Bryn Mawr Classical Review

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L'autore, osservando giustamente (p. 271 n. 1) che non esistono, a tutt'oggi, degli studi globali su molti scrittori del cristianesimo antico, come Origene, Atanasio, Didimo e altri, intende colmare questa lacuna con il presente lavoro, dedicato a Gregorio Nazianzeno. Il suo intento è riuscito, perché questo studio, molto attento e informato, ci presenta la teologia di Gregorio Nazianzeno mediante una interpretazione anch'essa strettamente teologica. Tuttavia Gregorio fu un pensatore di particolare versatilità e di molteplici interessi, tanto che la sua figura, nonostante la fama di teologo che egli ebbe a partire dal Concilio di Calcedonia, fu celebre anche per la retorica, la poesia e l'oratoria--e questo è asserito, in fondo, dall'autore stesso alla p. vii della prefazione.

Ciò premesso, l'interpretazione di Beeley intende prescindere, come egli spiega nel corso della Introduction (pp. viii - ix), da ogni lettura filosofica. A nostro parere, se l'approccio a Gregorio, come era stato eseguito negli ultimi anni del XIX secolo (in pieno positivismo e secondo i criteri della Quellenforschung) e nei primi decenni del XX secolo, era sicuramente angusto e non rendeva giustizia al teologo, negli ultimi decenni del XX secolo tale lettura era stata abbandonata, ed anche noi (ci sembrava) avevamo sempre osservato che l'etichetta di Gregorius Nazianzenus platonicus era inadeguata. Questo non significava che la elaborazione teologica non potesse servirsi anche delle categorie filosofiche, che erano quelle che Gregorio aveva appreso insieme alla istruzione fornitagli dalla tradizione cristiana. A p. 215 n. 89 Beeley afferma: 'In any event, Gregory is not trying to establish a philosophical doctrine of a unified divine Triad. As Pinault comments, even if is making an allusion to Plotinus, this text does not indicate any serious Neoplatonic influence'. Ma se prescindiamo del tutto da 'any serious Neoplatonic influence', noi interpretiamo Gregorio in modo astratto e non riusciamo a collocarlo nel modo giusto nella cultura cristiana del quarto secolo; perché ci manca la definizione della sua realtà storica. L'importante è vedere in che modo la tradizione cristiana si è espressa mediante categorie (neo)platoniche: questo è, a nostro parere, il modo più equilibrato di intendere la teologia del cristianesimo antico. Come potremmo altrimenti comprendere Clemente, Origene, Basilio, Gregorio di Nissa e lo Pseudo Dionigi? Questa esigenza potrebbe essere adattata a tutti i teologi del cristianesimo antico.

Premessa questa osservazione di metodo, la interpretazione teologica di Beeley è caratterizzata dallo sforzo di unificare le tematiche cristologiche, pneumatologiche e trinitarie.

La prefazione è interessante anche per altri motivi. Beeley non è convinto che esista una omogeneità di pensiero tra i Padri Cappadoci, la quale sarebbe, a suo parere, una ricostruzione della critica della fine dell'Ottocento e dei decenni successivi (p. viii). Altri studiosi, in effetti (ad esempio Chr. Markschies), convergono su questa interpretazione, e non si può negare che le divergenze sul piano dottrinale all'interno del presunto gruppo dei Cappadoci siano notevoli. Lo stesso Beeley le mette in evidenza con molta precisione nel capitolo conclusivo (pp. 292-309). Eppure io aderisco alla opinione tradizionale, perché le diversità di opinioni, anche grandi, sono il prodotto inevitabile di grandi personalità. Non credo che l'attribuzione a Basilio del ruolo di maestro sia stata solo la conseguenza dell'encomio che Gregorio ne fece nell'orazione 43: questo ruolo è costantemente riconosciuto sia dal Nazianzeno (almeno fino al 372) sia dal Nisseno (almeno fino al Contra Eunomium e alla Vita Macrinae, cioè fino al periodo centrale della sua vita). Se il Nazianzeno non ricorda mai Basilio nel periodo cruciale di Costantinopoli (379-381), né il Nisseno negli ultimi anni della sua vita, il Nazianzeno può essere stato spinto da un certo risentimento nei confronti dell'amico per il ben noto affare di Sasima, ed il Nisseno da interessi divergenti da quelli della teologia trinitaria. Ma in ambito trinitario e per molti aspetti della cultura filosofica (che però Beeley, come abbiamo visto, non intende considerare), il Nazianzeno e il Nisseno rielaborano -- anche distanziandosi -- dottrine basiliane. Abbiamo cercato di dimostrarlo in un nostro studio (I Padri Cappadoci, Città Nuova, Roma 2008), nel quale abbiamo inglobato nell'ambiente di Basilio, del Nazianzeno e del Nisseno anche due personalità che circolarono attorno ad essi: Amfilochio di Iconio ed Evagrio Pontico.

A p. ix Beeley sostiene che 'unique among modern studies, this book interprets Gregory's doctrine on the basis of his entire corpus of orations, poems, and letters, rather than focusing primarily on the famous Theological Orations and Christological epistles, which have too easily been misunderstood when read in isolation from other texts'. In realtà, le epistole e le poesie non suscitano l'interesse di Beeley e sono raramente impiegate nella sua trattazione.

Due precisazioni terminologiche di p. ix e 10 n. 27 vogliono mettere in guardia da pericoli di falsa interpretazione; in realtà la precisazione è ovvia e i pericoli non sono così gravi. La prima è che l'aggettivo 'trinitario', impiegato in espressioni come 'dottrina trinitaria' o 'teologia trinitaria', non vuole indicare un particolare modello, teoria o struttura della Trinità, ma significa semplicemente qualcosa che riguarda la Trinità. Ma è ovvio che la dottrina trinitaria di Basilio è diversa da quella di Eunomio. La seconda è che i termini 'nicene' e 'pro-Nicene' sono usati soprattutto per riferirsi a figure e dottrine associate con il Credo e il Concilio di Nicea, piuttosto che con un significato tecnico, dottrinale, nel qual caso è usato (da Beeley) comunemente il termine 'trinitario'.

L'introduzione (pp. 4-62) contiene la biografia di Gregorio ed un inquadramento storico della sua epoca e della sua vita: è, quindi, una introduzione alla trattazione teologica. La biografia si accosta molto a quella, di primaria importanza, scritta da Mc Guckin nel 2001. È, questa, una buona interpretazione della vita di Gregorio, nella quale la sintesi storica è sostenuta anche da testi di non frequente utilizzazione, come le epistole papali di Damaso e altri documenti occidentali in lingua latina. Altre interpretazioni di B:, che sono sicuramente da accogliere, riguardano lo scarso ruolo che Atanasio ebbe nella formazione del pensiero di Gregorio (p. 25 e 277-284) (e questo vale anche per Basilio). Beeley sottolinea, inoltre, il ruolo che ebbero gli Antiocheni (ed in particolare Diodoro) sia nella opposizione politica a Gregorio sia nella formulazione di una dottrina per lui inaccettabile (ad esempio per quello che riguarda la pneumatologia). La questione è molto difficile, perché i riferimenti di Gregorio agli Antiocheni non sono mai espliciti, e se avessimo trovato, in questo libro, maggiori spiegazioni a questo riguardo, sarebbe stato opportuno: la ostilità tra i Cappadoci e gli Antiocheni, invece, è data come ovvia. Non sono invece d'accordo su dei particolari, anche se non essenziali per la biografia di Gregorio, come a ritenere che l'idea della 'tirannia' subita da Gregorio ad opera del padre sia nella ordinazione sacerdotale sia in quella episcopale sia una invenzione di Gregorio stesso: le ordinazioni forzate erano comuni, e spesso si cercava di evitarle, con maggiore o minore successo, come mostrano i casi di Ambrogio, Gerolamo e Agostino. È giusta, infine, l'asserzione che troppo si è insistito, sulla base delle poesie, composte da Gregorio per la massima parte dopo il suo abbandono del Concilio, sulla accentuata malinconia che caratterizzava la sua personalità. Secondo Beeley e Mc Guckin, essa deriverebbe da una forma di 'autoritratto' voluto dal Nazianzeno stesso; secondo altri (ad esempio, Carmelo Crimi), il Nazianzeno fu un intellettuale autorevole nella Cappadocia del 380-390, come dimostrano soprattutto le sue poesie raggruppate alla fine della edizione di Patrologia Graeca, vol. 38. A parte alcuni altri dettagli della narrazione della vita di Gregorio, la conclusione di Beeley è sicuramente esatta, ma contrasta con quel rifiuto di impiegare la filosofia nell'interpretazione della teologia di Gregorio, a cui sopra abbiamo fatto riferimento. Gregorio, secondo Beeley, costru� una onnicomprensiva, classica paideia cristiana, centrata sulla confessione della Trinità. Il suo corpus è la più chiara dimostrazione dell'uso della letteratura classica al servizio della cultura cristiana e la risposta più chiara al tentativo di censura da parte dell'imperatore Giuliano (pp. 61-62).

Il primo capitolo ('God and the Theologian', pp. 63-113) è nel complesso giusto, ma non particolarmente nuovo. Esso è incentrato sul significato della purificazione quale propedeutica alla conoscenza e allo studio della teologia e alla concomitanza purificazione -- illuminazione. La purificazione, in sostanza, per Gregorio significa la rinuncia al peccato o la sua cancellazione, non implica una particolare forma di ascesi, tanto più se paragonata a quella di Macrina o di Basilio (p. 74). La sua fu un'ascesi moderata e culturale ('scholarly'), che fece di Gregorio il pioniere della forma urbana del monachesimo bizantino e per questo motivo pari, per influenza, a quello di Basilio. Quando noi abbiamo sottolineato il parallelismo tra l'ascesi di Gregorio e quella di Platone o di Plotino non abbiamo affatto ipotizzato precipitosamente il predominio della dottrina platonica sulla cristianità di origine biblica, in Gregorio, ma esattamente il contrario, cioè che Gregorio si serv� di espressioni e di concetti platonici per esprimere la sua concezione della ascesi cristiana. La purificazione, quindi, riguarda non solamente il corpo, ma anche l'anima. In questo Gregorio fu, più degli altri due Cappadoci, fedele discepolo di Origene (p. 75) -- e l'influsso di Origene sulla teologia di Gregorio è sottolineato molte altre volte da Beeley Il Nazianzeno intende distogliere il cristiano dalla convinzione che la ragione da sola sia sufficiente per la conoscenza di Dio e convincerlo che la fede è il compimento della ragione, come intitola un ottimo saggio di Norris. In questo modo il cristiano può accedere alla teologia trinitaria (p. 113).

