This book, a revised and expanded version of A.'s doctoral dissertation, examines how local communities of Roman Syria identified themselves in the regional and broader, imperial framework, and how their shifting identity was perceived by Greek and Roman imperial authorities. The project is ambitious, even more so as the argument exceeds the limitations announced in the title and transcends Syrian identity by discussing its links and overlap with Greek and Roman identifications. The book comprises an introduction, a conclusion and three complementary parts.

The first three chapters present a chronological narrative describing the impact of Graeco-Roman imperialism and the transformation of identities in the ancient Near East, from Antiochus IV's reign in the early second century b.c.e. to the full incorporation of Syria in the Roman empire, in the first century c.e. A. investigates the progressive integration of ethnic Syrians into the civic body of Greek cities, originally limited to the descent of Graeco-Macedonian settlers under the Seleucids. A first attempt at enlarging Greek civic bodies under Antiochus IV, best illustrated by the creation of an Antiochene polis in Jerusalem, was ultimately hindered by a simultaneous increase of imperial intervention in local economies and cults. The process was renewed with more success under the impulse of client kings and Roman administrators after Pompey's conquest. The integration of local ethnics into the peer-polity network of Greek poleis increased solidarity within the region. It also resulted in new forms of Greekness and Syrianness, based on shared civic values rather than ethnic origin, and interweaving Greek, Roman and Near-Eastern idioms.

The four chapters of Part 2 examine how the Greek poleis of Roman Imperial Syria constituted civic frameworks infused with new meanings of Greekness and Syrianness, under the impulse of the Roman administration and the cities' councils. The epigraphic and architectural landscapes of Antioch and Apamea in Syria, and Gerasa at the border between Syria and Arabia, show evidence of a coherent Greek civic body and Greek civic performances integrating idioms of various origins. Civic elites participated in a culture of euergetism, receiving praise from the civic body in exchange for benefactions that deeply reshaped and monumentalised the public spaces (colonnaded street, agora, bath, theatre). Chapters 6 and 7 focus on the cases of Palmyra and Dura-Europos, which reveal the sharpest deviations from the classical, Athens-centred standards supported by Hadrian. A. argues that, while integrating many Aramaic and Arab idioms, the performance and discourse of Imperial Palmyrenians was embedded into the Greek civic frame of a polis, characterised by the hegemonic nature of the council and a culture of euergetism. Dura-Europos' remote location in the Parthian empire and its late integration into Roman Syria result in a different, more fractured society before the Roman conquest of the mid-160s. Subsequent papyrological, epigraphic and material data show similar trends of integration of various ethnics into the citizen body, the hegemonic role of a boulê and the partial, unfinished transformation of public spaces. The proposed chronology (pp. 233–5) is, however, unclear and slightly faulty: Dura-Europos was already a polis when the Romans arrived (the term appears in the first century c.e. P. Dura 16B).

The third Part examines stereotypes of Syrianness in Greek and Roman Imperial literature, and how Syrians challenged this discourse. Several themes pertaining to this part have already been discussed in preceding chapters (Cicero's discourse in Chapter 1, Hadrian's views in Chapter 6). While the Imperial Syrian cities were integrated into a Greek peer polity network within the province of Syria and the Empire, and their elites cultivated Greek paideia, their Greek identity differed from the ‘classical model’ centred on Athens and the Aegean. Greek and Roman sophists and Imperial figures presented Syria as a marginal, ‘barbarian’ land, and Syrian Greeks as intrinsically depraved and deviant Easterners disguised as Greeks. Chapters 9 and 10 discuss how second-century Syrian writers like Lucian interacted with and confronted this performative context. By implementing certain forms of cultural ‘hybridity’ in their discourse, they undermined the sophistic dichotomy between pure ‘classical’ Greekness and barbarian Syrianness. In the third century, this critique of the cultural categorisation encapsulated in imperial discourse led to the political and social challenging of Athens and Rome's cultural pre-eminence, ultimately embodied by Palmyra's insurgency and Zenobia's new Graeco-Roman empire centred on Syria.

A.'s approach is innovative in its theoretical emphasis and questioning of widely accepted assumptions on identity in the Roman East. The main novelty of his work lies in the combination of a vast array of data into a highly theoretical frame and in his challenging of many scholarly assumptions on the identity, ethnicity and culture of the Roman Near East. In this aspect, this book is a welcome addition to the fast growing literature on identity in the Near East and, more widely, in the Graeco-Roman world. By questioning the often-static categorisation of imperial and local idioms, and the concepts of Hellenisation, Romanisation and hybridity used to describe the culture of Graeco-Roman Syria, A. compels us to consider more closely the processes and evolutions discernible in the available material and textual testimonia. Whether the reader shares A.'s conclusions or not, this book has the great merit of raising important questions and encourages us to reassess well-known or neglected sources with a fresh eye.

The breadth and diversity of the bibliography are impressive and allow A. to engage with many topics and particularities within the Graeco-Roman Near East. However, this makes the discussion rather difficult to follow for readers who are not already familiar with the region and period. Another shortcoming resides in the numerous repetitions throughout the book. While the reiteration of the same source or concept between chapters, or between sections in a chapter contributes to the unity (and development) of the argument, regular repetitions of the same idea a few lines apart and recurring announcement effects weigh the progression down and often give the impression of a flawed, unfinished reasoning.

Proofreading has been meticulous, with very rare typos or inversions in the text content (contra: notes 42 and 43 on p. 46 are clearly inverted). It is unfortunate that the illustrations did not benefit from the same care. The photographs and plans are poorly contrasted (see especially fig. 1 p. 76, 4 p. 140, 11 p. 181; in the plan of Dura-Europos, fig. 17 p. 213, all the streets have disappeared). More damagingly, the eastern frontier of Roman Syria is mislocated in the introductory maps 6 and 7: Dura should be in Syria, not in Parthia/Persia.

Despite these few formal and inherent weaknesses, A.'s book is a worthy addition to Cambridge University Press' important series on ‘Greek culture in the Roman world’. By challenging several scholarly assumptions on Greek and Easterner identity in Roman Syria, it constitutes a thought-provoking marking-stone in the study of identity, ethnicity and culture in Graeco-Roman Syria.