria); Ch. 9, “Terminus” (on the late empire). Each chapter begins with historical contextualization and then launches into descriptions of each type as prevalent during a given military era: monoreme, bireme, trireme, quinquereme, quadrireme, liburna, celox (a descriptor rather than a type), exploratoriae, lusoria, and others. The subsections detailing the types include discussion of the evolution of the type, its adaptation from other forms, tactical merits and disadvantages, and projected dimensions, including suggested crew strengths, length, beam, and draft. Interesting are Pitassi’s final remarks on the continuity of the Roman naval tradition (the technology was never rendered obsolete, and new types developed only in answer to specific purposes, such as riverine patrol), and its enduring legacy (the poop deck is the puppis; a skiff, small boat, a scapha).

Pitassi’s work concludes with four constructive appendices: App. 1, “Service Lives of Ship Types” (a quick and ready spreadsheet of the chronology of the types); App. 2, “Types of Roman Warships”; App. 3, “Gazetteer: Where to See Roman Boats and Ships”; App. 4, “Glossary of Nautical Terms Used”(sufficiently accurate, but inviting some quibbles, e.g., s.v. “LATEEN,” Pitassi omits that such sails are triangular; s.v. “RIG,” any self-respecting sailor would shudder at the use of “rope” for “line”).

The book does not pretend to be something that it is not and, for the most part, succeeds in accomplishing the author’s aims, quibbles aside. The novice will be well-served, and academics who focus on non-maritime aspects of Roman history will find here a handy précis of Roman warships, their capabilities, and their weaknesses.