Con il capitolo secondo, dedicato a 'Jesus Christ, the Son of God' (pp. 115-151), si entra nel cuore della interpretazione teologica di Gregorio. Cristo è, secondo il Nazianzeno, non tanto un problema della controversia trinitaria, ma il Figlio di Dio, la cui divinità è essenziale per il cristiano, perché gli procura la divinizzazione, rende il cristiano divinizzato. Questo è avvenuto in quanto il Figlio di Dio ha assunto la natura umana. Su questa esigenza della divinizzazione del cristiano, causata specificamente della realtà teandrica di Cristo, si basa uno degli elementi della polemica di Gregorio contro gli Antiocheni e contro la loro umanizzazione del Cristo incarnato. Beeley è mosso da una forte esigenza unitaria nella interpretazione della Persona del Figlio di Dio, considerata indivisa, divina e umana nella sua essenza. Bisogna comprendere il Figlio di Dio nella sua unità economica (p. 143) (l'esigenza di comprendere Dio nella sua economia è ribadita anche a proposito del Padre), che fa di lui contemporaneamente il Figlio di Dio e Gesù Cristo, come avevano creduto gli Apostoli. Il ruolo fondamentale della cristologia di Gregorio è quello di confessare l'identità di Cristo in quanto eterno Figlio di Dio fatto uomo, non separatamente, come intendevano gli Antiocheni e gli Apollinaristi.

Anche il capitolo su 'The Holy Spirit' (pp. 153-186) è mosso dalla stessa esigenza unitaria. Dopo avere ripercorso la storia della pneumatologia, sia quella anteriore a Gregorio sia in Gregorio, e avere illustrato la novità del contributo del Nazianzeno ad una retta pneumatologia trinitaria, Beeley sottolinea l'importanza che lo Spirito Santo possiede, secondo Gregorio, proprio perché il cristiano possa comprendere la sua fede. Beeley mette in evidenza l'interconnessione tra divinizzazione (procurata dal Figlio di Dio), esegesi spirituale (procurata dallo Spirito) e dottrina cristiana: essa costituisce il nucleo centrale del pensiero di Gregorio. Anche in questo Gregorio si mostra fedele discepolo di Origene, il quale aveva insegnato che la retta interpretazione delle Scritture si raggiunge solamente grazie alla illuminazione e alla santificazione procurata al cristiano da quel medesimo Spirito Santo che era stato l'ispiratore delle Scritture.

Il capitolo sul Padre manca, e non è un caso. Seguendo le tendenze esegetiche della 'scuola' (se posso usare questo termine) di Crestwood, e asserite anche da altri studiosi, come Mc Guckin, anche Beeley ritiene che la Trinità si risolve nella Persona del Padre, perché il Padre è la fonte da cui hanno origine le altre due Persone divine, ed in questo Beeley si mostra fortemente convinto della giustezza di certe interpretazioni della teologia 'greca', cioè di quella che in occidente si suole chiamare 'ortodossa' per distinguerla da quella 'romana'. Nel Padre, infatti, Beeley vede riassunta la 'Theology of the Divine Economy', ed egli tende a 'unire', più che a 'distinguere' le ipostasi (questo, del resto, fu sempre il problema che preoccupò i Padri Cappadoci, i quali oscillarono tra un polo, quello della distinzione, con Basilio, e quello della unione, con i due Gregori, sia pure in modi differenti). Per cui 'tra i Cappadoci, è Gregorio di Nazianzo quello che fa della teologia il suo interesse principale. Sebbene egli non si riferisca alla economia divina più di Basilio e di Gregorio di Nissa, egli parla di teologia e di quello che le è imparentato molto più degli altri due' (p. 196). Perciò Beeley afferma (p. 195) che 'la dottrina trinitaria di Gregorio sostanzialmente non riguarda la metafisica della consustanzialità, né è una soluzione quasi matematica del problema di come possano tre entità essere solamente una, come spesso si concepisce nella immaginazione popolare. Ma piuttosto, tale teologia rappresenta l'economia divina nel suo significato più profondo, non in quanto sintesi delle dottrine su Dio -- ancora una volta, non 'il Padre' -- Cristo e lo Spirito Santo, fatta dopo che essi sono 'complete', ma come la piena chiarificazione, approfondimento ed estensione del significato della economia divina'. Giustamente Beeley asserisce che non si può intendere in modo troppo angusto il significato della economia divina, come se essa fosse rivolta solamente ad extra). La distinzione tra teologia ed economia ha prodotto in passato risultati negativi ed impedito la piena comprensione del pensiero trinitario di Gregorio (pp. 198-199). In conclusione, è grazie all'economia divina, cioè alla economia del Padre, che la realtà divina si dispone nelle altre due Persone, del Figlio e dello Spirito -- ma è solo in questo modo, cioè vedendo nel Padre il soggetto che 'opera' l'economia che si può conservare la Trinità non come problema matematico, ma come il Dio al quale è rivolta la fede dei Cristiani. A questo proposito anche Beeley prende in considerazione il passo relativo al triteismo, polemizzando con le opinioni di Cross e di Ayres, secondo i quali 'la monarchia e la causalità divina sono collocate non esclusivamente nel Padre, ma nella natura divina, indipendentemente dal fatto che essa abbia avuto origine dal Padre' (p. 209). Di conseguenza Beeley rimprovera a p. 190 la critica recente di basarsi in larga misura sulle cosiddette 'orazioni teologiche', le quali non darebbero una visione completa della teologia gregoriana e si basa più su or. 25, 15-18 che non su or. 31, 14-15. Per inciso, anche senza far riferimento al problema qui trattato da Beeley, non so se sia vero che la critica abbia sempre privilegiato le cosiddette 'orazioni teologiche'; per quello che ci riguarda, ci è parso di avere sempre preso in considerazione, anche se non in un discorso strettamente teologico, anche le altre orazioni più significative per conoscere il pensiero di Gregorio, come le tre orazioni liturgiche sul Natale e sull'Epifania, quelle dedicate alla professione di fede davanti a Massimo (n. 25) o quella dell'addio ai Padri conciliari del 381 (n. 42) (naturalmente, non affrontiamo qui il problema della rielaborazione letteraria di queste orazioni e la loro effettiva corrispondenza alla realtà occasionale).

La conclusione è che 'la priorità del Padre all'interno della Trinità non confligge con l'unità e l'uguaglianza delle tre Persone, ma è piuttosto quello che le causa e le permette. Il Padre, il Figlio e lo Spirito Santo sono un solo Dio, condividendo esattamente la stessa natura divina, solo perché il Padre distribuisce quella natura al Figlio e allo Spirito, mentre la consustanzialità del Figlio e dello Spirito con il Padre è il corollario e l'eterno risultato della monarchia del Padre'. In questa asserzione non vi è niente da contestare, ma l'affermazione, frequente nel Nazianzeno ed anche nel Nisseno, che il Padre è la causa ed il Figlio e lo Spirito sono coloro che sono prodotti dalla causa, non contrasta con quanto afferma Beeley A questa concezione del Padre come origine della natura divina il Beeley riconduce, a nostro parere giustamente, il fatto -- anche questo già osservato dagli studiosi -- che il Nazianzeno adopera assai raramente il termine homoousios, e spesso come risposta agli argomenti avanzati da altri, in quanto esso sarebbe un prodotto secondario, piuttosto che un elemento fondamentale della sua dottrina trinitaria (p. 213). Allo stesso modo è stato osservato che Gregorio si serve quasi esclusivamente del linguaggio biblico, ed evita il termine ousia, al quale egli preferisce normalmente 'divinità' (p. 218). Questo capitolo dedicato al Padre conclude adeguatamente il notevole sforzo intellettuale con il quale il Beeley ha cercato di mettere in evidenza la dottrina trinitaria di Gregorio.

Il capitolo successivo ('Pastoral Ministry', pp. 235-270) è un po' secondario rispetto ai tre di contenuto fortemente teologico, che abbiamo esaminato. Esso intende mettere in evidenza le conseguenze pratiche, secondo Gregorio, dello sforzo intellettuale con cui si è giunti a definire la vera dottrina trinitaria. Tale dottrina, evidentemente, non deve rimanere un patrimonio del teologo, quasi una dottrina esoterica, a cui la massa dei fedeli non può pervenire. Partendo dalla ben nota seconda orazione, che presenta l'ideale del sacerdote agli occhi di Gregorio, Beeley esamina la scienza pastorale, che sarebbe la più elevata di tutte le arti (pp. 241-247), l'esperienza pastorale e la virtù pastorale (pp. 247-254), per concludere (p. 269) che, secondo Gregorio, il ministero della parola (e in modo particolare, l'amministrazione della Trinità) costituisce il nucleo centrale del ministero pastorale e che la dottrina della Trinità ha rappresentato il vero significato della vita cristiana, l'essenza e l'elemento unificante del mistero pastorale (p. 269).

La conclusione (pp. 271 ss.) è soprattutto di carattere storico, e vuole considerare la posizione di Gregorio 'among the Fathers'. I rapporti tra il Nazianzeno e Gregorio Taumaturgo rimangono, a mio parere, molto incerti e ipotetici; quelli con Atanasio sono, giustamente, ridimensionati: pure all'interno dell'encomio pronunciato nel 379, sembra che Gregorio non abbia conosciuto le Epistole a Serapione, che pure erano essenziali per la pneumatologia, ma solo le opere minori. Conforme alla sua interpretazione della posizione polemica con gli Antiocheni, Beeley attribuisce minor peso alla opposizione di Gregorio ad Apollinario (persino nelle epistole 101-102). Delle somiglianze e dissomiglianze tra Gregorio, da una parte, e Basilio e il Nisseno, dall'altra, abbiamo già accennato sopra: la lettura di Beeley è, comunque, esatta. Alcune altre notizie relative al Nazianzeno vengono presentate alla fine di questo capitolo, ma l'essenziale su Gregorio era già stato detto.

Uno studio, quindi, molto teorico e profondo, soprattutto teologico; anche se specifica, si tratta comunque di un'ottima interpretazione complessiva di Gregorio di Nazianzo.

[A link to the table of contents is provided at the end of this review.]

The Kalkriese museum near Osnabrück, Germany, was recently a prominent site of the 2000th anniversary festivities commemorating the Varusschlacht--Arminius's impressive defeat of three Roman legions (the 17th, 18th and 19th).¹ It is not surprising that this event's bimillennial, coupled with the ongoing research at Kalkriese, would inspire the publication of new research on this subject. Ancient and modern perspectives on Arminius, Varus and the Germans in general, and Kalkriese's claim to be the site of this event in particular, are the subjects of Wolters's work, first published in 2008 and recently reissued (2009) just in time for the Teutoburg Forest festivities.

