This is a collective work based mostly on papers given in a year-long research group and conference at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2002–3. Millar's introduction provides a clear analysis of the focus of the book: the ‘interplay of Greek’ with Semitic, Egyptian and Arabic languages in the eastern Mediterranean in the Roman and early post-Roman period. While the geographical focus of most of the contributions is on the Near Eastern provinces, Egypt is also important and Asia Minor receives some treatment. The book's inclusion of a section on the rôle of Latin in the Roman Near East and Asia Minor marks the chronological starting point, while some important considerations of the relationship between the predominant Near Eastern languages and the newly dominant Arabic of the eighth to tenth centuries a.d. mark its end point. As Millar observes, the eighteen chapters contributed by a variety of important scholars focus almost exclusively on non-literary texts — mostly inscriptions and papyri — and provide ‘new material and suggestions of new starting points in approaching the complex history of the eastern Mediterranean in the imperial, late antique and early Islamic periods’ (11). The focus on the rôle of language in non-literary mediums as an indicator of continuity and change provides the book with the coherency so often lacking in collective volumes.

The book is divided into five sections in which the chapters focus on more particular themes. Section I, ‘The Language of Power: Latin in the Roman Near East’, contains a contribution by Eck which contrasts the Greek poleis of Perge and Ephesus with the Roman colonies of Caesarea Maritima and Heliopolis/Baalbek to indicate the exclusivity of Latin to Roman government and administration. Isaac's chapter in this section attempts to go further, suggesting that Latin had some resonance as a language of ‘super-high status’ in the titular colonies as well as the veteran colonies of the Roman Near East.

Section II, ‘Social and Legal Institutions as Reflected in the Documentary Evidence’, contains four chapters which analyse various corpuses of epigraphic and papyrological material to investigate particular aspects of culture and law in Judaea, Arabia and Asia Minor. Schwartz suggests an adaptation of the epigraphic habit in Jerusalem due to a different approach to euergetism by the Jews. Ricl analyses the considerable range of legal and social complexities in the nearly 1,200 references to threptoi in inscriptions and papyri from the Roman eastern provinces. Chaniotis analyses the evidence for individuals seeking divine relief from punishment inflicted on them by the gods through public confession by way of inscriptions, suggesting that this phenomenon is particularly evident in Asia Minor but is found as far away as South Arabia and that it may have its roots in Hittite culture. Finally, Cotton attempts to find surviving elements of Nabataean law in the sixth-century a.d. Petra papyri by comparing them with the surviving tomb inscriptions and papyri of the first and second centuries a.d. This section is perhaps the most disparate thematically but holds together quite well as a demonstration of the methodologies employed by all four contributors.

Section III, ‘The Epigraphic Language of Religion’, begins with a chapter by Belayche which uses inscriptions to suggest only an ephemeral Roman impact on pagan religious practices in Palestine, mostly using the evidence from the colonies of Caesarea and Aelia Capitolina. Ameling focuses on the epigraphic habit of the Jewish diaspora in Asia Minor and Syria as a means to investigate both the acceptance by Jews of local identities and the extent to which they stood apart. Kaiser provides a most welcome treatment of the much neglected question of competition and relationship between the various cults at Dura Europos using language as the medium by which to do so.

Section IV, ‘Linguistic Metamorphoses and Continuity of Cultures’, is a particularly valuable component of this book. It focuses on the rise, decline and survival of languages such as Syriac, Greek and Coptic in papyri and inscriptions. Price and Naeh make a valuable contribution with their treatment of languages written in other scripts, especially ‘dying’ languages such as Akkadian and Babylonian written in Greek script. Brock traces the development of Syriac language via inscriptions on stone and mosaic from the first to the seventh centuries a.d., suggesting that by the end of this period there was a considerable amount of Greek/Syriac bilingualism in Syria. Appended to this chapter is a very useful list of dated Syriac inscriptions. Barag investigates the development of Samaritan language from the third century b.c. to the fifth century a.d. and provides a useful summary of the various categories of evidence such as the Mount Gerizim inscriptions and inscribed lamps. Barag emphasizes the development of a Samaritan alphabet and script as an indication of the Samaritans moving away from Jewish traditions and as an important means of their survival into the Christian period. Bohak investigates the Cairo Genizah and its potential significance for what he calls the western corpus of Jewish magical texts from Syria, Palestine and Egypt compared with the better known eastern corpus from Babylonia. While these texts were copied no earlier than the ninth century a.d. and in an Arabic-speaking Muslim world, Bohak claims to identify some late antique Jewish magical recipes in them.

Finally, Section V, ‘Greek to Arabic’, contains five chapters which deal with language in the context of political and cultural transition. Knauf begins this section with a rather brief account of the Benei Hezir and the likelihood, based on the inscription from the family tomb in Jerusalem, that their wealth derived from connections with the Nabataeans. Di Segni examines Greek epigraphy in the last years of Byzantine rule and in the early Islamic period in modern Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Syria to show that while by the end of the eighth century a.d. Greek had largely been replaced by Arabic, Greek and Greek chronological systems continued for some time after. Di Segni suggests that the shift away from Greek as the dominant language was underway from the mid-sixth century a.d. and was accentuated by the Muslim conquests rather than caused by them. Hoyland's treatment of the Arabs in late Roman epigraphy demonstrates the need to consider the importance of the Arab tribes in the transition of the Roman Empire in the East from the third century onwards in similar terms to the transitional effects of the ‘barbarian’ tribal groups in the Western Empire. Richter investigates the language shift from Coptic to Arabic in Egypt, concluding that the main driver was the increasing material and intellectual prosperity of Arab culture. The final chapter of the book, by Papaconstantinou, challenges the traditional view of an ethnic and linguistic divide in the Chalcedonian and Monophysite movements in Christian Egypt after the Islamic conquest of a.d. 641. While Coptic replaced Greek to some extent and Chalcedonians continued to look to Constantinople, she suggests that there was more concord between the two groups than has otherwise been allowed.

While the timeframe and geography covered in this book are broad and might at times be unwieldy, the book is a valuable contribution to scholarship and demonstrates the richness and depth which non-literary sources allow in our understanding of cultural and political change in the eastern Mediterranean from the Roman/Byzantine periods to the early centuries of Islam.