Since Maurice Halbwachs’ Topographie légendaire des Évangiles en Terre Sainte (Paris 1971), scholars have increasingly recognized the connection between memory and space in human societies. Katharina Kostopoulos draws from this tradition to fill a gap in the study of the past in Athenian public discourse by providing a broad investigation of the role of monuments and space in the construction of shared memories, identities and values. The book focuses on three areas of the city (Acropolis; Agora; Ceramicus) to show how they interacted with one another in the speeches of the Attic orators to form a network of spatial references to the past.

Chapter 1 is devoted to methodology. Kostopoulos highlights the importance of vision in the Greeks’ experience of monuments and stresses the dynamic and socially constructed nature of space (Raum). This encompasses movement and multiple perspectives of perception and depends on individual and collective actors attaching meaning to physical objects in accordance with shared values. Chapter 2 analyses Lycurgus’ Against Leocrates to illustrate multiple spatial carriers of memory and strategies for their deployment, which Kostopoulos rightly takes as representative of the orators’ use of collective visual memory rather than unique to Lycurgus.

The remaining chapters deal with different monument types and monumental complexes. Chapter 3 focuses on the Acropolis, which plays a significant role in Athenian collective memory because of its visibility across the city. Many structures on the Acropolis (most notably the Propylaea) were associated with glorious episodes of Athenian history, while others could recall traumatic memories. This was the case of the northern wall of the Acropolis, which was connected to the destruction caused by the Persians. Chapter 4 investigates honorific statues. Their location in the Agora, close to the lawcourts, contributed to their success in forensic rhetoric and facilitated their use as terms of comparison for attacking one’s opponent or discussing Athenian honorific practices. The same functions were performed by honorific inscriptions, which also ensured visibility to the honorand and acted as proof and embodiment of the honours conferred. These and other kinds of inscriptions are addressed in Chapter 5, which shows how the physicality of inscriptions contributed to collective memory, as evidenced especially in cursory allusions (for example, ‘the law from the stele of the Areopagus’ at Lys. 1.30) that assume knowledge on the part of the audience.

Chapter 6 focuses on the city walls. Their construction is often connected with Themistocles’ trickery against the Spartans and provides orators with a term of comparison for opponents or other historical figures. Their destruction after the Peloponnesian War is a painful reminder of defeat, but after the foundation of the Second Athenian Confederation it starts to be coupled with a drive to Athenian resurgence. Chapter 7 deals with the tombs of the ancestors. Family tombs served as proof in citizenship trials and inheritance disputes and figured among the routine questions in the scrutinies (dokimasiai) of magistrates. The public burial ground (dēmosion sēma) instead allowed the orators of funeral speeches to conjure in one place the memory of the Athenian dead from different battles. Chapter 8 explores trophies. These served as memorials of specific victories but also as examples for exhorting the Athenians to imitate the virtues of the ancestors, while trophies of individual generals were used to stress their individual merits or as terms of comparison against one’s opponents. Chapter 9 draws the conclusions of the study. Kostopoulos rightly stresses how collective visual memory, while reaching its pinnacle after Chaeronea, had been a feature of Attic oratory since early on, and notes how monuments could give rise to different, sometimes conflicting histories.

Kostopoulos successfully shows the constant presence of monuments, landmarks and even smaller memorials such as golden crowns in Athenian public discourse and provides a detailed account of the many ways space could be deployed in the memory strategies of the orators. The book benefits from the author’s great familiarity with the source materials and the methodologies of memory studies. Yet Kostopoulos sometimes too readily assumes spatial allusions where in fact one might simply see generic allusions to individuals or events of the past. The mention of Solon at Aeschines 3.257 as the one ‘who equipped the democracy with the most noble laws’, for example, cannot be taken as an allusion to the inscribed copies of Solon’s laws (205; my translation from the German). Some might also disagree with Kostopoulos’ choice to accept the authenticity of Andocides 3, which, however, only affects her analysis on specific instances. Finally, the book seems to lack a strong, overall argument. This is probably due to its heavy structure based on monument types, which at times tends to be compilatory and discuss the same passages multiple times. The identities and values the author seeks to illuminate (37) thus end up in the background, and her final considerations on the spatial memory strategies typical of individual genres or orators (350) are left underdeveloped. However, the book’s thoroughness and high level of scholarship, its comprehensive, international bibliography and its helpful indexes will make it an important reference point for readers interested in collective memory and in the reception of specific monuments or historical events in the speeches of the Attic orators.