The tone of the book suggests that it is intended for a more general audience; Wolters limits his citations and arranges them as endnotes, which, combined with bibliography, bring the work to a total of 255 pages. Of the work's 29 illustrations, several suffer from a reduced size. This is particularly the case with maps; one hopes that in a future reprint some of these will be enlarged.² His German style is straightforward and reflects the language's engagement with vocabulary from other languages, especially English. The first six chapters particularly provide a good general introduction to the subject. The organization of the first six chapters is chronological and each chapter is helpfully subdivided under more specific headings.

An introduction (9-18) highlights the need to reassess the battle of the Teutoburg forest in light of recent discoveries at Kalkriese and the upcoming bimillennial celebration this summer (2009) of Arminius's defeat of Varus at the saltus Teutoburgiensis.

Chapter 1 (Der Barbar als Nachbar) is divided into two sections. 1.1 (Römer am Rhein) surveys the historical background of the Roman presence on the Rhine frontier from Caesar until the start of Drusus's campaign across the river in 12 BCE. This includes a general discussion of the Roman army, its reliance on the co-operation of local elites to maintain control in frontier contexts, and Caesar's early use of Germans in his army. Wolters foreshadows his discussion of Arminius with a brief survey of the clades Lolliana (17-16 BCE).³ 1.2 (Die Germanen) switches the focus to the Germani, a term that is first attested--in Greek--only in a well known 1st century BCE fragment of Posidonius (FGrHist 87 F 22). Wolters rightly notes that the 'tribal world' (Stammeswelt) was inherently unstable, and as such the Germani should not be interpreted as an ethnically or culturally homogenous group. In addition to this useful survey one might add, particularly for the benefit of the interested Anglophone reader, Rives' introduction to his commentary on Tacitus's Germania, and Bleckmann's recent book, also published by C. H. Beck.⁴

Chapter 2 (Roms Vordringen bis zur Elbe) surveys the elder Drusus's campaign across the Rhine (12-9 BCE) and Tiberius's continuation of it following the death of Drusus. Wolters discusses the thorny issue of Roman 'policy' on the frontier. Since the emperor was in command of the army, policy was not, in any case, a matter of public debate. 2.1 (Die Feldzuge des Drusus) surveys the Romans' first sustained military actions across the Rhine. This resulted in the conquest of the Sugambri and submission of the Frisii as dediticii in 12, with subsequent expansion to the Elbe in the following years. This narrative is accompanied by a useful full-page illustration of all phases of Drusus's campaign (p. 40). This is the start of the 'Occupation' phase of Rome's presence in Germania. Wolters singles out Oberaden as an example of the immense scale of these operations: he notes that this two-or-more legion fortress, 70 km east of the Rhine and 56 ha in area, is fully 12 ha larger than the Vatican City. Oberaden was built in 11 BCE-Wolters notes that coins from 15 BCE to 13 have been discovered here, and observes that coin dates alone are not dispositive for the establishment of a site's terminus ante quem. This is an argument to which Wolters will return, in more detail, in chapter 7.

2.2 (Weltherrschaft, Bedrohung oder Familienpolitik) discusses Drusus's strategy, particularly in the context of the Romans' long term strategic objectives in Germania. Wolters rejects the concept that rivers were firm frontiers of the Roman Empire, an argument articulated compellingly by Whittaker.⁵ Wolters suggests that Drusus's goals at the outset of his campaign were modest and that following his relatively easy subjugation of the Frisii he decided on a more aggressive campaign east of the Rhine (p. 50). Wolters cites Kehne's hypothesis⁶ that a desire to win the spolia opima may have played a part in this decision. This argument does not seem particularly convincing. The number of individuals credited with this honour (4, of whom 3 were either legendary or lived centuries before the earliest Roman literary accounts) is extremely small, and it seems likely that images of the spolia opima on Augustan monuments served primarily to emphasize the achievements of Romulus, with whom Augustus sought to associate himself. We cannot say what Augustus would have done had Drusus actually won the right to the spolia opima, but we do know that the emperor denied the honour to the only well-attested example of a Roman who justly merited it.

Chapter 3 (Römische Herrschaft in Germanien) focuses on the period of the Roman consolidation of conquered territory, surveying Tiberius's campaigns deep into the territory of the Cherusci and, further north, the Chauci (4-6 CE). This brought the Romans into contact with peoples who would later provide numerous soldiers to the Roman auxilia, such as the Cananefates, Frisii and Bructeri, marking what Wolters sees as a new phase in Rome's "Germanienpolitik" (58), calculated to demonstrate the superiority of Roman power toGermania's neighbours. Section 3.2 (Militäranlagen, Städte und Wirtschaftsaktivitäten rechts des Rheins) offers, along with a good map (61), an informative survey of early military and urban centers and presents a compelling picture of a nascent province which, at Lahnau-Waldgimes, may contain evidence of both civic and military planning, if the reconstruction of the forum is correct. The archaeological evidence leads Wolters to conclude, ultimately, that Germania in this period should be seen as a Roman province (71-74).

Chapter 4 (Karrieren im Dienste Roms) at last brings the reader to Varus and Arminius. This chapter is essentially biographical, surveying first the history of the gens Quinctilia and Varus's political career (75-88). Varus was closely connected to the imperial family; his third marriage to Claudia Pulchra, granddaughter of Octavia, sister of Augustus, clearly identifies him as one of Augustus's most trusted officials. Varus's command in Germany came after two previous governorships (Africa Proconsularis and Syria), and one gets an appropriate sense of the confidence that Augustus must have had in Varus when, in A. D. 7, he was given the command of Germania for three years. On page 89 we come next to Arminius. Wolters provides a succinct and useful survey of his known biographical details: his connections with his tribe's royal stock (stirps regia), his possession of Roman citizenship and experience in the Roman army. Wolters identifies and summarizes three modern interpretations of Arminius's life offered by Bickel, Hohl and Timpe.⁷ He rejects Hohl's argument that 'Arminius' is a corruption for 'Armenius' ("Armenian"--this would surely have been rendered "Armenicus") but accepts, rightly, that once Arminius was enfranchised he would have borne the Roman names C. Iulius, with his peregrine name Romanized as a cognomen.⁸

In chapter 5 (Die schriftliche Überlieferung zur Varuskatastrophe) Wolters surveys the literary sources for the battle in the saltus Teutoburgiensis. He begins, however, with a discussion of the famous tombstone of Caelius, the oldest extant Latin inscription from Germany (CIL 13, 8648), from Xanten) depicting a fallen centurion of the Eighteenth Legion, M(arcus) Caelius T(iti) f(ilii) Lem(onia tribus) Bon(onia), and his two freedmen M. Caelius Privatus and M. Caelius Thiaminus. Remarkable for its detailed depiction of a legionary centurion in full gear, the text informs us that Caelius cecidit bello Variano. Wolters then surveys the extant literary accounts of the battle: Dio (102-107), Velleius Paterculus (108-109), Frontinus (109-111). Wolters rightly engages the accuracy of these literary traditions, none of which are eyewitness accounts. There were survivors of the battle, however, and some lived long enough in captivity to be freed during the reign of Claudius. Literary accounts of Germans are necessarily clouded by the topos of the rash German, a stereotype that Vitruvius, for example, attributed to the cold weather of their homeland.⁹ This is of course entirely a literary conceit which, along with the set piece oration, should not be treated as accurate, though these features do not, as Wolters avers, render literary sources useless. Thus Wolters offers an interesting critique of the suggestion that Arminius's attack was a rebellion, noting that to use this term is necessarily to view the event from a Roman perspective (119-121). Since he views Germania as a Roman province, Wolters accepts the validity of this characterization, although he is careful to demonstrate that the Germani were not unified in resistance; clearly the Cherusci, whose territory was the "Kernland der Rebellion" were the major opponents of Varus.

Chapter 6 (Die Varuskatastrophe als epochale Wende?) investigates whether the battle should be seen as a truly defining moment in Roman history. Augustus, as Suetonius reports, did not take the news of the defeat well, although the shock did not keep him from boasting about expanding Roman territory to the Elbe in the Res Gestae.¹⁰ Wolters summarizes Germanicus's campaign against Arminius that lead to enough successes to justify a triumph in 17 for Germanicus over "the Cherusci, Chatti, and Angirivarii and the other nations that live as far as the Elbe". This was an obvious exercise in propaganda since, despite an impressive campaign, Arminius had not been captured and direct Roman administration of transrhenane Germania had not been restored. Arminius's death at the age of 37 came not in a epic battle but at the hands of an assassin; Wolters observes that dissension among the leadership of the Cherusci, as presented by Tacitus, can be read as a metaphor of civil strife in Roman history, where the immense power of one individual arouses jealousy among other members of the nobility. As for Varus, his head, at least, could receive a proper burial, since Arminius had sent it to Maroboduus, who then passed it along to Roman authorities. A negative assessment, however, of Varus's character was not universal in ancient scholarship, and Wolters rightly attacks the disproportionate influence the image of an arrogant and / or incompetent Roman commander has had on later scholarship.

Chapter 7 marks a stark shift in the book's structure. The historical narrative of Arminius and Varus essentially concludes with chapter 6. Chapter 7 surveys past and present research on the site of Arminius's fateful battle. Noting that over 700 theories have been posited over the years--itself a reflection of the tremendous local and academic interest in Arminius--Wolters proceeds in chronological order to survey several of the more influential ones. This leads quickly to Kalkriese, on which the majority of this chapter focuses its discussion.

This is hardly surprising, but Wolters's discussion of Kalkriese is not just a summary of scholarship and archaeological reports, but also a critical assessment of this work, which, in his opinion, has rashly and erroneously identified Kalkriese as the site of Arminius's victory.¹¹ Wolters has expressed these views elsewhere.¹² This is certainly an argument worth making, since the archaeology of Kalkriese is clearly something of an enigma: the excavation of a wall with associated burials of bones that bear clearly battle-related marks led to early associations with a Cheruscan ambush fortification; the graves were associated with later burials of remains, probably by Germanicus; all the human bones belonged to males of fighting age and were, in some cases, mingled with animal bones, and bore signs of exposure to the elements. The wall, however, is oddly shaped in a zig-zag wedge line and only stretches 400 meters (as opposed to the 2000 meters originally thought), and the deposits of bones seem far to haphazard and indecent for a Roman burial of the dead at the Teutoburg Forest, while the area itself is criticised as being too small to accommodate an army the size of three legions and auxiliary troops: the Roman army would have filled the valley.

