INGO GILDENHARD and CRISTIANO VIGLIETTI (EDS), ROMAN FRUGALITY: MODES OF MODERATION FROM THE ARCHAIC AGE TO THE EARLY EMPIRE AND BEYOND (Cambridge classical studies). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xii + 415, illus. ISBN 9781108840163. £75.00.

Abstract

ancient performance culture beyond the world of text. It also reminds us that many souvenirs would have been open to personal interpretations and meanings. Other objects discussed by Popkin challenge the notion of a souvenir as related to real-world events and places: For example, does it change anything when the racing chariots are driven not by human charioteers, but erotes (g. 63), a motif also found in funerary contexts? Citing Diane Favro, Popkin concludes that images of Rome were not part of the wider souvenir culture because none of its monuments had become an 'urban icon' (245). Maybe so, but the idea (and image) of Rome as the city of seven hills was nonetheless pervasive, as were personications of Roma (a form of cult statuary not far from the Antiochene Tyche that offers a vicarious experience of empire).Ultimately, what kind of work is the term 'souvenir' doing for us? Is it more than a helpful historical analogy (see the references passim to contemporary American sports and their consumer culture)? Do we lose some of the ner details when grouping together very diverse objects (ranging from terracottas to rather fancy gems, metal and glass works) under the banner of 'souvenirs'? Popkin in my view shows that the term has real heuristic value and makes us think harder about the meanings of objects and images, as well as how they can have an agency of their own and mediate different relationships. On the other hand, her book did leave me worrying that some of the term's essentialising implications may not be helpful in all cases. Notably the intricate patterning and interest in the labyrinthine depiction of civic space make the Puteoli and Baiae glass ampullae a little different. In this regard, it is interesting to note that some of the inscriptions found on them refer to drinking. This raises a more wide-ranging question about use that also haunts the study of late antique containers of all sorts: are (some of these) just fancy packaging for something that was perhaps even more fancy, but ephemeral and ultimately lost to us?Finally, I did also wonder about some of the assumptions made throughout the book about aspects of class and economy. For example, about the producers of these souvenirs we hear that 'economic prot surely motivated them' (82) and that they produced for a 'middle-class market' (188). In the nal part of the book, souvenirs are then presented as a means of 'democratising luxury ' (196). This circles back to the introduction's statement that 'the empire's culture of souvenirs was a bottom-up phenomenon' (12). But can we really know this? The danger here is to rely uncritically on assumptions about the social context of souvenirs. After all, a rather different story could emerge if we pursued the argument that ancient souvenirs, like the modern culture of souvenirs that began with the early modern Grand Tour (see, most recently, E. Gleadhill, Taking Travel Home: The Souvenir Culture of British Women Tourists, 1750-1830 (2022)), owe more to elite than subaltern practices. These probl...