The book under review is volume I of The Cambridge World History of Violence, a series of four volumes. The book contains six parts and thirty-three articles as well as a general introduction and an introduction to volume I. Both ancient history editors sadly passed away before the volume went into print, with Trundle initially taking over from Fagan.

Historicising violence as a shared experience across time is a perfectly viable approach (pp. 1, 17). It should, however, be noted that this approach is often – as becomes highly visible when reading this volume – related to the study of warfare. We might talk of the nature of permanent features and the character context dependent features of war. The nature of warfare itself does not change (famously so M. Howard, ‘The Use and Abuse of Military History (lecture)’, Royal United Service Institution, Journal 107 [1962]). The volume has one obvious drawback as ‘warfare’ is not defined. A simple definition of violence is presented, ‘[i]ntentional encroachment upon a person's physical integrity’ (p. 3), but at the same time the series editors point to the ‘huge diversity of meanings of violence across time and across cultures’ (p. 4). By not describing violence as a spectrum, with war as its most extreme, the question of when a war is a war is left unanswered. The editors of the volume, which focuses on a large period, from the first human communities to the fifth century ce, mention L. Keeley's much celebrated War Before Civilization (1996) and comment on his broad definition of war, including small-scale raiding and ambushes. At its most extreme, it will make it even more difficult or even impossible to compare conflicts over time.

The articles focus on core themes such as organised violence (warfare), ritualised violence and violence within communities (pp. 23–4). Thucydides’ famous quote, ‘war was the most violent teacher’ (3.82.2), is mentioned in connection with state warfare and state formation (esp. p. 30). This ignores that the quotation is found in the famous Corcyra narrative. This was a stasis. Even if we accept civil war as a subcategory of war, there are differences. S. McCurry (Women's War. Fighting and Surviving the American Civil War [2019], p. 126), writing about her youth in Belfast, states, ‘it is one of the traumatic features of civil war that even after the enemy is defeated he remains in place; and with him the memory of the conflict’. It speaks volumes that no separate civil war entry is found in the index.

In Part 1, ‘The Origins of Conflict’, S. Leblanc starts the volume with an insightful chapter on this topic: ‘We spend considerable time and thought trying to get to grips with the violence and warfare of the last couple of centuries, yet we give comparatively very little thought to these matters in the deep past’ (p. 39). At times we forget that war was widely understood as a productive force, as something to be used for the purposes of creating peace before the First World War (J. Bartelson, War in International Thought [2017]). Leblanc rightly argues that comparing the battle of Verdun and intra-village club fights makes little sense (p. 40). Despite this, we should always consider warfare's potential role (p. 40), and ‘those who claim peace are under just as strong a requirement to demonstrate that peace existed as those who claim ancient warfare existed’ (p. 46).

Chapter 5, ‘Weapons, Warriors and Warfare in Bronze Age Europe’ by B. Molloy and C. Horn, begins as follows: ‘The Transformation of warfare in the Bronze Age was perhaps the most profound transformation in human history’ (p. 117; paradigm shift, p. 138). It was over the course of the second millennium bce that weapons such as swords, shields, helmets and body armour became common on the battlefield. The thirteenth-century bce battlefield at Tollense (Germany) is an important discovery, with perhaps thousands of warriors engaging in battle. This seems unambiguously war-related (esp. p. 134). In Chapter 6, on the Iron Age, P. Wells emphasises that the archaeological evidence and symbolic representation of violence is abundant (p. 142). Outsiders’ views on people such as Gauls and Germans are mentioned (p. 143: Caesar and Tacitus; cf. p. 156), but Wells adds they are just that, the views of outsiders (p. 143). There is talk of large-scale military confrontations (p. 157), but the scale can only be measured in comparison with confrontations on a smaller scale. Even when accepting that Caesar and Tacitus were outsiders, Wells's sense of scale rests on them. He is looking for wars as described by Caesar and Tacitus and does not find them. But if the large-scale invasion of Caesar is an anomaly, where does that leave us?

Part 2, ‘Prehistoric and Ancient Warfare’, most inexplicably has two chapters on ancient Rome and no chapter on ancient Greece. S. Serafin claims the Maya during the early classical period advertised their military success, ‘whether they themselves fought in actual battles or not’ (p. 204). This is interesting, but what does it say about warfare? Chapter 10 by S. Garfinkle is a wide-ranging chapter on Early Mesopotamia. It offers early evidence for some of the trends that are highly visible during the whole of the ancient world. Writing, such as royal inscriptions, is used to track the success in war (p. 220). This is naturally also a question of the legitimisation of the use of violence, a ‘divine mandate to eliminate violence at home and carry war abroad’ (p. 224). Violence was concentrated in the hands of the king (p. 225), and there were very few years of peace (p. 235). The Assyrians, and later the Babylonians and Persians, created empires that helped support the system of patronage on which their powers rested (p. 236).