However, no post-Varus coins have been found at Kalkriese: the latest strikes date to 2-1 BCE. Wolters argues that later strikes simply were not there to be found, since newly minted coins would have taken time to reach the German frontier; if they were circulating, then the quantities would have been miniscule. However, numismatic studies of Kalkriese have noted that a small number of coins datable to Germanicus's campaign have been found at sites known to postdate Varus's death;¹³ of course, there are exceptions, as Wolters notes in the case of Holsterhausen (p. 171). There is also no consensus on a possible rival identification, though there are several possibilities, based on conflicts recorded in Tacitus's account of Germanicus's campaign: a battle at the pontes longi, Idistaviso, or against the Angrivarii. The finds themselves were not concentrated in a small area, but were strewn over a relatively long (3 km) and narrow (1 km) funnel of territory, which, as noted by Wilson / Creighton and Bleckmann, roughly fits Tacitus's description of the battle site.¹⁴ Of course, since Germanicus did return to the battle site, even the discovery of post-Varus coins could be explained as a result of that return. We await discovery of some trace of the tumulus that he built to memorialize the fallen, although this was destroyed by the Germani soon after he left the site.

Chapter 8 surveys Arminius's Rezeptionsgeschichte, starting from the discovery and publication of Tacitus's Germania and concluding with contemporary interest in Arminius, inspired largely by the discoveries at Kalkriese. Following the discovery of the manuscript of Tacitus's Germania in the sixteenth century, Arminius was adopted by the Germans as a national hero and idealized in various ways: as the emblem of Lutheran Protestantism challenging the Roman Catholic Church, as, along with his wife Thusnelda, part of an idealized Romantic story, and as a symbol of German nationalism embodying also 19th and 20th century antipathy toward the French, with whom parallels with the Roman Empire were easy to draw. Although Wolters surveys the use of the term Germani in the 20th century to support race theory, on the imagery specifically of Arminius during the Third Reich he says relatively little (one paragraph, no illustrations).

An addition here would be welcome. For example, this reviewer was reminded of an exhibit of Werner Peiner's artwork at the Römisch-germanisches Museum at Bonn ¹⁵ that included a striking piece: a gilded print on paper entitled "Die Schlacht in Teutoburger Wald" (1939). Peiner, the director of the "Hermann Göring Academy for Art" (Hermann Göring-Meisterschule für Malerei), depicted Arminius and all the Germans as blond, muscular, armed with shields (one of which bears a swastika), marching against Varus and the Romans. Both armies hold spears / pila at precise 45 degree angles, reminiscent, surely, of the Nazi salute and the regime's cult of uniformity. Also striking in that piece was the prominence of German women (also blond) in the corners of the image, aiding their comrades in battle. These idealizations combine some of Nazism's more pernicious themes of racial purity and subordination of the individual to a noble Führer with a traditional German image that had embodied the concept of freedom from oppression. The result, in this reviewer's opinion, is a chilling image that seems very appropriate to Wolters's discussion.

In a short 'Epilogue' Wolters summarizes the policies of Roman emperors towards the Germanic tribes beyond the Rhine up to the reign of Domitian. He then shifts to a discussion of Tacitus's portrayals of the Germani and Arminius in the Germania and the Annales. In the latter respect he seizes on Tacitus's assessment of Arminius's character to conclude his book.

In sum, although this book's title promises a study of Arminius, Varus and the battle in the Teutoburg Forest, Wolters actually provides us also with a detailed account of the early history of Roman Germany up to the death of Arminius. Wolters provides a fine introduction to the evidence and history of the site, while his opinions exemplify the enduring controversies that his subject cannot help but inspire.

Table of Contents

1.   The museum's homepage has links to resources on recent research on the Varusschlacht.
2.   Image 16, at less than half a page, contains place names that are difficult to read; image 17 represents archaeological data on findspots that is similarly difficult to read.
3.   Dio 54.20.4-6 relates how the Sugambri destroyed a Roman fort on the Rhine commanded by M. Lollius. Wolters notes Mommsen's suggestion that this event was a major motive for Drusus's campaign.
4.   J. Rives, Tacitus: Germania. (1999) - not listed in W's bibliography of commentaries on the Germania (p. 240), B. Bleckmann, Die Germanen: Von Ariovist bis zu den Wikingen (2009).
5.   C. Whittaker, Frontiers of the Roman Empire (1994), not in Wolters's bibliography.
6.   P. Kehne, "Augustus und "seine" spolia opima: Hoffnungen auf den Triumph des Nero Claudius Drusus?" in T. Hantos and G. A. Lehmann (edd.), Althistorisches Kolloquium aus Anlass des 70. Geburtstages von Jochen Bleicken (1998), 187-211.
7.   90-93, cf. E. Bickel, "Der Sohn der Sigimer, der Befreier des Germaniens, sein Römername Arminius und der Siegfriedmythos", RhM 84, 1935, 1-16; E. Hohl, "Zur Lebensgeschichte des Siegers im Teutoburger Wald", HZ 167, 1942, 457-469; D. Timpe, Arminius-Studien (1970) and Römisch-Germanische Begegnung in der späten Republik und frühen Kaiserzeit (1973), 216-241.
8.   Cf. Bleckmann (op. cit. n. 4), 118.
9.   Vit. 6.1; on the ethnographic tradition of this stereotype, see e.g. Rives' introduction to his edition of Tacitus's Germania (1999).
10.   Suet. Aug. 29.2, "Quinctili Vare, legiones redde!"; cf. RG 26, item Germaniam qua claudit Oceanus a Gadibus ad ostium Albis fluminis pacavi.
11.   A confident assertion of Kalkriese's identity as the battle site is offered by Schlüter's contribution to Creighton, J. D. and R. J. A. Wilson (edd.), Roman Germany: Studies in cultural interaction. JRA Suppl. 26 (1999). In the same volume (14-15) Wilson and Creighton echo Schlüter's confidence.
12.   See his contribution to Lehmann and Wiegels (edd.), Römische Präsenz und Herrschaft im Germanien der augusteischen Zeit. (2007). This work was reviewed in English by J. Drinkwater, Sehepunkte 8 (2008), no. 9, and the review can be consulted online.
13.   See especially the contributions of Berger and Wigg-Wolf to Lehmann and Wiegels (2007).
14.   Wilson and Creighton (op.cit. n. 10), 14; Bleckmann (op cit. n. 4), 125.
15.   I viewed this exhibit while on a research trip to Cologne in July 2008.

This collection of essays in English, French and German forms the 10th volume of Classica Cracoviensia, featuring presentations from the 2005 international conference on Violence and Aggression in the Ancient World. The international conference chose this theme to examine the issue of terrorism in the ancient world, clearly in response to the current "grim experience of global terrorism...." (p. 8). The essays run the gamut from Homer to Vergil, from Egypt's Boukoloi to Rome's Clodius Pulcher and from Plato to Lucan. While some of the essays seem to struggle to fit the editor's aim at investigating terrorism as a theme, all address the issue of violence or aggression in its various literary, historical and philosophical forms. A few examples should suffice to show the depth and breadth of the essays presented.

Several of the essays look to literary evidence for their analyses. Krzysztof Bielawski's "Theology of Violence in Greek Tragedy" asks whether one can use tragedy to study Greek "theology" and, further, if it is "possible to reconcile theology and violence" in the tragedies (p. 27). Bielawski looks to Plato for support of the term theology and its use for this particular effort, relying on Plato's Republic, 2.379A. Satisfied that Plato would support the term, the author then proceeds to treat the plays as "theological" and religious sources and the tragedians as serious "theological thinkers." Such an approach certainly pushes the limits of modern day theologians, but for Bielawski's purposes we will allow it. The author contends that violence in Greek tragedy is an important element in a god or gods' revelation of themselves or their aims. Bielawski continues, stating that "the language of sacrifice is the language of violence" (p. 30). The concepts that violence and revelation are in some fashion complementary, and that worship and sacrifice involve violence, are hardly new. More interesting are Bielawski's assessments that violence in tragedies is either allowed by a god or actually caused by a god, and further that violence permitted by a god is either a sign of the god's supremacy, or relates to a situation in which the god demands a transformation of an individual or of humanity as a whole. Violence wrought by a god can come as a moral punishment (as often), or as a means by which to reveal the true nature of the god. Tying violence to sacrifice, the author concludes that violence justified by a god allows mortals to fully experience the divine and to engage in an intimate form of worship of the god.

In comparison we have Joanna Komorowska's "The Tide of Violence: Euripides' Phoenician Women." Komorowska aims through her analysis of Euripides' use of violence and retelling of myth to demonstrate the duality of violence within the Theban royal household and within the city of Thebes. The author sees multiple levels of violence in the play and hopes to "unravel the potential intent of the author, the hypothetical philosophical reflection that influences the details of the well-known myth shaping theme into a form that gives the play its rhythm and maddening velocity...." (p. 98).

Komorowska's essay is well organized and quite convincing. She offers a useful diagram of the play as she discerns its organization and themes as related to her thesis. Particularly convincing is her outline presented on page 107, breaking the play down into: "civilisational violence and the monsters; acts explicitly ending in death; non-fatal acts of violence; verbal violence/abuse; and pictorial violence."

Her analysis of the role of Ares as supporting the violence and even feeding on it recalls Bielawski's aims nicely. Komorowska's own writing style captures that same rapidly developing violence that pushes and pulls Euripides' plot along. A joy to read, the essay is complex and compelling.

Jerzy Danielewicz presents an essay on "Verbal Abuse and Satire in Early Greek Iambus," aiming to systematize the various forms of "iambic aggression" found in Archilochus, Hipponax and others. Danielewicz carefully defines this often irreverent poetry as a form performed on public occasions to lampoon public figures of power. The words often threaten physical aggression, lambasting "honorees" while invoking sexual obscenities. The author finds examples of overt verbal aggression as well as veiled assaults. Overall, Danielewicz concludes that such performances were meant to entertain, to take advantage of an opportunity to go against the social norm that would otherwise expect the target of the invective to be treated with social respect. Finally, although the words used might be interpreted as aggressive and offensive, ultimately, Danielewicz contends, they are anything but--for the aim of aggression is to harm the target, the aim of the iambic in these cases is to honor the target.

Taking us in a different direction than the above literary analyses, several essays in the collection analyze evidence for political and social acts of violence and aggression. Stanislaw Stabryla's essay on "P. Clodius Pulcher: Politician or Terrorist" asks whether Clodius was an "original yet unscrupulous" politician or simply a terrorist. Clodius' use of collegia to stir up violence and chaos in the urban center of the empire has received tremendous attention in scholarship of the Republic. Stabryla finds that his use of such tactics may have begun in the winter of 68/67 while stationed in Mesopotamia. While serving there, Clodius took up the cause of rebellious soldiers under Lucullus. The soldiers rebelled against undertaking a winter campaign against Mithridates. Our author concludes that this example serves as something of a blueprint for Clodius' later actions in that here in the east, he took advantage of "simple soldiers" by behaving as a "defender of the most aggrieved or exploited social classes..." (p. 205).

