In this very interesting book, a revised version of his 2006 doctoral thesis, S. reads the Roman Argonautica in two, often intertwined, ways. One is as Valerius Flaccus' response to Lucan's Bellum Civile in an attempt to return epic to its function of extolling heroic actions; such an approach is rarely undertaken by scholars in the field (an important exception is A.P. Zissos, ‘L'ironia allusiva: Lucan's Bellum Civile and the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus’, in S. Esposito and E.M. Ariemma [edd.], Lucano e la tradizione dell'epica latina [2004], pp. 21–38). The other is as a reflection, with its themes, choice of topic and characterisation of protagonists, of the political context of Vespasian's rule. This interpretation is unusually optimistic (cf. most recently A.P. Zissos, ‘Navigating power: Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica', in W.J. Dominik, J. Garthwaite and P.A. Roche [edd.], Writing Politics in Imperial Rome [2009], pp. 351–66), but nevertheless highly convincing. S.'s book, a ‘new reading’ indeed, is an important contribution to the field of Latin literature and Flavian epic in particular.

A brief introduction consisting of an outline of the argument and the contents of the book is followed by six chapters. The first chapter, ‘The Date of the Argonautica’, carefully examines all external and internal evidence, in particular the proem dedication, in order to argue, convincingly, for the dating of the poem within the reign of Vespasian. The following three chapters are linked by the theme of Gigantomachy, and in each case aim to show how the story of the Argonautic expedition as told by Valerius reflects his contemporary political situation. In the second chapter, ‘The Inauguration of the “Argonautic Moment”’, S. argues that Vespasian's assumption of power after the civil wars of a.d. 68–69 is comparable to Jupiter's defeat of the Giants and his establishment of his new world order, characterised by toil which aims at great deeds in order to fulfil the cosmic plan outlined in his prophecy, namely the transferral of power from the East to the West. The Argonautic expedition is one of the first stages in this process, and the Argonauts' outward movement, their heroic adventures and interaction with distant peoples match Vespasian's expansion of the empire and his own unprecedented actions that earn him divine glory and a place among the stars. This constitutes a break from Lucan's precedent replacing the tyrannical Nero with the serene, Jovian, paternal Vespasian; at the same time Lucan's poem of destruction, fear and despair is succeeded by one promoting renewal, regeneration and hope, proving that a civil war / Civil War can be a precursor to something new and better.

A similar point is made in the discussion of the storm in the third chapter, ‘The Sea Storm and Political Allegory’. Its position immediately after Jupiter's prophecy emphasises the threat posed to such plans by opponents who in the epic are presented as Giant-like. The storm winds stand in for the opponents of Vespasian's new order, those people who reject progress and seek to return to a previous state of affairs, much like Vespasian's contemporary Helvidius who strikingly resembles Valerius' Boreas. Crucially Valerius presents the Argonauts as potentially gigantomachic, before absolving them from any such charge by portraying them as knowing their limits and endorsing a pious attitude towards the gods, in stark contrast not only to the winds but also to Lucan's Caesar who in a similar situation proves to be exceedingly Giant-like. The arguments put forward so far are reinforced by the analysis of the events at Cyzicus in the fourth chapter, ‘Gigantomachy and Civil War in Cyzicus’, which constitutes the first extensive discussion of these two aspects in the episode. S. reads this episode as a clear response to Lucan: in the Bellum Civile the two sides are not easily distinguished, Giant-like Caesar emerges victorious, and civil war has a destructive outcome. Valerius presents the battle between the Argonauts and the Doliones as a civil war but makes sure that any gigantomachic attributes are assigned only to the latter, and their leader Cyzicus is painted in such negative colours (both a contemptor diuum and a contemptor populi) that his death at Jason's hands and their defeat by the Argonauts are justified and divinely sanctioned. Appended to this chapter is a list of gigantomachic motifs in the battle between the Argonauts and Perses' army in Book 6.

Civil war and its aftermath characterise both Lucan's poem and Vespasian's new regime, and Valerius' use of uates in the Argonautica is another aspect of his engagement with his poetic predecessor and political contemporary. The fifth chapter, ‘The Vespasianic Vates’, discusses how helpful, confident and authoritative Valerius' prophetic figures are compared with Lucan's. In particular, S. sees in the change in Jupiter's attitude to Phineus, namely his release from the Harpies and restoration of vigour, speech and vision, a parallel to Vespasian's rule which improved with time, granting the uates Valerius with similar gifts of renewed vision and free speech. Another role for the uates in the poem is his ability to heal the wounds of civil war. In an analysis of Mopsus' actions at Cyzicus S. interprets Valerius' emphasis on the power of forgetting as leading to new hope and forward movement for the Argonauts as well as for Vespasianic Rome that will be able to face the new political era with the help of Valerius' restorative poetry.

Finally, the sixth chapter, ‘Recuperating the Hero: Medea and the Issue of Jason's Virtus’, offers another way by which Valerius brings renewal to epic. Reacting to Lucan's banishment of uirtus and aristeia from his epic world, Valerius not only allows the display of heroic manliness, but he grants it to Jason precisely in a civil war context, the battle against Perses' army at Colchis. The ambiguity created by the intertexts of Medea's encounter with Jason causes a tension between arma and amor similar to the one that contributes to the Apollonian Jason's antiheroic representation. This tension is then converted into a balanced relationship where Jason's aristeia motivates and is motivated by Medea's erotic passion. Valerius recurs to the same imagery, that of the Dog Star, in itself a traditionally ambiguous presence, in order first to highlight the threat to Jason's heroism and then to confirm that he is a traditional Homeric hero. As the brief conclusion to the chapter (and the book as a whole) points out, the recuperation of the Valerian hero is part of the poetic counterpart to the renewal Vespasian's regime effects in politics. This has been argued convincingly earlier in the book to be similar to Jupiter's new order in allowing heroic deeds to take place, even after a civil war, and poets such as Valerius to sing of them.