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occupied modern scholarship on the Second Sophistic (identity, competition, elitism, the role of paideia, Greeks and Romans, past and present, power, gender). Chapters 3 and 5 o ¶er the freshest and most original pieces of interpretation in the book. Chapter 3 ('The Politics of Language and Style') surveys Atticism through its advocates (lexica), its satirists (Lucian) and its opponents (Galen, Epictetus) (pp. 43-9; cf. S. Swain, Hellenism and Empire [Oxford, 1996], pp. 43-64). Its strength lies in the sociological interpretation that it o ¶ers for the elusiveness of the standards that assessed canonical versus anomalous (or original) linguistic usage, thus suggesting a dynamic framework for examining the place of Atticism in the power struggles of the era (pp. 52-6). Chapter 5 ('The Second Sophistic and Imperial Greek Literature'), with which the book concludes, investigates 'the points of intersection between … sophistic literature and the wider literary culture of Roman Greece' (p. 74). Biography, autobiography and the novel are explored here. The intersection in question is found to be primarily concentrated on the attention to 'the self', a phenomenon which W. intrinsically links with the issues of identity and performance that he explores in previous chapters (especially Chapter 2). Insightfully, he establishes that this inward focus is not in fact incompatible with the epideictic culture of the era, thus showing a new direction to which study of this cultural trend of the second century a.d. can move (p. 85). The clear and stimulating content of the book is matched by its presentation: all Greek is transliterated, the historical and cultural background is deftly illuminated by the analysis, and all the key points are e ¶ectively consolidated. Particularly impressive is its judicious and attractive use of theory (literary, cultural and sociological), together with its cultural sensitivity with regard to scholarly interpretations of the Second Sophistic (see pp. 6-10, 49-51).

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recording 'Helidorus' honey'. Particularly welcome are the 236 photographs of the inscriptions discussed, even though some would benefit from being printed on a bigger scale, whilst an indication of dimensions is too often lacking. As one would expect, the military is at the forefront of much of the analysis, and the choice of structure also privileges inscriptions mentioning emperors. The chosen chronological and thematic structure arguably risks under-representing non-urban, non-military culture and society in Roman Britain, as reflected by Celtic names scratched upon a set of panpipes excavated at Shakenoak Villa in Oxfordshire (RIB 2.8.2505.4) or the glass bowl imported from Cologne and found on a villa site at Wint Hill in Somerset, with its hunting scene and inscription pledging 'Long life to you and yours; drink, long life to you' (RIB 2.2.2419.45). Perhaps an additional section specifically focusing upon Latin inscriptions in the countryside might have gone some way to balancing the inevitable prominence of the Roman army. It is inevitable though that some favourite individual inscriptions will always be missing from a sample, however comprehensive in scope. Otherwise, one can only raise minor quibbles: the claim on p. 33 that Tibullus is known as a cognomen only in Tab. Lond. Bloomberg 44 and for the Augustan-era poet should be qualified with the North African inscription for Q. Racilius Tibullus (AE 2013, 1959). What we have here, in short, is a volume presenting an effective up-to-date summary of what Latin inscriptions can reveal about the history of Roman Britain.