K.'s excellent monograph asks us to reconsider some of the ways in which scholars have traditionally perceived the ancient Roman manes. As such, it is a book that demands to be read and considered over some length of time, and it is essential reading for anyone working in this still sometimes under-studied area.

K.'s central thesis is that the Roman manes were gods and that nearly all the Roman dead were worshipped regularly by those still living. The book is the product of twenty years’ research, and this comes through in the depth of detail, the wealth of primary evidence produced to support the book's arguments and the complexity of the material covered. Occasionally this long gestation period leads to oddities, such as the description of S. Iles Johnston's 1999 book Restless Dead as ‘recent’ (p. 6), but the extensive bibliography includes publications well into the 2010s and has obviously been regularly updated.

K.'s first chapter, ‘Di Manes: the Godhood of the Dead’, succinctly sets out his central thesis, while the rest of the book offers further explanation and considers how worship of the manes worked. Chapter 2, ‘Di Manes: the Number of the Gods’, convincingly argues that the plural word manes could refer to a singular being and that their worship extends much further back into Roman history than the Imperial period. Chapter 3, ‘Who Worshipped Whom?’, opens with a look at the enduring influence of Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges's theories on men and ancestor cult and an equally convincing refutation of the same, before examining exactly who did worship whom, considering the various ties of pietas and legal obligations that governed the worship of individual manes. Chapter 4, ‘The Manes in the Context of Roman Religion: Beliefs and Variations’, addresses the wider issue of belief in Roman religion, opening by expanding arguments from K.'s 2003 article on the subject (Classical Antiquity 22 [2003], 275–312). This introduces K.'s suggested solution for talking about the varying and overlapping beliefs current in non-dogmatic ancient religion, which is to describe ‘belief clusters’ (p. 85). Chapter 5, ‘The Powers of the Dead’, outlines the powers the manes might have been believed to have, while Chapter 6, ‘The Manes in the Context of the Funeral’, suggests how their worship fitted into Roman funerary practice. Before a brief conclusion, the book finishes with Chapter 7, ‘Festivals, Ceremonies and Home Shrines’, which outlines the various religious rituals associated with the manes, especially the Parentalia and the Lemuria.

Aside from the depth of scholarship, one of the strengths of K.'s approach is to consider not just the practices of the elite who provide the bulk of the evidence, but all levels of Roman society, in so far as that is possible. Throughout, K. considers how the evidence for elite practice might translate to less elaborate rituals and to less wealthy people. He offers sensible, evidence-based suggestions on issues such as lower-budget funerals (p. 147), the status of slaves among the deified dead (p. 53) or the possibilities for lower-budget offerings at a tomb (p. 156). While the nature of the evidence will inevitably drive more of the text to address elite customs, it is not forgotten that Roman society was not homogeneous, and the customs and beliefs of other groups than the elite are consistently considered.

Probably of most interest to scholars of ancient religion in general will be Chapter 5 on belief. Numerous scholars have wrestled with the thorny issue of how to deal with the obvious variation in beliefs and ideas about the gods and other aspects of religion across the ancient world, with approaches ranging from denying that belief was of any importance at all, to insisting on its importance but without always finding an elegant way to address the clear variation in a non-dogmatic religion. K. favours an approach that acknowledges the importance of belief in Roman religion, while also acknowledging the wide possible variation, and his proposed solution of talking about ‘belief clusters’ is effective. This solution perhaps perpetuates the tendency of scholars of religion to downplay real and present disbelief, which is the only possible ancient attitude excluded from the idea of ‘belief clusters’, but, if we are restricting the conversation to those who engaged in religious practice in a spiritual manner and for spiritual (rather than social or psychological) reasons, it is an elegant solution and neatly describes the ways in which conflicting ancient beliefs could circulate around the same subject.

As for the central argument, K. is overall extremely persuasive. Some elements of the argument are, inevitably, more convincing than others. The suggestion that Ovid's lone description of the Parentalia and the Lemuria as essentially equivalent is more convincing than the several other cited texts that consider them different because the Lemuria ceased to be practised during the second century ce and was therefore redundant (p. 171) is not entirely convincing. It is surely possible that the functions of the Lemuria were taken over by something else – perhaps by rites within the various mystery cults, which are not discussed in the book, but which K. suggests as a subject for further study in the conclusion (p. 181). Consideration of the emotional reasons why people might worship a particular dead person at home could also be taken further, as the psychological aspects of this worship as a form of prolonged grief are not really addressed. At one point, it is suggested that stories about ghosts appearing to complain of improper burial are the result of anxiety about the dead person being unable to become divine manes without the proper ceremony (p. 143), but this does not explain why this motif is equally popular in Greek ghost stories. Denial of the entrance of the soul to the underworld due to improper burial does not necessarily indicate that the soul is expected to become divine if the ceremony is performed.

This relates to the biggest issue with K.'s central thesis, which is that the book is so focused on considering the dead as gods and the objects of worship, that very little space is given to other possible ways of thinking about the dead – other ideas that may have been part of ‘belief clusters’ or existed within the cultural imagination. The status of larvae and the decline of the Lemuria are both relegated to appendices, when they should be part of the main argument (and the publisher has not helped by printing the appendices in a small font). Although D. Felton's work is referenced, the focus is firmly on religion and religious practice, and the status of the dead in folklore is not considered. However, it would be fair to say that these considerations were outside the scope of the research here, and it is perhaps the duty of other scholars to pick up on K.'s work and reconsider our ideas about other aspects of the dead and the afterlife in Roman thought in light of K.'s arguments.

This book is absolutely essential reading for anyone working on ancient afterlife belief or on Roman funerary custom and the cult of the dead. K. is very persuasive, and the book is meticulously researched. It is also highly recommended for anyone with an interest in ancient religion more broadly and for students working in this area. The writing is readable and accessible, and typographical errors are few and far between, with the only notable one being one mis-spelling of ‘Dolansky’ as ‘Dolensky’ (p. 154). All ancient texts are translated, complex concepts such as polymorphism are clearly explained, and K.'s method of referencing fragments – providing a reference to the later source in which they appear – is thoroughly sensible and will be very helpful to anyone using online databases of ancient sources rather than collections of fragments. A truly excellent piece of scholarship.