It may be the translation and word choice, but at times the author seems to take our especially hostile sources (Cicero, Plutarch) rather literally in his analysis (pp. 204-207). For example, Stabryla seems to fully accept Cicero's condemnation of Clodius as a murderer, embezzler, poisoner, cheat, blinded by hatred and a general sociopath. Perhaps Clodius was all these things; more support for such descriptions is wanted in this area given the other fine analysis in the essay. One other point for criticism comes with Stabryla's list of terroristic activities conducted by Clodius (p. 211). While arson, hiring slaves, gladiators and the odd thug to threaten and intimidate with street violence all seem to fit the bill, stealing "valuable objects" from Cicero's home and constructing a portico connecting Clodius' property to Cicero's hardly seem worth the appellation.

In the end, the author sees many of Clodius' actions as symptomatic of the times: bribery, political opportunism, demagoguery. Still, Clodius' extraordinary use of arson, murder and gang violence created chaos contributing to a terroristic element in an already volatile city. Such politics and tactics at Rome would abide certainly throughout the first century B.C. if not beyond.

Two essays deal with social and political violence in Roman Egypt. Adam Lukaszewicz addresses the archaeological evidence from Kom el-Dikka in the city center of ancient Alexandria, offering that the evidence supports the existence of a 6th century "learning institution" connected with the Roman theatre identified there. While the identification of the "classrooms" there may be far from secure, when coupled with the graffiti indicating rival circus "youths," the Blues and Greens, Lukaszewicz begins to bring together a vision of Alexandria replete with competitive street violence, near a "university" of sorts in a city congested with peoples from a variety of cultural, religious and political backgrounds. His work adds to the image we often have of ancient overpopulated cities as emporia for world trade, as well as dangerous living. Lukaszewicz' Alexandria recalls the similar volatile elements present in the Rome of Stabryla's Clodius, above.

Lukaszewicz argues convincingly--through the evidence of graffiti--that the site at Kom el-Dikka may also have associations with Athanasius and the religious violence of Alexandria in the 3rd century A.D. Less secure but no less intriguing is his suggestion that the "learning institution" may have been the location of Hypatia's teaching and violent end in the early 5th c. A.D.

Tomasz Polanski's "The Boukoloi Uprising, or how the Greek intellectuals falsified Oriental History" works to understand the evidence supplied by Cassius Dio regarding a 2nd century A.D. story of the Boukoloi, their leader Isadorus, and their attempt to wrest Alexandria from Roman control. Avidius Cassius was sent by Rome to restore order in A.D. 171/2.

Polanski reviews the literary evidence for the Boukoloi, describing them as cannibalistic bandits living on boats along the Nile, hiding in marshes amongst the reeds, maintaining a tribal organization with a self-proclaimed king. The sources suggest they are barbarians with a barbarian language and barbarous religious practices. They are, in a word, uncivilized. Polanski provides evidence to assert that these people did exist, most likely spoke an Egyptian dialect and that their religious rites did not include cannibalism.

Polanski then offers an historiographical analysis to support that the Boukoloi were not merely shepherd bandits or pirates but rather a distinct group living in Egypt under Roman control. The event of their "rebellion" of the 3rd century A.D. ought to be viewed alongside a long list of rebellions against foreign rule in Egypt.

The remainder of Polanski's essay aims to place the Boukoloi event into a context associated with more modern times and insurgents rebelling against foreign occupation. While the writing and analysis in this section are intriguing, with examples of the Christeros war in Mexico of the 1920's, the Polish Guerilla War of 1942-47 and hints at the US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, they may push us beyond what the evidence can support.

This volume of essays provides an eclectic overview of the theme of violence in antiquity from the perspectives of politics, society, religion and art. Some of the essays may be hard pressed to find terrorism as defined in the modern context, negating the editor's claims that we are looking to terrorism or terroristic evidence from antiquity. That is not to say that the theme of violence and aggression does not make a fine topic for analysis. Despite our distance in time from the peoples studied in this collection, human nature's tendency toward violence in our relationships with one another, in our aspirations and ambitions to know the divine, continue to reflect our propensity for violence.

In the opening scene of Friedrich Hölderlin's epistolary novel Hyperion the eponymous narrator gazes from Acrocorinth across the Saronic and Corinthian gulfs. Hyperion says his soul flits back and forth between the seas and the glowing mountains, adding that he would settle for even a single gulf could he have been there a thousand years earlier. A letter from Hölderlin opens Constanze Güthenke's rich and informative study Placing Modern Greece. The Dynamics of Romantic Hellenism, 1770-1840. In the letter Hölderlin presents himself as stumbling along behind the Greeks, "those unique people (einzigen Menschen)" and says that like geese, he stands flat-footed and powerless "in the waters of modernity" (in modernen Wasser) as he contemplates flight up into the Greek sky.

Hölderlin's work highlights two themes central to Güthenke's impressive study. The first is the physical nature of Greece and its landscape, what Güthenke calls its materiality. Probably the most notable feature of the Greek landscape, overpowering even, is its luminosity. For Hölderlin, Greece was the realm of Apollo and the fire of heaven. Lawrence Durrell on seeing the gleaming Aegean for the first time, proposed that space, light and solitude needed to be rediscovered. Even the contemporary visitor yet to scale the heights of Acrocorinth can be astonished when traveling to the Peloponnese from Athens. Leaving behind the auto supply shops on Athens' outskirts, the cement works at Eleusis and the rusting vessels in Eleusis Bay, in due course the driver comes round a turn in the highway to see in favorable weather the dazzling Corinthian Gulf seemingly on fire beneath the brilliant sun as it displays what Aeschylus called those "uncountable smiles of the sea". It can be breathtaking even after numerous trips.

Like many who first stoked the fires of European Hellenism, Hölderlin never actually saw a real Greek landscape and founded his ideals on what he imagined Greece to be. To be sure, he was familiar with and drew upon writings of contemporary travelers to Greece such as Choiseul-Gouffier and Richard Chandler, both discussed by Güthenke in her book. Forgoing the particularities of travel writings, Hölderlin represented nature as an ideal. As David Constantine has pointed out, the landscape of Greece offered a site of continuity which linked the modern Greek (and European visitor) to the ideal past.¹ Güthenke identifies this continuity as underlying the logic of Hellenism which she says is dependent on the "frisson" emerging from interactions of stable geographic space with the temporal change history introduces into that space.

This ties in the second theme in Hölderlin's letter: the vexing relation between modernity and antiquity. In an unfinished essay "How shall we see the ancient world?", Hölderlin spoke of "the slavery with which we have behaved toward antiquity. There seems indeed to be hardly any other choice than to be oppressed by what has been appropriated and by what is positive, or, with violent effort, to oppose as a living force everything learnt, given, positive."² (The relation is problematic still. One has merely to read Heidegger, in particular as he addresses the poetry of Hölderlin, to see how profound the problem remains for moderns³). The contrast of Hellenic antiquity to modernity revealed lost unities and underscored estrangements created by Enlightenment thinkers: estrangements of human life from objectified nature, reason from imagination, thought from the senses. The classical Greeks were made into a form of human life in its highest mode, one in which thought and feeling, self and nature were united. In contrast, the discontinuities emerging in modern life revealed deep conflict. Greek tragedy provided the greatest artistic expression of conflict and became an object of intense philosophical and aesthetic exploration. Schiller thought it the paradigmatic art form; it was a suitable vehicle for grasping the "self-divisions" of modern experience.⁴ In addition to these discontinuities was modernity's estrangement from the past itself. Winckelmann's groundbreaking history of ancient art had demonstrated that estrangement and alerted Herder, Goethe, and the Schlegels to the profound rift which separated ancient from modern culture.⁵ The "Greek Ideal" was built on this rift.

The intersection of the Greek Ideal--imposed by non-Greeks onto Greeks and their land-- with Greece's physical reality is at the heart of Güthenke's book. She argues compellingly that Greece's materiality cannot be separated from its ideality and demonstrates the link between materiality and Idealist vision whereby representations of Greek landscape subsumed nature and culture alike. In a chapter entitled "The Form of Greek Landscape", Güthenke sets the advent of Greece as an autonomous political and territorial entity within the developing discourse of Hellenism. Freedom was an important constituent of that discourse ever since Winckelmann in both the Gedanken über die Nachahmung der griechishen Werke and the Geschichte der Kunst der Altertum closely associated the excellence of Greek art with Greek freedom. Güthenke points out that as the term "nature" in the eighteenth century came to denote emancipation, Greece too became a privileged topos of freedom. She advises the reader that nature and freedom were elastic terms with moral, aesthetic, political, and material dimensions. In terms of the Hellenic Ideal, the Greeks were thought to have harmonized them. The harmony imputed to the ancient Greeks made them the model of human development and of the Bildung which Wilhelm von Humboldt's newly founded University of Berlin planned to instill in generations of Germans through intense study of Greek culture.

To Winckelmannn, history in the form of political and social conditions enabled Greek art to attain its much vaunted 'noble simplicity and tranquil grandeur' (edle Einfalt und stille Grösse). Acknowledging Winckelmann's dictum that good taste began its formation first under the Greek sky, Güthenke proceeds to demonstrate that the relationship between Greek culture and the natural environment is a recurring motif in the imagining of modern Greece. The trend began with Robert Wood's Essay on the Original Genius and Writings of Homer with a Comparative View of the Ancient and Present State of the Troad. It first appeared in English and by 1773 a German translation was available. Wood proposed that acquaintance with the real locales of Homer's poems would prompt greater appreciation and understanding. Güthenke surveys the works of several travel writers in addition to Wood, including Pierre Augustin Guys, J.L.S. Bartholdy, and Choiseul-Gouffier. Greek travel writing of the period is a body of rich and imaginative literature, and sometimes completely fictional as in the case of the Abbé Barthélemy's widely read Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce published in 1788. The overall effect communicated in the works of these writers is Greek nature in an aestheticized form.

Güthenke's analysis of landscape comes to fruition in her interpretation of Hyperion. She shows us a Hölderlin who exemplifies the challenge of visualizing an ideal spatially which required establishing a correspondence between internal and external landscapes. Since Hölderlin had not experienced the reality of Greek landscape, he had to create it in the realm of imagination. In Hyperion Greece becomes a place of memory, a contemporary place where the past has been superseded. Her analysis sets its reference point in Hyperion's subjectivity as it is affected by the surrounding natural environment. If Hyperion's modernity is to come into being it must be played off against the non-modernity of the historical Greeks. The landscape serves as metaphor for self-understanding.

