Amidst the large output of books and articles about Perpetua and the Passio in the last twenty or so years, this volume stands out for assembling all the sources, both textual and visual, that comment on the importance of this text across the empire in the period from the third to the eighth centuries. The book includes the texts of the Passio itself (Greek and Latin versions and the Acta), interpretations of the text—by far the longest section of the book (for example, Tertullian, Augustine, other martyr accounts), celebrations of the martyrs in liturgical calendars, martyrologies, consular annals and chronicles, and various visual representations (some well-known like the Ravenna and Poreč mosaics, others less so).
Cobb and Jacobs have translated every text both Greek (Cobb) and Latin (Jacobs), and have provided concise but helpful and judicious summaries and introductions to each work, which tell us not only the details of each work but why it is important, and follow the thread of this powerful story from its first telling through the many later renditions of it. Here we have gathered not only the obvious and well-known sources on Perpetua like Augustine but lesser known or little observed texts like Pseudo-Fulgentius and martyrologies from the fourth century on. There is an excellent summary of how the Carthaginian martyrs continued to be used as signifiers of orthodoxy in ecclesiastical debates over time (282).
The authors offer translations of every source, both from Greek and from Latin, some translated for the first time. I occasionally might quibble with some of the Latin translations (which sometime seem too literal or quirky to me), but there are very few errors.
The authors have included useful bibliography, both more general works after the introduction and works specific to each entry after every section. It would have been useful to have a full general bibliography at the end of the book rather than having to search for works in different places. This quibble aside, the authors are to be commended for assembling a most useful book about the enduring legacy of Perpetua and the Passio.
