Classical World

Classics scholars and advanced students looking for new insights into the Roman world will find them in this rich volume of fifteen collected articles in English.¹ [End Page 107] Laudable are its abundant documentation of sources on topics both familiar and novel, and a consistent methodology derived from the hermeneutical tools of the social sciences. One perspective that is missing is relevant feminist theory,² and the focus on literary evidence means that useful material culture is often not considered. I will briefly address the contributions in order of appearance.

"Comparison" and "Metaphors," by Bettini and Short respectively, address the theoretical underpinnings of the volume's methodology. Bettini argues for the need to examine both "universal traits" based on emic sources as well as cultural "oddities" based on etic observation; hence the volume's selection of themes and format. Short contributes a case study of alimentary language as a common cultural model of thinking and communicating in Latin rather than an élite metaphor.

Pironti and Perfigli in "Polytheism" demonstrate convincingly how the Roman familia served as a model for the conception of "main" and "helper" gods (i.e., indigitamenta) that populated the Roman pantheon. Bettini's second contribution, "Myth," asserts that fabulae about the origins of Rome and its topography served also as their "verification and foundation." Prescendi's "Sacrifice" argues that the Roman formula do ut des was dependent more on belief in reciprocity than previous notions of perfunctory commercial transaction allowed. Cherubini's "Witches" is a fascinating analysis of the Roman conception of the strix and its continuity in Italian folklore. Especially useful is Lentano's "Kinship" discussion of cultural differences between agnates and cognates in the Roman family. Raccanelli and Beltrami's "Friendship and the Gift" delves deeply and expertly into Latin literature; but we miss incorporation of the amici memorialized in Latin epigraphy.³

Viglietti's excellent "Economy" addresses the notion of "scarcity" in the archaic and early Republican periods in Rome and its environs. In "Space," De Sanctis' take on Roman topography mirrors Bettini's "Myth" chapter, but goes beyond fabulae to a new analysis of the ritual foundation of the city. In "Animals," Franco presents an anthrozoological analysis of the cultural transference of Circe's tame beasts in Greek myth to caged wildness in Vergil's retelling in Aeneid 7. Hautala's "Plants" proposes a polythetic Greco-Roman methodology for classifying certain plants with reference to the divine body. Pucci's multi-faceted "Images" (written before the 2015 discovery of the Pylos Combat agate) [End Page 108] argues that Greek imagery is best understood as re-functionalized in its Roman context. Manetti's "Signs" examines in a wide range of texts how the Greek and Latin vocabularies of semiotics are paradigmatic of knowledge. The final chapter, "Riddles," is an enthralling study of "enigmatic discourse" focusing on the late Antique poet Symposius, and Ovidian oracles and dreams.

Reader aids include an aggregated list of references, Greek and Latin word indices, and a general subject index. Even if one is not equally interested in all the subjects covered in this volume, it deserves to be read cover to cover for the overall picture of Roman culture it presents.