The Greek War of Independence shifted the focus on nature to specific locations that Güthenke says served as rhetorical and literal topoi. This produced literature which aroused both admiration and derision due in part to the politicization of natural imagery. Wilhelm Müller's poetry for example is described as catering to contemporary political events by setting Greek speakers in their natural environment. The new Greek state undercut the notion of Greece as a transcendent entity. The lofty spiritual freedom celebrated by Winckelmann could descend under the weight of political content to bluster about primitive Greeks living free as the mountain streams and the soaring eagle. By 1821 Philhellenism had expanded beyond the high cultural valuation of Greek antiquity to include support for Greek political aspirations. German Philhellenism was different in that many supporters believed the warrant supporting their own Bildung was provided by the Greeks. Humboldt had even declared that the Germans were undeniably the first to comprehend Greek Bildung, that is paideia,⁶ and thus was in a privileged position to offer it to others. Once Philhellenism gave cover to modern political aspirations of Greeks, nature was politicized and the hunt was on for national characteristics in Greece and its landscapes.

Güthenke has interesting things to say about the role of folk song and folk poetry, which were thought to evoke the authenticity and immediacy of Greeks living in harmony with the natural landscape. Along with translation of native materials came the memoirs of non-Greeks who had contributed to the military campaigns. Güthenke includes a detailed analysis of Wilhelm Müller's Griechenlieder. He was a supporter of the Greek cause and the poems typified German Philhellenism of the 1820s in their blending of political, religious, and artistic concerns. Like Humboldt, Müller thought the German language better suited than any other to capture the peculiarities of Greek. Like Hölderlin, he never went to Greece but he relied on the familiar motifs of classical significance, mountains and the sea to provide physical reference points for Greek freedom. Thermopylae and Marathon figure prominently. Müller also focused on the Mani, wild and remote even in the 1950s when Patrick Leigh Fermour wrote his well-known book on its people and terrain, and more so in the nineteenth century. Then, the Maniotes were regarded as inhabitants of an untamed, rugged territory who were fiercely freedom loving. They were also treated as the heirs of Spartan courage, and were assigned the highly symbolic role, Güthenke observes, of freedom fighters living in a natural fashion in the mountains and able to descend rapidly to the plain in support of the fight for Greek freedom. True to Winckelmann's thesis that the culture of the ancient Greeks was due to their physical environment, the Maniote spirit was believed to be supported by the natural environment where they lived their daily lives. That environment it was assumed activated the desire for liberation.

The closing chapters of Placing Modern Greece turn from German authors to Greek writers and their response to European Philhellenism. First Güthenke examines the effects of Philhellenism on Hellenic authors and explores how the imagery of European Romanticism and Hellenism functioned in Greek literature of the nineteenth century. Its themes included the new Greek state and a new Greek literature. Güthenke points out that Greek writers such as Alexandros Rangavis and Alexandros Soutsos employed Greek settings for poems which endeavored to visualize the contemporary Greek state. She stresses that the authors of the new Greek literature were deeply ambivalent towards models of their land inherited from foreign authors, though Greece still seemed left in a limbo between its own antiquity and German, French, and English modernity which accounts for the trope of 'belatedness' associated with Greek literature.

The final chapter presents Greece seen from the perspective of the Ionian Islands which largely had been under Venetian control and hence not part of the Ottoman Empire. The writers chosen for scrutiny are Andreas Kalvos and Dionysius Solomos, both natives of Zakynthos. Kalvos' Odes displayed a near mystical grasp of nature in daring language. But Güthenke indicts Kalvos' poetry for compression and involution to the degree that Greece is narrowed to the point of invisibility. She says that his writings show the interplay of the Greek Enlightenment with a neo-Hellenism characterized by archaism and didacticism. Kalvos was closely attuned to Philhellenic discourse, and his imagery borrows from Homer, Pindar, Romanticism and the Bible. The result is that his native land is mirrored in an indefinite character of style and genre.

Dionysios Solomos is viewed, as Güthenke observes, as one of the founding poets of the Greek state. He was familiar with the writings of Schiller and Schelling, absorbing at times their philosophy into his poetry. The Early Romantic influence left a residue of tension between the ideal and the real. Güthenke shows the presence of Schiller's aesthetic ideas in Solomos' poetry in which he explores the relation of art and nature, the divine and the mundane and which sublimates the real to the ideal. Her contention is that Solomos's conjunction of real and ideal breaks down the vision of Greece into vignettes of compression and containment, which she illustrates through an incisive analysis of Solomos' poem on Missolonghi which describes the heroic exodus of the city's inhabitants, "The Free Besieged".

This is an original book, notable in its scope and the fresh scrutiny brought to Romantic Hellenism. The publisher's price might lead one to expect multiple illustrations when in fact there aren't any at all. Let us hope that a paperback edition will be forthcoming soon to give Güthenke the audience she deserves.

1.   David Constantine, Hölderlin, New York: Oxford University Press, 1988, p. 94.
2.   T. Paul, edit., Friedrich Hölderlin. Essays and Letters on Theory. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988, p.39.
3.   See Julian Young, Heidegger's Philosophy of Art, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
4.   Vassals Lambropoulis, The Tragic Idea, London: Duckworth, 2006, pp. 30; 11. See also Dirk t. D. Held, "Antigone on the Neckar: Tragedy and Enigmas of the Modern", New England Classical Journal, 34.3, 2007, pp. 207-216.
5.   Alex Potts, Flesh and the Ideal. Winckelmann and the Origins of Art History, New Haven 1994, p. 19.
6.   W. Humboldt, Gesammelte Schriften , Berlin 1902, vol. 2, p. 184.

[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review.]

This book is a collection of thirteen studies on ethnicity in the period ranging from Archaic Greece to Early Medieval Western Europe. The essays presented in this volume are the result of two meetings held in 2001 (VU University Amsterdam) and 2004 (Museum Het Valkhof at Nijmegen) respectively, in the framework of the research programme entitled The Batavians. Ethnic identity in a frontier situation. The starting point from which all the authors undertake their research is the view of ethnicity as a mutable, subjective construct adopted by groups and communities for various purposes. Actually, the aim of the volume, as stated by the editors, is to show that ethnic identity is a phenomenon "often related to questions of power, religion, law, class and gender" (p.1). Although sometimes miscellany volumes may present an uneven quality in the papers, it must be pointed out that in this particular case we met up with a remarkable exception, characterized by very good works each presented in a homogeneous structure of sub-headings and final conclusions that makes them easy to follow for readers.

The book, dedicated to the memory of Prof. Dick Whittaker (who passed away shortly before the volume to which he had contributed could be published), opens with a useful introduction by the editors, where the main issues and conclusions which come out from each contribution are briefly resumed displaying not only the points of agreement between authors, but also the differences in their opinions and approaches, in order to stimulate further discussion amongst the readers. The core issue on which the contributors differ is the question whether ethnicity can be reconstructed through the analysis of material culture or not. Most of the authors seem to agree with Jonathan Hall's opinion¹ that it is impossible to reconstruct the ethnic identity of societies that have not left any written source, while others are more optimistic.

In her learned study, Catherine Morgan focuses on ethnicity in the early archaic Greek mainland, a period and an area where written records are limited, so that data from material culture are thought to play an important role as a means of expression of ethnic identity. She begins by analysing the western colonial world, a choice justified by the fact that both the regions experienced long-term interconnections that prevent them from being treated as separate entities. Morgan points out that colonies "redefine themselves in relation to their Greek and native neighbours as well to as their mainland geographical, political and ethnic heritage" (p.13). Corinth and Achaia more generally, for example, had interacted with the Corinthian Gulf area, the Ionian Islands and Italy well before the beginning of the colonization in the 8th century. Morgan, therefore, sets the foundation of new settlements, together with a series of experiences brought by the Corinthians and Achaians to the colonists, into a long continuity of exchanges. Morgan then moves on to a survey of the recent scholarship on early Greek ethnicity and its developments, discussing in particular Hall's view and expressing her criticism of it: that, on the one hand, it could lead one to think that ethnicity cannot be studied in the Greek world before the introduction of alphabetical writing, and that, on the other hand, it would exclude from the analysis a consistent part of the population with limited or no writing skills. Concentrating research on habitus, i.e., material culture considered as an expression of a particular lifestyle, and showing that political communities were interdependent entities makes it possible to predict "points of tension where identity would be likely to have become a particularly important issue" (p. 29) and allows one to "move beyond the adoption of alphabetic writing to examine the longer term history of identity construction" (ibid.).

Jan Paul Crielaard studies the origin, development and changing of the ethnonym "Ionian", with special attention to the construction of the ethnic identity of the "East Ionians" who settled along the coastal area between the Hermos and the Maiandros rivers, and the islands of Samos and Chios. He examines literary sources comparing them with archaeological data in order to estimate when and how "Ionian" traditions and foundation myths were invented. The East Ionians' case is interesting because of their proximity and interactions not only with other Greek populations like Dorians and Aiolians, but also with non-Greek elements like Lydians and Karians. Moreover, we must add Egyptian and Near-eastern influences, as East Ionians served as mercenaries in those areas, while contacts with the Mediterranean and the Black Sea world were also frequent thanks to trade. Ethnic identity of the East Ionians turns out to have been soft and permeable towards other cultures, at least until the Persian invasion that represented the real point of no return for the creation of a Greek identity as a "sense of separateness, self-awareness and superiority" (p. 73).

The aim of Hans-Joachim Gehrke's original essay is to show that the concept of Intentional history, i.e., ethnic construction of collective identities, is applicable not only to ancient societies but also to the construction of European traditions. The victory at Marathon allowed Greek identity to be associated with freedom for the first time. With time it was used to serve purposes differing from the original ones. In Athens it was seen as a historical extension of mythical fights against barbarians and monsters in order to reinforce Athens' role as defender of the Hellenes. The myth of Marathon was taken on again by the Attalids and brought to bear upon their victories over the Galatians; emperor Gordian III used it during his campaign against the Sassanians who were considered the new threat to the Greco-Roman world. Finally, in modern times Marathon has become a symbol of the battle for western civilization and values.

Bert van der Spek brings us to Hellenistic Babylon, illustrating the relationships between the autochthonous population and the new Greco-Macedonian colonists. Babylon had an age-old familiarity with multi-ethnicity. Under Seleucid rule, however, cuneiform tablets attest to a sort of apartheid status at a political level, where the local community appears to be separated from that of the colonists. Nevertheless, reality might have been more fluid, and it is unlikely that the two groups lived in ghettos divided by a wall. Possibly a stable Greek community was introduced only during the reign of Antiochus IV. Greek culture flourished as well as political institutions. Just to mention some examples, astronomical diaries let us know the existence of the peliganes, i.e. the members of the Macedonian elder council, and the politai, a term that designated the citizens belonging to the Greek community which held its assembly in the theatre of Babylon. On the other hand, Babylonian institutions remained vital too, and the central government communicated with both Babylonian and Greek authorities.

