Students of classical antiquity, historians, philologists and archaeologists alike, may not be aware of the important position of the city of Augustodunum (present-day Autun) in later Roman Gaul. Situated between the larger capitals Lugdunum (Lyon) and Augusta Treverorum (Trier), it has never fully gained the attention it deserves in the study of ancient Gaul. This lack has been filled in an impressive way by the Paris based scholar H., whose earlier work has concerned emperorship, communities and rhetoric in the later Roman – western and eastern – empire, with a clear predilection for combining material and textual aspects. Conveniently enough, this study complements the selection of panegyrics made in R. Rees' Layers of Loyalty (2002) about five Gaulish panegyrics in the period 289–307. H.'s title refers to the angle through which the main sources are viewed (not unlike S. Benoist's Rome, le prince et la cité [2005]), by which questions about the position of a capital, the founding of a city and relationships between emperor and people are treated, the latter theme especially defined by euergesia, benefaction.

The main source, and in fact the central theme of the book, is Eumenius' panegyric to a provincial governor about the restoration of the schools of Autun, the so-called Maeniana, which suffered heavily under the invasions that took place during the reign of the emperor Claudius II (a.d. 268–9). Claudius is supposed to be the ancestor of the emperor Constantine, not only in official court propaganda, but also by H., following other French scholars like F. Chausson (Stemmata aurea [2007]). It was Claudius who helped the city to recover from the invasions, to the praise of his descendants. The speech is numbered V(9) in Galletier's Budé edition of the Panegyrici Latini (3 vols 1949–55), while a gratulatory speech addressed to Constantine, VIII(5), serves as a supporting document; they are held in a.d. 298 and 311 respectively (pp. 62–4). The historical circumstances and communicative situation in which Eumenius' speech was performed is reconstructed in a meticulous way. Briefly, Eumenius as an orator requests a provincial governor of Lugdunum (probably the praeses Lugdunensis, p. 237) before his entering the city (reconstructed on the base of Menander Rhetor's prescriptions) to spend the sky-high salary of 600,000 sesterces awarded to him – the orator – on the restoration. Thus, the speech must be considered a presbeutikos logos, or diplomatic embassy, which is so well represented in Latin historiography – this sets the piece apart from other entirely laudatory speeches in the Panegyrici Latini, as argued by H. This viewpoint enables H. to approach his subject from a wide historical spectrum, involving Tacitus' speeches in the comparison (pp. 90–7), as well as juridical and epigraphic sources.

The compelling conclusions are too rich to be summed up in a nutshell. The criticisms I note here are therefore meant as supplementary remarks and further suggestions, rather than corrections. Still, the focus on historical circumstances sometimes detracts from philological acuteness (on p. 38 I noticed some deviations from the London MS Harleianus which H. claims to cite) and the literary tradition in which the speeches stand. To mention just three examples. Eumenius' grandfather was of Athenian origin and famous in Rome (hominem Athenis ortum, Romae diu celebrem, Chapter 17). The orator claims to speak in public in judicial atmosphere for the first time in his life, which is reason for H. to think that he normally practises his rhetorical skills as a jurist, rather than as a practising orator (p. 184). Although H. admits that this is a rhetorical topos (‘lieu commun’), in this particular case I would say that Eumenius follows the rhetorical trope of reticence for a reason, as he finds a famous predecessor in Socrates. By evoking the beginning of Plato's Apology, Eumenius emphasises his Greek (also rhetorical) paideia, even mentioning Socrates by name in Chapter 16. Second, on p. 338, concerning the speech of thanks, H. treats the tears the emperor shed over the destroyed city (Pan. Lat. VIII(5) 7.1; 9.6). In the enumeration of historical exempla, the foremost literary tears are skipped (pace H.'s ‘larmes les plus célèbres’, n. 146) – those shed by Aeneas in Virgil's Aen. 1.462 over fallen Troy. Given the Augustan panegyrical context in which the golden times for a fallen city return, the famous tears may be worth considering. Third, H. analyses the vocabulary of the restoration of the schools in the city, among which such terms as (ex)ornare, ex(s)truere (pp. 161–2) and ornamenta (also on pp. 244–6; p. 382) figure. I cannot but imagine that Eumenius must have envisaged some double reading, as architectural metaphors are frequently used in rhetorical theory by Cicero (only consider the terms exaedificatio or ornare) or Quintilian (e.g. the prooemium to Book 7). Thus, the unknown Greek senex Glaucus mentioned in 17.4 could as well be associated with rhetoric as architecture (pp. 243–4); in Nazarius' panegyric of the year 321 (6.1) a laudatory speech is compared to the hall of an emperor's palace.

In spite of H.'s comprehensive treatment of the speeches, and the scope this broad plan suggests, there is still need for further research, especially concerning rhetorical, philological and literary aspects. The ‘fleurs de rhétorique’, are repeatedly mentioned but seldom considered in detail, and certainly not explored exhaustively. This does not, however, detract in any way from the pertinent historical conclusions H. reaches, such as the interpretation of scuto innixus, VIII(5) 3: with the help of numismatics, H. analyses the position the Gaulish leader Diviciacus took when addressing the Roman senate in Caesar's times, which underlined the speaker's authority (p. 373) instead of being a token of maladjusted behaviour. H. further investigates the intricate relationships between the one-time capital of the region Bibracte and Augustodunum (coloniae in the juridical sense), founded by Caesar's heir, to be renamed Flavia Aeduorum, thus making Constantine the restitutor and conservator urbis (p. 383) in the most literal sense (chapter 10). The most recent archaeological finds are taken into consideration.

Notes and end matter are exemplary: supplements on sources, abbreviations (I only missed NHLL on, among others, p. 43), indexes on sources, names and themes. There are some minor misspellings, such as § 1.3 on p. 203 (which must be 2.3) and § 4.1 on p. 381 (instead of 5.1); and Hellegouarch' instead of Hellegouarc'h (p. 324 n. 110 and 367 n. 86); nothing worrisome in a book of 543 pages. Historical discussions are spelled out in great detail and sometimes with reference to obscure titles, which may hamper smooth reading, but attention will be rewarded by H.'s thoroughness and his overview of recent scholarship. The soundness of treatment may not lead to shifting paradigms, as theorising about, for example, cultural identity is far from H.'s mind; still, the study has the capacity to adjust established views. Mutatis mutandis, it may be considered the French counterpart to G. Woolf's Becoming Roman (1998), which starts off with Eumenius' speech as a sign of Romanisation, although the latter is vindicated by the former on a crucial point (p. 376): in Gaul, a vivid sense of historical tradition is stated to be just as great as in the east of the empire (which makes, I would say, the investigation of literary predecessors the more urgent). H. has written an extensive and important study of one of the foremost sources of Roman Gaul in Late Antiquity, which deserves to be consulted, read and reread. Meanwhile, 1,700 years after Eumenius, the city of Autun is brought back to the centre of scholars' attention, for which it owes H. some kind of civil gesture, as an act of euergesia.