Few scholars have done as much as C. to bring the history of the classical past to a wider audience, and in this volume C. draws the attention of general readers and interested scholars to the ‘unjustly forgotten’ (p. 8) Battle of Plataea. His aim is to explain why the battle and its subsequent treatment in ancient and modern narratives are essential not only to our ability to read Greek history but also to our understanding of the way that wars are commemorated and memorialised. The book is part of the Emblems of Antiquity series and its ‘Emblem’ is the inscribed ‘Oath of Plataea’ on which C. focuses his discussions. C. offers a wide-ranging study that leads the reader from past to present; from fifth-century Greek history to modern debates about propaganda, memory and commemoration in a sweeping and entertaining narrative that reveals the complex nature of ancient evidence and stands as both paradigm and warning for all who seek to investigate ancient Greek history: evidence from the past cannot be read literally.

The book is an entertaining read: C.'s narrative circles and swoops in a manner that is more Herodotean than ‘Epimeinondas-like’ (p. xiii), yet his discussion follows a logical path. Chapter 1 offers a short and succinct introduction, outlining the main topics of the book and allowing C. to set out his own belief that the Oath is not authentic. C. then introduces the reader to the Oath, its stele and the role of inscriptions as a historical source. Most importantly, C. asserts that the stele was intended to be believed, it is a representation of the past rather than a text from the past.

Chapter 2 offers a translation and detailed commentary on the two oaths that are inscribed on the stele: the Oath of the Ephebes and the Oath of Plataea. The Greek text is not given, which is in keeping with a book intended for wider readership. C.'s view of the stele is clearly set out: it is a piece of post-Chaeronea propaganda from the Lycurgan era whose purpose was to raise morale in the fourth century b.c. by alluding to great victories of the past. C. explains the people, cities and events in the inscription and introduces the general reader to the idea that there is no one, single reading of historical events by acknowledging the different views of other scholars, such as van Wees (‘“The Oath of the Sworn Bands”: the Acharnae Stela, the Oath of Plataea and Archaic Spartan Warfare’, in A. Luther, M. Meier and L. Thommen [edd.], Das Frühe Sparta [2006], pp. 125–64). C. looks at the stele as propaganda, comparing different versions of the Oath to show how the Athenian view came to dominate at the Spartans' expense.

Chapter 3 looks at the religious context of the stele. Again, using the theme of past and present, C. looks at modern treaties as a means to illustrate the importance of formal agreements in modern politics and to explain the importance of oath-taking in antiquity. C. explores the relationship between action, place and deity. He follows Boedeker on links between the oath and Eleusis, and looks at the range of witnesses set out on the stele from known deities such as Ares, to land markers such as crops and boundaries, offering the view that oaths were intended to bind society together in a social and physical sense at a time of crisis (D. Boedeker, ‘The View from Eleusis: Demeter in the Persian Wars’, in E. Bridges, E. Hall and P. Rhodes [edd.], Cultural Responses to the Persian Wars: Antiquity to the Third Millennium [2007], pp. 65–82). Using Athens as his example, C. looks at the problems caused by division within the community and then returns to the theme of memory to show how the Athenians restored unity in the turbulent period after the Peloponnesian Wars by deciding not to remember.

Chapter 4 focuses on the place of the Battle of Plataea in the Graeco-Persian wars. C. offers an extremely important analysis that seeks to highlight the problems of a polarised perspective; more Greeks fought for Persia than for Greece (p. 62). This leads into a discussion on Persian history and the problems we face in understanding Persian motivation for the war. C.'s discussion of Greek identity and his assertion that there is ‘no such thing as ancient Greece’ (p. 80) is as refreshing as his efforts to quell simplistic narratives about Greeks defeating Persians. Chapter 5 continues to focus on the battle, looking at Plataea from the twin perspectives of event and place. The chapter does not offer a detailed view of the battlefield and tactics but is in keeping with C.'s interest in memory and memorialisation in seeking to explain why Plataea was ‘unjustly forgotten’ (p. 8). C. looks at relationships between the main protagonists, Sparta, Athens and Plataea, and the reasons why their different views of the Battle developed.

Chapter 6 seeks to draw together the strands of discussion on memorialisation and invention. Here C. explores competitive memory and efforts by Sparta and Athens to take the high ground as heroes of the wars. He examines different methods of commemoration from monuments in sanctuaries to poetry and history, looking at Sparta's memorialisation of events in the poetry of Simonides and comparing this with the dominance of pro-Athenian versions of events in Greek historians from Herodotus to Pausanias. The discussion is interesting, but C. could have considered Herodotus' Athenian sources when explaining his lack of information about Plataea and, given C.'s even-handed treatment of alternative views in other chapters, it is a little surprising that there are no references to more recent views on Ctesius, such as Llewellyn-Jones and Robson or Stronk, in his suggestions for further reading (L. Llewellyn-Jones, J. Robson [trans.], Ctesias' History of Persia. Tales of the Orient [2010]; J.P. Stronk [ed., trans.], Ctesias' Persian History. Part 1: Introduction, Text, and Translation [2010]).

In Chapter 7, C. looks at the legacy of Plataea and its wider significance as a historical moment. He returns to the book's ‘over-arching theme of ideologically motivated pseudo-historical commemoration’ (p. 152) to look at the approaches of more modern scholars in writing about the Graeco-Persian Wars and point out again the reductive simplicity of East vs West historical narratives.

C.'s aim is to provide intelligent analysis for a wide, general readership and to stimulate interest and debate in the academic community. In line with this, the book has no footnotes or endnotes and instead offers a separate section with suggestions for further reading; the absence of scholarly apparatus allows C. to introduce and explain complex ideas and to switch from past to present without interrupting the flow of his narrative. This may be the reason why contractions are left in the text, but they are rather annoying. The text is supported by three simple maps, nine photographs and a useful timeline.

While C.'s book is small, its field is deceptively complex, offering different insights for different audiences. For wider readers, the book is subversive, dismantling received wisdom about the Greek past to reveal that ancient Greece is an illusion (p. 80) and that beliefs about the origins of an East vs West divide in the Graeco-Persian wars are modern fiction. For the new student, C. offers a stimulating introduction into ancient history and the complexity of ancient historical sources. For the ancient historian, the book is an engaging and entertaining read. Though C. does not make a direct link between past and present here, the timing of his study has an added poignancy and relevance as Europe commemorates the start of the First World War and considers the issue of how best to remember its wars and, as ancient Persians are once again portrayed as terrorists on cinema screens in 300: Rise of an Empire, C.'s study of the Oath of Plataea offers a timely reminder of how the memorialisation of the past is manipulated by the agendas of the present.