The essay by Karl Strobel explores the effects of the invasion of the Galatian tribes on Central Anatolia and the continuity of Galatian ethnic identity and historical traditions under Roman rule. Special emphasis is given to the survival of the Celtic language (spoken alongside Greek) until Late Antiquity, a fact that is considered an important sign of the strength of identity within this group. Evidence of that can be seen either in local onomastic or in religious traditions: in this regard it is interesting to note that the foundations of ancient Anatolian towns (Ankyra) and shrines (Pessinus and Tavium) are attributed to the Galatians by the literary tradition.

Douwe Yntema offers an interesting analysis of the objects found in the Mesagne (Brindisi) burial (around 170 BC), trying to give a possible picture of the ethnic identity of the deceased. Yntema examines material culture and literary sources, paying particular attention to the case of another famous fellow-countryman of the dead, the poet Ennius, who used to say he had three identities: Apulian, Greek and Roman. According to Yntema's hypothesis, the man of the Mesagne burial could represent a good parallel.

Nicole Belayche studies the foundation myths of Roman Palestine towns. The creation of the province of Syria-Palestina in the 1^st century AD and the Jewish diaspora produced favourable conditions to strengthen the status of pagan populations. At this time, many cities claimed divine origins to integrate themselves within the Greco-Roman world. Old towns with a long tradition in Greek mythology simply kept using their figures, while Roman colonies, with the single exception of Aelia Capitolina, generally stuck by their own traditions using Roman foundation myths only to enhance their political status. In this context, Greek myths could also be grafted onto both local Semitic and Roman traditions. Finally, cities like Scythopolis defined their origins via Greek models as a means of distinction from the neighbouring Jewish population.

The essay by Dick Whittaker deals with ethnicity on the frontiers of Roman Africa. Whittaker draws our attention to the considerable number of tribes recorded in Africa Proconsularis by ancient authors (516 populi according to Pliny the Elder) and by inscriptions, noting that "little attempt has been made to comprehend African ethnicity in terms of historical contingency and context-based identity" (p. 191). Roman frontiers in general created two types of ethnicity, one in reaction to Roman power, the other in association with it, thanks to the enrolment of nomads in military units as auxiliaries. The concluding part of the essay is dedicated to the analysis of Romanization, as an ethnic term. It appears to have promoted the (re)discovery of identity amongst the nomads, which was employed to define their ethnic alterity, but did not lead to the creation of physical or cultural barriers. Whittaker expresses his doubts on the possibility of studying ethnicity via material culture saying that "being or becoming Roman cannot be measured by cultural change but by political integration" (p. 202).

Greg Woolf takes the Frisian Revolt of 28 AD as a starting point for examining Roman ethnography about Germania. Classical authors interested in describing history and culture of other people sought information from mediators who were already part of two worlds. Ethnographic knowledge, far from being a product "of internal Greek and Roman discourse" (p. 215), was instead created on the middle ground through the encounter between local people (familiar with Roman culture and education) who reported their traditions in a Greek or Roman fashion and ancient ethnographers who brought with them their own store of preconceived notions.

In his study, Nico Roymans analyzes the importance of the cult of Hercules for Batavian integration into the Roman Empire. Communities conquered by the Romans needed to redefine their identity by linking it to Greco-Roman mythology. Roymans points out that myths of Trojan descent, in association with worship of Mars, were generally spread in several cities of Gaul and possibly Britannia, but Hercules was a more popular god along the lower Rhine frontier. Thanks to a syncretistic process, local gods were assimilated to Roman deities allowing non-Roman communities a "new kinship bond while keeping their local identity" (p. 223). The cult of Hercules Magusanus provided the Batavians with this link and at the same time represented a strong factor of cohesion amongst the members of this quite recent ethnic group.

Ton Derks offers an up-to-date inventory of inscriptions mentioning Batavians, with the aim of studying Batavian image and self-image. He believes in the great potential of epigraphy to convey "subjective feelings of belonging" (p. 240). Data shows that, even if the Batavian community ceased to exist in the late 3^rd century AD, the denomination of this group was still used in some auxiliary units in the late 5^th century. Collective acts of worship by soldiers belonging to the same ethnic context (but serving in mixed units) and funerary inscriptions give a prominent value to ethnicity, but it appears to be imperceptible in documents recording everyday life aspects, as suggested by the Vindolanda tablets. Nevertheless, feelings of ethnic difference can be pinpointed when interacting with the social context of a fort through "subjectively selected details of cultural practices, such as horse riding" (p. 256). We quickly list some major issues: the ethnic 'Batavian' was used only abroad; the terms natione and domo indicate a strong ethnic identity; the use of civis and civitas are rare amongst Batavians, probably because of their strong military imprint. In fact, they continued using tribal affiliation even after the grant of Roman citizenship, perhaps because of the positive qualities (e.g. strength, bravery) associated with their tribal name.

Frans Theuws studies the possibility of finding a relationship between specific burial rites and ethnic identity in Late Antique Northern Gaul. The presence of weapons such as axes, lances, bows and arrows in 4^th to 5^th century burials from this area was generally interpreted as a symbol of the Germanic origin of the deceased. Theuws convincingly overturns this view, putting forward the hypothesis that these burial goods can refer to hunting as a sign of prestige, control of landscape, virtue but also in the sense of overcoming death. This burial ritual should be linked to new claims on land by local families mostly not belonging to the elites, but willing "to create an ancestor to perpetuate the family's claims" (p. 314).

Finally, Jos Bazelmans provides a detailed survey on the continuity of the use of the ethnic "Frisians" by groups who settled in the Northern and Western Netherlands from the first century AD to the early Middle Ages. This unusual persistence caused many scholars to believe that the inhabitants of that area had kept calling themselves Frisians for many generations. However, new data from archaeology have revealed a hiatus in populations along the coastal area of the Netherlands during the Late Antiquity. Bazelmans thinks that the Frisian name was reintroduced by the Frankish elite, who had access to classical knowledge, when organizing the northern frontiers of the empire.

A few minor misprints do not interfere with the overall quality of this work.

In conclusion, the volume represents a welcome contribution to the studies on ethnicity both for its multidisciplinary approach and for providing grounds for reflection on this stimulating issue.

Table of Contents

Ton Derks-Nico Roymans, "Introduction", 1

Catherine Morgan, "Ethnic expression on the Early Iron Age and Early Archaic Greek mainland. Where should we be looking?", 11

Jan Paul Crielaard, "The Ionians in the Archaic period. Shifting identities in a changing world", 37

Hans-Joachim Gehrke, "From Athenian identity to European ethnicity. The cultural biography of the myth of Marathon", 85

Bert van der Spek, "Multi-ethnicity and ethnic segregation in Hellenistic Babylon", 101

Karl Strobel, "The Galatians in the Roman Empire. Historical tradition and ethnic identity in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor", 117

Douwe Yntema, "Material culture and plural identity in early Roman Southern Italy", 145 Nicole Belayche, "Foundation myths in Roman Palestine. Traditions and reworking", 167

Dick Whittaker, "Ethnic discourses on the frontiers of Roman Africa", 189

Greg Woolf, "Cruptorix and his kind. Talking ethnicity on the middle ground", 207

Nico Roymans, "Hercules and the construction of a Batavian identity in the context of the Roman empire", 219

Ton Derks, "Ethnic identity in the Roman frontier. The epigraphy of Batavi and other Lower Rhine tribes", 239

Frans Theuws, "Grave goods, ethnicity, and the rhetoric of burial rites in Late Antique Northern Gaul", 283

Jos Bazelmans, "The early-medieval use of ethnic names from classical antiquity. The case of the Frisians", 321

Index of names and places, 339

List of contributors, 343

1.   Jonathan Hall, Hellenicity. Between ethnicity and culture, Chicago/London 2002, p. 24.

This book is a publication of the papers and posters presented in 2005 at the Studi Etruschi conference dedicated to the memory of Massimo Pallottino. The proceedings focus upon the most evident but least studied of Etruscan remains: city walls. Greek and Roman studies supply a wealth of publications upon the subject, but the imposing Etruscan remains have never drawn systematic scholarly attention. In the early 1990's a renewed interest in Etruscan urbanism led to a plethora of research on city walls. This landmark publication aims to present Etruscan city walls in the context of new results. The participation of authors such as Mario Torelli, Armando Cherici, Giovanni Camporeale and Mauro Cristofani signals the scale and importance of the publication. Over thirty-two articles and the texts of four posters approach city walls through anthropological perspectives and site-specific excavation reports. The table of contents follows the order of conference presentation, but for purposes of this review, I have grouped the articles according to subject. I first consider the broad approaches, continue with articles focused on small regional sites, and finish by highlighting contributions concerning large Etruscan settlements. I attempt to examine every entry, but given the limits of the review, I refrain from analyzing every contribution in depth. Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review.

After a brief introductory address elucidating the aims of the conference, Camporeale opens the proceedings with an assessment of the meaning of city walls within literary and figurative traditions. He presents a selection of sources that trace the historical and archaeological problems related to our understanding of Etruscan city walls. Although he purposely avoids the archeological evidence due to issues of space, Camporeale presents a well-rounded and incisive overview. Armando Cherici continues with what may be the most important contribution of the publication. In ancient texts authors often refer to walls of bronze, wood, earth, and stones. Cherici postulates that bronze is a metaphor for Hoplite formations, wood for ships, earth for the simple embankments fortifying a network of strongholds, and stones for solid city walls. He goes on to frame these terms within historical, sociopolitical, and military developments. By analyzing the Greek evidence, Cherici concludes that analysis of defensive networks leads to an understanding of the social motivations and tensions that produced them. Despite the paucity of such evidence for Etruria, he successfully applies the model to the Roman destruction and relocation of Volsinii with interesting results.

Marjatta Nielsen continues with a brief contribution on the depiction of city gates and sieges on funerary urns. A series of examples depicting foreign scenes such as the sack of Troy and the Seven Against Thebes portray the outer façade of the Volterran Porta all'Arco to represent the urban side of city gates in the Aegean. Nielsen suggests that the motif of the arch and the passage between life and death correlates directly with the communal identity that city walls established. The images of the local gate therefore acted as a marker of place and identity also in death.

For her part, Hilary Becker successfully correlates the terms urbs, oppidum, castellum, and vicus, to the emerging archaeological evidence. Ancient sources use the terms to describe the settlement hierarchy throughout the Etruscan territory, but modern scholarship has remained skeptical of such a direct correlation. Becker suggests that scholars should adopt the ancient terms in future publications to elucidate better the settlement differentiations operating in Etruria.

