This work aims to offer ‘a convenient apparatus for source reference’ (p. vii) to the Greek rhetors and sophists of the Roman Empire; it rightly disavows any aspiration to be ‘a profound and complete analysis’ of their intellectual activities (p. vii); it is certainly not (and does not claim to be) a general prosopography of Greek imperial literature. The criteria for inclusion (p. vii) are sensibly catholic: in addition to those explicitly termed σοϕστής or ῥήτωρ in our sources, ‘additional possible criteria’ are ‘(i) they were teachers of rhetoric; (ii) they gave public performances delivering speeches of various types; (iii) they wrote treatises on rhetorical theory’. Space is also found for those for whom rhetoric was ‘outside the scope of their main activity’ (p. vii), and even for those whose classification as rhetors or sophists is now considered erroneous. The chronological range is the Augustan age to the end of the seventh century, with some flexibility at either end. ‘Greek’ here refers to all those writing in Greek, regardless of their origins. The main catalogue comprises 1,099 named individuals, followed by a further 76 without name. An appendix covers ‘sophists in medicine’: after judicious opening remarks on problems of definition, 26 such figures are presented, with cross references to a few individuals in the main catalogue who included medicine among their intellectual pursuits. At the end are seventeen stemmata illustrating the more complicated family relationships discussed in the text, a helpful feature.

The individual entries are intended to offer ‘a clear record of all ancient testimonies on each individual’ (p. vii), focusing primarily on biographical data and rhetorical activities. Thus in addition to summaries of the major literary accounts such as those found in Philostratus or Eunapius, we are also alerted to more obscure literary testimonia, as well as entries in the Suda, and any important epigraphic evidence; this ancient material is woven together with common-sense deductions and insights from modern studies to give as full an account of each individual's career as possible, with acknowledgement of scholarly controversies where they exist. Thus, for example, the entry for Alexander Clay-Plato (entry 41) summarises Philostratus’ narrative, helpfully teasing out of the Vitae Sophistarum the sort of concrete details about which Philostratus can be rather vague: Philostratus’ τὸ ἐπιστέλλειν Ἕλλησιν (VS 571) is clarified as the post of ab epistulis graecis, and sensible estimates about dates are offered; the entry then finishes with testimonia from Phrynichus on Alexander's Atticism which the non-specialist would not have stumbled upon without significant labour in the bibliography. Such entries present conveniently a vast store of prosopographical information, saving researchers a great deal of time as well as very likely reducing the bulk of their footnotes. The OCD does not cover any more than the most famous of the figures featured here, while the RE, for all its thoroughness, is out of date, hard to access and sometimes overwhelming in detail. The entries to be found in this work are closest perhaps to those in Der Neue Pauly, but the tighter focus here on rhetors and sophists and their specifically rhetorical activities makes it much more useful for specialists.

Obviously this work cannot include everything: readers who want more detail on the epigraphic evidence will naturally often have recourse to Puech's Orateurs et sophistes grecs dans les inscriptions d’époque impériale (2002), and those who want to know about all of the more obscure literary testimonia will end up consulting RE. But the selection of material is well judged for a work of this scope, and there are of course bibliographical signposts for those who want more. My only slight reservation as regards the selection concerns the entries for the most well-known figures: given that most of those who use this book will already know the most familiar and accessible literary sources (above all, Philostratus), perhaps in some cases the space would have been better used to alert readers to less well-known and less accessible testimonia (just as the work wisely follows the policy of giving relatively less space to well-known figures, and more to relatively ‘marginal’ figures, p. viii). For example, Polemo's quarrel with the future emperor Antoninus is well known and easy to find (Philostr. VS 533–5): less well known, and more pertinent to Polemo's rhetorical activity, is that his exuberant speeches could be mentioned in the same breath as the sober Aristides as an appropriate model for imitation in Menander Rhetor (386.29–387.2 Spengel), or cited approvingly on a point of rhetorical arrangement in a work as technical as Sopater's Diaireseis Zêtêmatôn (Walz, RG VIII.58.5-6). But such a rebalancing of the selection would affect only a few such longer entries.

My only significant criticism concerns the lack of indexes other than alphabetical. The authors hope that this work will ‘be used in many different studies on ancient culture and history’ (p. vii), but without thematic indexes it is harder than it needs to be to exploit this great concentration of useful material. Anyone who is interested in more than just individual figures and wants a list of known sophists and rhetors involved in the composition of, for instance, verse encomia, or associated with Aphrodisias, or known to have held Roman citizenship, will sorely feel the lack of a thematic index; anyone looking for the punchy discussion of the identity of Lucian's target in his Pseudologista (entry 1123) will, for want of an index auctorum, simply have to read through all the anonymous entries until he or she finds it. A much more minor quibble is that though the chronological range of the work is impressive, an exception might perhaps have been made to assist those exploring the later Byzantine rhetoricians who lurk in the darker corners of Walz's Rhetores Graeci (just as the OCD makes space for Eustathius and Demetrius Triclinius): the same reader who turns from Walz to the present work to find out what is known about the fifth- or sixth-century Phoebammon might well want similar data for the later Gregory of Corinth or Georgius Choeroboscus. The work seems to be largely free of errors in spelling or grammar: there are, however, quite a number of more subject-specific errors in proper names, titles, references, etc. (e.g. ‘Xenophont’, p. 261, Περὶ σχεμάτων, p. 170). Most of these are trivial, but a few are not: at one point (p. 297) the reader is referred to a non-existent volume XIV of Walz's Rhetores Graeci.

This work should prove a valuable first port of call for all those investigating the careers of Greek rhetors and sophists of the Roman Empire.