This volume constitutes a welcome addition to studies covering the period 133-29 BCE. Consisting of an introduction and fourteen papers, it explores the cultural matrix associated with Roman civil war and the transition from Republic to Principate. How and why did conflict manifest itself as civil war in those years? Situating this endemic conflict within its wider cultural setting, the authors highlight various aspects of the Graeco-Roman world and life beyond the limited horizons of lawcourts and battlefields. Epigraphic, numismatic, and archaeological materials are cited in addition to literary and documentary texts. The result is a holistic vision of the subject, and a volume that colleagues will find perfectly suited for teaching seminars. Both contributions and the volume overall are well formulated, providing sensible and stimulating discussion of a key question that is likely to have resonance outside the confines of ancient history and classical philology.

Wolfgang Havener ("Introduction: A Culture of Civil War?") provides a thorough and methodologically useful introduction, offering definitions and explaining the rationale for the areas investigated as well as synthesising each of the contributions. Appropriately, a quote from Sallust and its analysis by Theodor Mommsen furnish the starting-point. Five areas of investigation relevant to this volume are identified: semantics; legitimation strategies; communication; society; and reintegration and reconstruction. The fourteen contributions that follow are distributed in four groups: politics and society; memory; norms and values; and language.

Hannah Mitchell ("On Not Joining Either Side: The Discourse of Elite Neutrality in Roman Civil War") teases out the complexities involved in neutrality in the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompeius Magnus. Carsten Hjort Lange ("Naval Operations during the Late Republican Civil War 38-31 BCE: Victories by Land and Sea") argues that victors and their public had a holistic vision of the naval victories of the 30s BCE, as application of the phrase terra marique to Naulochus and Actium indicates. Kathryn Welch ("Memorable Women and Women in the Memory of Civil War") argues that the fashion for commemorating individuals and their actions in time of civil war means that elite women (e.g. Caecilia Metella) are more visible than before.

Amy Russell ("The Spaces of Civil War") explores the violation of civic space in the 80s BCE and the ways in which memory was transformed as people subsequently came to terms with this traumatic heritage. Cristina Rosillo López ("Speak, Memory: Oral Remembrances of the Civil Wars of the Republic and the Triumvirate") investigates the oral transmission of memories of the civil wars of the late Republic, highlighting mechanisms such as conversation and thereby illustrating the importance of the private sphere in defining Romans' common past. Harriet I. Flower ("Self-Representation in a Time of Civil Strife: Publius Rutilius Rufus' de vita sua") links Publius Rutilius Rufus' De vita sua to his experiences of exile and the context of civil war in the 90s-70s, evocatively illustrating what was distinctive about his career. Ulrich Gotter ("Writing Down Uncivil Wars. Or: How Roman Generals Justified Themselves in the Wake of Civic Bloodshed") revisits the ways in which Caesar's Bellum Civile dealt with the historiographical challenges of credibility and closure.

Wolfgang Havener ("Exempla sibi viam faciunt: Exemplarity in Times of Civil Strife") analyses the different strategies Cicero, Cornelius Nepos, and Valerius Maximus adopted in using exempla from civil war to construct models for present or future political engagement. Federico Santangelo ("Piety and Civil War") draws on local histories as he shows that the virtue of pietas occupied a central place in the ideological struggles associated with late Republican civil wars. Kit Morrell ("Missing in Action? Law and Civil War") makes the case for an enduring Roman "culture of legality" that emphasised formal legality in response to the crisis of legitimacy engendered by civil war. Dominik Maschek ("The Groundswell of Civil War: Material Culture and Changing Worldviews in the Last Three Generations of the Roman Republic") explores the ways in which archaeological evidence (e.g. the remains of fourteen individuals executed in the forum of Roman Valentia) reflects the experiences of Roman civil war.

Henning Börm ("Stasis in Rome? Hellenistic Discourse and the bella civilia of the Late Republic") documents the phenomenon of stasis in contemporary cities of the Greek-speaking East and argues that knowledge of this influenced the Roman experience. Catherine Steel ("From inimici to hostes: Internal Conflict in the Oratory of the Roman Republic, 133-88 BCE") investigates the transformation of political opponents into hostes in spite of their being fellow-citizens, thereby laying the legal and cultural basis for bellum civile. Matteo Cadario ("Remarks on the Image and the Honorary Monuments of the Roman Ruling Class in the Age of the Civil Wars: Pompey the Great, Caesar and Octavian") reunites heads with bodies so as to explore the ideological significance of statuary in terms of dress, hairstyle, and setting.

This attractive and wide-ranging collection of papers has much to offer in terms of methodology, ideas, and findings. For instance, Lange persuasively highlights the relevance of the phrase terra marique to a proper understanding of the triumphs of Young Caesar. Similarly, Russell evocatively discusses the significance of myth for contemporary politics. Or, to cite yet a third example, Morrell meticulously reviews the evidence for a culture of legality in the midst of civil war.

Readers will come away from this collection not only with a deeper understanding of the material, but also with questions to be pursued. So, Steel offers an insightful account of the construction of the hostis, but that in turn raises questions about the prior construction of the inimicus. Rosillo López brilliantly identifies stories as a transmission mechanism in which women played an important role, but they were arguably only one part of female discourse relating to civil war. Börm plausibly identifies Hellenistic stasis discourse as influencing the Roman experience, but that highlights the Herculean dilemma facing democracy at the crossroads: anocracy or autocracy.

Problems are relatively few and minor. The editors are to be commended for their courage and care in curating this volume entirely in English. Only very rarely is there a seriously misleading linguistic mistake, e.g. Caesari (190) instead of Caesares or Sergius (201) instead of Servius. Images can at times be hard to make out, especially when discussion turns on the presence of facial hair (e.g. Fig. 6), and more would have been welcome. But these are all minor issues.

Overall, this is a highly successful volume. Thoughtful pieces challenge the reader to think anew, and together these contributions provide a relatively comprehensive vision. The variety of methodologies and evidence deployed is welcome, and the mode of presentation is user-friendly. Consequently, this is a volume colleagues and students will find extremely useful for seminars and individual research. Authors and editors are to be felicitated upon their achievement.

Richard Westall