At the centre of T.'s welcome new book on Damasus are the epigrams that the bishop composed, primarily to be inscribed at the tombs of martyrs in Rome. In his preface T. describes how he had to abandon his original plan, just to provide translations of the texts for historians, when he realised something more substantial was necessary to make his versions fully serviceable. The present volume contains, in addition to the translations, the Latin texts, a commentary on each poem, a substantial introduction to Damasus and his work, and an overview of the poems and their manner of survival, as well as of other sources for the cult of the martyrs in late-antique Rome.

T.'s introduction surveys what is known about the life of Damasus and his involvement in ecclesiastical and doctrinal conflict, characterises the nature of his verse and traces the development of the martyr cult in fourth-century Rome. In this last T. emphasises the contribution of the martyrs to the material environment of the city, in particular through Damasus’ building and epigraphic activities in the catacombs, that helped to shape devotion to the martyrs and provide an itinerary for pilgrimage. The introduction ends with a summary of what is known of the calligrapher Filocalus, whose distinctive lettering regularly allows even small fragments of text to be identified as Damasan in origin.

In discussing the quality of Damasan verse T. provides detailed evidence of his metrical practices and defends the bishop against accusations of stylistic monotony, stressing the educational purposes of his poems and the fact that they were intended to be read individually, not together in a unified corpus. Along these lines I wonder whether further stylistic analysis might contribute to characterising Damasus’ practice and purpose. He avoids many of the features of what is sometimes called late-antique mannerism: antithesis, paradox, paronomasia are almost entirely absent; anaphora, polyptoton, sententiae are extremely rare. (Some of these elements are perhaps more at home in elegiac verse.) The characteristic syntactic unit is a declarative statement coinciding with a line of verse. The features suggest a strong documentary intent in the tradition of epigraphic verse, though this basic structure can accommodate highly emotive language, especially of martyrdom and persecution.

T. devotes a section of his introduction to examining the evidence for Damasus’ authorship of the Carmen contra paganos – a late fourth century polemic text – as advocated by Alan Cameron. He reassesses the evidence for common metrical practice and turns of phrase between the two authors, finding it less than compelling. He is, though, impressed by the peculiar coincidence that both poets avoid using et as a connective almost completely. Ultimately T. finds the evidence inconclusive, without ruling out the possibility of Damasan authorship. He also tentatively proposes an alternative attribution, to Jerome.

A second chapter, ‘A Readers’ Guide’, provides useful basic information on the Damasan corpus and on the texts and documents that help to contextualise the poems. At least 64 texts survive in some form or other, of which 38 are legible (for the most part) verse texts; of these at least 26 are elogia of martyrs and bishops. Some also include brief prose notices; Damasus mentions himself by name 37 times. Sources for the fourth-century cult of the martyrs include depositio lists of martyrs and bishops in the Calendar of 354, the biographies in the Liber pontificalis and early medieval itineraria. T. gives a brief characterisation of each of these sources of material. His review of the scholarship on the complicated composition history of the Liber pontificalis is particularly valuable. The chapter ends with a list of the medieval syllogae that preserve the majority of Damasus’ fully surviving poems.

In organising the poems T. largely follows the arrangement of Ferrua, the epigrams’ most important editor, tracing in succession the routes that radiate from Rome, working in a counterclockwise direction. Before each section he quotes and translates the notices in the Liber pontificalis and early medieval itineraria relevant to that group of sites. The individual poems all come equipped with two commentaries, the first, broadly speaking, literary in nature, the second predominantly archaeological, topographical and historical, but including details about the sources for each text and other editions and studies. This second commentary will be of great value for students of the cult of the martyrs and of its material context in late-antique Rome. Each entry comes with impressively full and up-to-date documentation, directing readers to more comprehensive treatments of the sites in question.

With the exception of a few minor variations in punctuation, the Latin text derives from Ferrua. I noticed one misprint (late for latere in 41.8) and an insignificant typo (of sepulchri in 45.3; there are a few other typos in the notes quoting the itineraria). The literary commentary to each poem covers issues of grammar and interpretation, cites parallels in classical and biblical texts, and occasionally comments on textual matters. There is no apparatus criticus, a sensible omission given the purposes of the book and the space such an apparatus would take up. Here and there I felt more annotation would have been desirable, especially of the interpretation of the Latin, but that no doubt reflects my own particular interests. On a couple of occasions, too, the brevity of notes affected their intelligibility. In the note on poem 11.9–13 it was difficult to follow the various solutions proposed to the difficult textual and interpretative issues the lines pose. On poem 16.5 T. mentions a possible metaphorical reading of the line, but does not say what it is.

T.'s translation follows the Latin quite closely and attempts to communicate its meaning straightforwardly, without any aspirations to literary refinement. Undoubtedly this accords well with the likely needs of his readers; in large part he succeeds in his aims. There are occasional lapses or questionable translations, however, that deserve mention. In poem 21, lines 1–3, the subject of quod potuit is the martyr Eutychius and quod introduces an indirect statement governed by monstravit (it is not causal); later in the same poem I would take latebra as subject of ostendit in line 10 (insomnia cannot be the subject, as in the previous line it is plural). Poem 28, line 7, is mistranslated; I would render it ‘thereafter they lay hidden in a cave’. If candidule goes with this line, as T. prints it against Ihm and Ferrua, perhaps it qualifies occultos, ‘brilliantly hidden’, though the oxymoron would not be in Damasus’ style. In 37.1 dudum is surely ‘in the past, formerly’ (so the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae), not ‘a short time ago’. 40.7 conperta, ‘findings’, not ‘things that he uncovered’ – the Latin does not specify who found them. 42.4 prestante, ‘granting’, not ‘at hand’. The parallel that T. cites from Virgil also suggests that pro reditu cleri goes with reddit sua vota in the next line. 45.1: I suspect votis paribus is not much more than a substitute for pariter. In poem 60A, line 3, I think it is likely that latices is the subject of purgant, not Christo servire parati in the following line (see Charlet).

Despite these few minor issues this is an impressively learned treatment of the Damasan corpus. It will be a welcome resource for those studying the cult of the martyrs in late-antique Rome and a first port of call for all who want to get to grips with these intriguing poems.