The book under review is the slightly revised English translation of a 2008 Dutch monograph by Christian Laes and Johann Strubbe, offering discussion — for the lay reader and the ancient historian — of youth in the Roman Empire, i.e. roughly the mid-teens to the mid-twenties in the lives of (as the authors put it) boys and girls. The authors commit to a biological definition of youth, starting with puberty (which makes the mid-teens too late in my view as the starting-point for the study of female youth), and ending with the completion of cerebral development roughly a decade later. The book responds to a (Dutch) debate on the nature of Roman youth: crudely put, was youth conceptually and actually a non-entity at Rome, or did biological developments lead to noticeable differences in the behaviour and practices of youths, entailing the social recognition of adolescence as a distinct life-phase? Notwithstanding some qualifications and reservations, L. and S. argue for the latter, acknowledging also that there were differences over time regarding theory and practice of (what we call today) adolescence. L. has recently rebutted severe criticism of their contribution, maintaining that their approach enables a stimulating and human encounter (Salesianum 79 (2017), 717–32).

The book opens with an overview of select contributions to the study of youth, historical, sociological and anthropological, and a summary of the (different) views and approaches of Eyben, Pleket and Kleijwegt. Following brief discussion of the challenges inherent in the study of Roman youth, eleven chapters explore various aspects and sources of immediate relevance. Chs 2 to 4 deal with still broader issues, concerning the human life-cycle and rites of passage, and the terminology and characteristics of youth. Ch. 5 explores ancient observations of the physical changes in the pubescent body, drawn primarily from the medical and philosophical literature (especially Galen and Aristotle). Chs 6, 9 and 10 deal with what one could call ‘the professional life-cycle’: schooling and education, public office holding, occupational training. Youth associations (i.e. the ephebeia and iuventus) are discussed in ch. 7 (with the negative result that ‘(t)he study of the youth associations unfortunately provides no answer to [the posited] questions’: 135). Ch. 11 deals with adolescents and marriage, followed by discussion of the role of youths in early Christianity, in ch. 12. Ch. 8 — with thirty pages almost the longest — tackles the knotty issue of adolescent restlessness.

Throughout these chapters, description and synthesis (and opinion, especially in ch. 7) trump analysis and argument, foregrounding that the book is intended ‘(f)or the general reader with a broad cultural and historical interest’ (xiii). That reader will indeed find much of interest, generally well-presented and discussed: the chosen examples are intriguing and whet one's appetite for more — such as adolescent euergetism, ‘student life’ and generational conflicts. The aim to offer also new research is less well accomplished, including in chs 7 and 9, despite their promise of ‘(n)ew views … based on a thorough and scholarly study of the ancient sources’ (xiii). Overall, the handling of the sources is mixed, and the relationship between evidence and research distorted. For instance, in their discussion of paternal powers, Titus Manlius Torquatus’ death-sentencing of his own son is cited, with the conclusion that ‘new research has demonstrated that … the father acted not on the grounds of his private potestas but in his capacity as magistrate’ (151): but that is plain from Livy (8.7.19: consulum imperia). Moreover, proposed identifications of youthful behaviours are not duly scrutinised for their particular ‘youthfulness’. One example: ‘chariot races, amphitheatre games, brothels, parties’ are linked to ‘university’ youths (93–4): does this mean that Columella's undesirable vilicus, ‘used to leisure, gymnastics, race-courses, theatres, dining, wine shops and brothels’ (DRR 1.8.2), was a youth? Perhaps. But the point is that the identification of ‘a separate youth culture’ (98) requires due contextualisation and qualification of the associated behaviours — which is, however, lacking. A five-page Conclusion re-emphasises the ‘biological basis for being young’ (228), expressing the hope for future elaboration of the topic.

Repeated acknowledgement of a concentration on elite males is interspersed with the occasional discussion of the situation of young women, e.g. concerning marriage (especially 210–13) and membership of the iuventus (123–7), with the odd aside on non-elite youths. The elitist androcentric focus is nevertheless overwhelming: Male Elite Youth in the Roman Empire would be a more appropriate book-title. To exclude ‘male’ and ‘elite’ from the title means to participate in the marginalisation of those excluded — i.e. young women (and, it is necessary to state, not ‘girls’) and men of non-elite status — and to contribute to practices that silence female and non-elite Romans in our historical imagination. A human approach to the topic would avoid marginalisation-by-title and, indeed, by approach, however difficult a proposition the latter might be. Doing so would raise analytical and interpretative issues that are not equally obvious in the chosen male elite cases, allowing one to test conclusions and hypotheses at their conceptual limits. If the lives of a few wealthy lads who enjoyed the unusual leisure to let their biological clock run riot suggest that ‘youth may indeed … be described as a stormy phase in life’ (232), the question of the relationship between wealth and genes, between the social and the biological, presses forward. Can ancient historians address this issue in a way which takes the debate on the subject forward, while accepting the challenges of dealing with the bulk of the population and of research more broadly?