The title of this book might suggest that we are dealing with yet another work publishing and/or reinterpreting Latin inscriptions from one of the numerous legionary fortresses around the Roman Empire. In fact, George Cupcea’s work is much more than the usual epigraphical publication of newly discovered or less well-known Roman inscriptions.

After a short preface and an introductory ch. 2, offering a brief outline of the history of Roman Dacia, the author examined sixteen inscriptions, most of which were previously unpublished. These inscriptions were uncovered during rescue excavations in the modern Romanian city of Alba Iulia, which occupies the ground above what in the period of the Roman province of Dacia was the fortress of the Legion XIII Gemina, a place then called Apulum. C.’s work is, however, not confined to the mere epigraphical treatment of these inscriptions. One of the favourable premises of the present work was that the archaeological discovery circumstances of each of the sixteen stone inscriptions have been thoroughly registered and documented, a rare blessing when it comes to unearthing such artefacts. This information made it possible to establish that most of them were in fact practically discovered in situ, which again opened up the possibility for the author to reconstruct the real location and role of the written stones in the structure of the legionary fortress. The study of each of these epigraphs is quite exhaustive and strives to obtain every imaginable piece of information from the text, shape and type of stone, aspect of the letters, etc. For each inscription there are extensive excurses concerning the individuals mentioned in the text, their names, their origin and social status. The author mentions parallels and similarities to these epigraphs from the province of Dacia and from other parts of the Roman Empire, and exposes the historical significance of the presence of the gods, emperors, governors, legionary commanders and officers on these altars and statue bases. For instance, when presenting a fragment of a ceremonial altar for Serapis, found in the principia of the legionary fortress (no. 2 from the sixteen inscriptions under scrutiny), the author discusses the archaeological context of the altar, the relation between Serapis, the emperor (Caracalla) and the Roman army, the evidence related to Caracalla and Serapis from the Danube area, the Isiac cults in Apulum, the Serapis sanctuary in the principia from Apulum (actually an area in the portico of the courtyard of the headquarters’ building) and the significance of Serapis veneration in the principia; finally there is an appendix containing the known building inscriptions dedicated to Serapis from the Roman Danube frontier, including a table showing the names and social statuses of the dedicators of these inscriptions. The same thorough and extended treatment is applied to all the other fifteen analysed inscriptions, providing the reader with a comprehensive understanding of the contents, archaeological context and cultural and historical place of these texts carved in stone.

Ch. 8 contains an inventory of earlier epigraphic discoveries from the legionary fortress at Apulum, which provides the bigger picture in relation to the analysed epigraphs. Most of the previously unearthed inscriptions lack the exact archaeological context, which underlines again how important this context can be for the complex understanding of the full significance of an inscription, as is the case with the sixteen examples analysed in this work. Ch. 9, titled ‘Epilogue’, contains the final remarks and conclusions, but also emphasises the evolution of the two separate Roman cities, one in the south on the river Mureș that became a municipium under Marcus Aurelius and a colonia probably under Commodus and the other one in the north, evolving out of the canabae of the legionary fortress, that became a municipium under Septimius Severus. This last chapter also includes the author’s conclusions concerning various emperors (possibly) visiting the province of Dacia.

The book concludes with the list of illustrations, tables and appendices, a list of abbreviations of names of epigraphic corpora and databases and, for some reason, the ancient literary sources used in the main text. Here it would have been useful also to state the modern editions and translations of said ancient sources used by the author. Next comes the bibliography of the works referenced in the footnotes and a quite useful index of the names and subjects that are present throughout the book. The last pages of the book contain high-quality plates with maps and photographic and/or drawn images of the studied inscriptions.

C.’s work is a comprehensive study of a set of inscriptions from the legionary fortress of Apulum. The author followed most of the research avenues necessary in a successful quest to obtain exhaustive information from the analysed objects and their archaeological context.