Lidio Gasperini follows with a brief contribution describing a few of the Scaean gates in southern Etruria. The author eventually hopes to identify the gate type as a commonly used form in Etruria, but admits that the article is only a preliminary assessment and is far from presenting a complete picture.

Dominique Briquel addresses the religious aspects of Etruscan foundation rituals and urban layouts. In simple terms, the primigenius sulcus defines the extent of divine protection as well as the city limits, but the associated ritual also expels otherwise uncontrollable forces of nature. Briquel downplays the religious role of city walls within this context, arguing instead that the structures merely protected rather than occupied the established pomerial boundary. The author indicates that the general Hippodamic layout of cities such as Marzabotto seems to play a far greater religious role than walls in Etruscan urban concepts. For instance, the axial street alignments of some cities mirror the Etruscan cosmological religious organization. Furthermore, theumbilicus urbis placed at town centers echoes the religious relationship between gods and humans by positioning settlements between the dei caelestes above and the dei inferi below. As a result cities functioned both as earthly and cosmic centers in the Etruscan worldview.

Paul Fontaine contributes a broad analysis of our knowledge on Etruscan fortifications and highlights regional defense patterns. The article elucidates some of the major problems in the field, such as dating and the correct identification of walls as either defensive or terracing structures. He also looks at how local materials, settlement placement, and military practices influenced enceinte designs. Within this last category he examines the literary evidence in an effort to ascertain to what extent direct attacks actually posed a threat to urban centers. Fontaine admits the precariousness of our knowledge, yet he advances some interesting suggestions upon the dynamics influencing enceinte design with the advent of complex siege machines and their use in Italy.

Mario Torelli makes an important contribution to the chronological development of Etruscan defenses. In particular he assesses the architectural responses to social and military developments occurring during the Roman conquest of Etruria between the fourth and second centuries BCE. Torelli begins with the late Bronze Age, exploring the complexities of enceinte design and the introduction of siege warfare on the Italian peninsula. The author discusses the remains in important cities such as Vulci, Perugia, Cortona, and others in order to contextualize their appearance within the military developments. The article also discusses the effect of walls upon visitors as markers of civic identity. The cases of Falerii Novi and Perugia form examples validating the thesis that walls developed from purely defensive elements into integral parts of the urban image.

Three articles examine the enceinte designs and defensive networks on a regional scale. Stephan Steingräber looks at enceinte design in southeastern Etruria, limiting his choice to seven sites. Despite the small sample size and related dating problems, he concludes that local factors such as topography and the availability of material decisively influence fortification design. Adriano Maggiani provides a valuable contribution to our understanding of territorial defensive networks. Despite his sweeping title, he admits that limited resources must reduce the analysis to the territories of Pisa, Populonia and Fiesole. His article provides a vital insight into the relatively unknown territorial mechanisms and settlement patterns of the region during the fourth century BCE. In particular Maggiani recognizes a pattern where rectangular fortresses replaced earlier archaic boundary sanctuaries throughout the landscape.

Luigi Malnati and Giuseppe Sassatelli contribute to this group by assessing regional settlement patterns in the Po valley. They begin by establishing that regional occupation rests primarily upon urban conglomerates. Malnati then presents Bologna, Spina and some minor regional centres, while Sassatelli writes primarily about Bagnolo S. Vito, Marzabotto and to a lesser extent Spina and Ravenna. The Hippodamic alignment of Marzabotto in particular suggests astronomical and cosmic calculations governing urban layouts. Overall, the article offers a deeper understanding of the role walls played within urban development and settlement identities of the region.

A group of articles concentrates on site specific archaeological reports, including quite a number of smaller sites receiving first publication. Three contributions focus on the Albegna valley. Maurizio Michelucci discusses the results of excavations aimed at dating and assessing the construction technique of the walls of Doganella, while the contribution by Giulio Ciampoltrini and Mario Cosci discusses the wider settlement pattern and the role of the via dei Tumuli in the valley. Finally Paola Rendini and Marco Firmati publish the oppidum of Ghiaccio Forte on the eastern side of the valley for the first time. Interestingly, the development of the oppidum seems to behave according to the pattern Maggiani identifies further north.

Similar events appear to govern the Hellenistic fortress of Poggio Civitella. Luigi Donati and Luca Cappuccini describe three successive phases of abandonment and reoccupation, from a cult area in the late Bronze Age to a settlement in the sixth century BCE, and as a fortress in its final phase. Strikingly, the stronghold presents three distinct contemporary enceintes placed in succession up the slope. The authors describe the construction technique of each wall and present some of the most significant excavation finds from the site, including much of the uncovered cult material.

In two separate articles, Friedhelm Prayon and Jean Gran-Aymerich describe the walls of Castellina del Marangone. This small site at the fringes of Caeran territory builds two concentric enceintes in the period of Roman expansion. The first author discerns the presence of spoliated material in the outer wall and proposes their origin from a temple that dominated the hilltop in the fifth century CE. Gran-Aymerich presents the stratigraphy associated with a secondary upper enceinte uncovered during recent excavations.

Two contributions concern the territory around present-day Siena. Silvia Vilucchi and Ada Salvi present preliminary research on the oppidum at Piazza di Siena, while Silvia Goggioli and Guido Bandinelli describe the defensive castellieri settlements in the territory of Etruscan Siena. These two articles help to further assess the previously little known Etruscan defensive network in this territory.

Maria Chiara Bettini presents a similar preliminary study on the strategic site of Pietramarina. Lying upon an important territorial road network connecting Volterra and Fiesole in the Valdarno the site seems akin in size and role to neighboring Artimino. The article presents preliminary but interesting results on the development of the site and further campaigns will certainly help shed more light on the settlement pattern of this particular region.

The other site--specific articles discuss results of some of the better--known Etruscan centers. Francesca Boitani, in collaboration with Sara Neri and Folco Biagi, present the results of emergency excavations near the northwest gate of Veii. An earlier wall running parallel to the outer archaic defenses is possibly the most significant discovery of the campaign. The stratigraphic evidence dates the construction of the wall sometime between the eighth and seventh centuries BCE, suggesting that the development of Veii mirrors the urbanization processes occurring in neighboring Latium at the time. Using new mapping studies and small excavations, Giorgo Baratti, Maria Cataldi and Lucia Mordeglia revisit Tarquinia in an effort to end the controversy concerning the date and route of the enceinte. The results suggest a wider route and place the first construction to the early sixth century BCE, setting the conventional date back almost a century. The results remain preliminary, since later restorations of the structure complicate the interpretation.

Anna Maria Moretti Sgubini reports on the progress of conservation efforts at Vulci. The excavation of the fossa in front of the agger near the west gate suggests defensive works protecting the city by the second half of the eighth century BCE. More importantly, Sgubini reports on the discovery of a secondary double fornix gate beyond the primary line of defense at the ponte rotto crossing the Fiora River. Although we need to await further elaboration of the results, the evidence suggests a previously undocumented complex double line of defenses on this side of the settlement.

The well known walls at Todi are next on the list. Paolo Bruschetti summarizes the restoration work and projects their role in the social and infrastructural developments of the city between the fifth and first centuries BCE. More importantly, he contests the pure defensive nature of the walls, pointing out their primary function as terracing elements constructed to accommodate the expansion of the urban area over the centuries.

Mario Cygielman and Gabriela Poggesi revisit the famous walls of Roselle as part of the general restoration effort carried out in recent years. The article mostly summarizes the history of research, but also includes some new insights gained during the project. In particular, the hypothesis postulating that the first Orientalizing settlement occupied only the north hill gains further momentum. Pasquino Pallecchi adds an appendix explaining the eclectic nature of the stone types used in the circuit. His geomorphological analysis allows a direct correlation between the types used and the quarries identified next to the walls.

Volterra and Populonia also feature on the list of larger Etruscan sites in the book. Antonella Romualdi and Rosalba Settesoldi discuss the state and research development of the lower enceinte at Populonia, while Anna Maria Esposito and Roberto Sabelli follow with a similar examination of the restoration works on the third circuit of Volterra. This report includes a previously unpublished drawing of the remains of the Porta Solis and an in--depth description of the works in Località Sant'Andrea. Marisa Bonamici concentrates further on the Archaic circuit at Volterra, publishing the first photographs of the wall segment under the Centro Studi of the Cassa di Risparmio. Bonamici re-proposes the structure, otherwise buried in a small publication, to a wider audience and repositions the segment in the current urban matrix using new survey data. She also casts doubt on its function, arguing that the structure possibly operated as a terracing rather than defensive structure. This premise allows Bonamici to propose a new wider circuit for the Archaic enceinte, but she admits that only further data canconfirm this hypothesis fully.

Concerning the southern fringes of the Etruscan influence, Valeria Sampaolo proposes a tentative plan on the walls of Capua. Excavations reveal a few scant remains of the structure and establish a previously unknown organic civic plan dating to the sixth century BCE. In the north, Piera Melli presents a similar preliminary report upon a fifth century BCE wall section uncovered in Genoa. The small section allows a glimpse of the construction technique but any further circuit reconstruction remains difficult. The author postulates construction of the walls in response to Syracusan sea raids. The associated stratigraphy attests a short use of the wall, which already seems to be abandoned at the time of the Celtic incursions in the Po Valley.

Finally, Jacopo Ortalli discusses the defenses of Felsina. Recent discoveries show that the city formed in the eighth century BCE as a planned foundation resulting from syncretic processes of smaller hamlets. Excavations point to a complex tripartite palisade with towers, galleries, walkways, frontal water filled ditch and a rear agger forming the primary defensive line of the city. The differences in construction technique compared to the enceintes further south relates to the available materials and the general absence of stone in the Po region.

Overall, the articles present highly sophisticated scholarly contributions. Each article provides a wealth of images, including specialized plans, profile drawings and illustrations of associated finds. Photographs follow the text in separate plates, while plans and maps are distributed throughout the text. Each entry is a self contained unit with a bibliography allowing easy consultation of sources and figures. At 960 euro, the cost of the book is a significant drawback. At such an exorbitant cost one would expect a sturdy binding and the inclusion of some color photographs. Unfortunately all the images are black and white and the cover of my copy has already completely detached from the main body after just a few consultations. The scholarship, however, is of the highest standards and presents immensely valuable contributions to our understanding of Etruscan walls and urbanism. In particular, the emphasis on smaller regional strongholds allows a new understanding of Etruscan defensive systems, while the earlier dates reported for the enceintes in larger cities such as Veii and Tarquinia demands a future re-evaluation of Etruscan urbanism. Finally, the more general contributions allow the new placement of the structures within Etruscan social perspectives. For all of these reasons, this volume is indispensable to our understanding of Etruscan urbanism; any serious classics library should incorporate it into their collection.