According to J. Roth in Chapter 11, ‘stories of warfare relating to the Early Republic must also be viewed critically’ (p. 240), and Livy is almost certainly inventing details of battles (p. 241, rhetorical elements of battle descriptions [p. 244]). What are the implications? It should not surprise us that our sources controlled their narratives and tried to tell a story in a specific way, but even so historians could not merely rewrite the past as they saw fit and without any regard for evidence or verisimilitude (Roth, p. 249, accepts that rhetoric does not automatically mean false). The question whether Rome was different to other empires of the ancient world is always interesting (p. 245), but Roth's answer, ‘[h]istorians frankly cannot state that Rome was excessively bellicose or less warlike, or indeed the same as the other societies of the time, or indeed, our own’, seems slightly disappointing. The Late Republic is hastily brought to an end, without any real comments on its civil war nature. And there are sadly no naval battles mentioned at all. D. Lee's twelfth chapter on late antiquity might have included H. Börm's civil war approach – Rome fell because of civil wars (Westrom. Von Honorus bis Justinian [2018]) –, as civil war is only briefly mentioned on p. 261. With P. Brown, Lee sees normality more often than not. He concludes, ‘Military violence was endemic throughout Roman history, and so it would be unwise to try to draw too sharp a distinction between late antiquity and earlier periods’ (p. 274). This might have been much more firmly grounded in debates about internal struggles and civil war.

Part 3, ‘Intimate and Collective Violence’, includes an article on gendered violence by R. Redfern, claiming that, whilst the military colonisation of Britain is often debated, other forms of violence are under-explored (p. 329). This is of course to no small part due to the existing evidence. She adds that ‘in the Roman world women's bodies were considered to be less valuable’ (p. 332). This may be slightly off the mark. As J. Rüpke (Domi Militiae [1999], p. 83) notes, the fundamental modern distinction in international law between combatants and the civilian population was of little importance when it came to booty.

Adding to some strange editorial decisions, the next two chapters on Achaemenid Iran and on violence against women in ancient Greece are both written by L. Llewellyn-Jones. There is indeed no reason for trying to make the Greeks nice (p. 380). Challenging male authority may often have led to violence (p. 396), and domestic violence against women was so routine that it is not mentioned in the evidence (p. 397). Next, J. Tatum offers an overview of gang violence during the Late Republic: ‘In republican Rome the deployment of violence by private individuals was often necessary and routinely regarded as respectable – so long as its frequency and intensity remained within socially manageably proportions’ (p. 400). It is easy to agree, but having said that, what is ante bellum civil war violence, and what is institutionalised violence?

Part 4, ‘Religion, Ritual and Violence’, starts off with I. Armit's article on ritual violence and head-hunting in Iron Age Europe. It discusses the (many) problems of using Roman evidence in trying to understand the period. It seems severed heads is a recurring phenomenon (p. 454), and certainly one that gained traction during the Late Roman Republic. P. Van Nuffelen offers an account on ‘Religious Violence in Late Antiquity’. He challenges the ‘Constantinian turn’ as the moment when violence entered the church (p. 514). Religious violence was nothing new during this period as duly noted by Van Nuffelen, highlighting the Bacchanalian affair of 186 bce. This involved the suppression of the cult for religious or political reasons (pp. 512–13). Also, importantly, there was an interference in local allied affairs.

Part 5, ‘Violence, Crime and the State’, begins with Trundle's article on Athens. Violence in his account, ‘in whatever form, whether murder or “just” verbal abuse, remains an enigmatic concept’ (p. 546). Not everybody will agree that this is a helpful approach. Fagan follows up with Rome and concludes that, whilst warfare was endemic to the ancient world (p. 552), one of their ‘signal achievements’ was the several centuries of relative peace and security (p. 569, ‘no mean achievement’). This perhaps too readily ignores the ‘dark side’ of Roman expansion (M. Fernández-Götz, D. Maschek and N. Roymans, ‘The Dark Side of the Empire’, Antiquity 94 [2020]).

Part 6, ‘Representations and Constructions of Violence’, offers an article on the representations of war and violence in Rome by S.S. Lusnia. Again, strangely, there is no article on ancient Greece. Lusnia emphasises that violent images were intended to commemorate, moralise and even entertain (p. 654). Looking at public monuments, ‘violent battle scenes did not adorn public monuments until the second century ce’ (p. 671). However, the Actium relief, recently identified as such by T. Schäfer – the 2014 Rome and Paris exhibitions revealed the Casa di Pilatos Relief (C.H. Lange, Triumphs in the Age of Civil War [2016], epilogue) –, is a conspicuous civil war monument and has a battle scene including a sinking ship. Lusnia also suggests the Romans avoided the direct commemoration of civil war and refrained from representing such battles on public monuments. The Arch of Constantine broke that custom (p. 678). This is wrong. Apart from the Casa di Pilatos Relief, there are monuments erected to remember civil war conflicts such as the Temple of Clementia and the Mars Ultor temple. This begs the question, when is a civil war monument a civil war monument?

There are many positives to take away from this volume, but conceptual vagueness is often a hindrance. Having said that, the idea of the volume and indeed the series is to be commended with its multiple perspectives and wide-ranging thematic treatments.