In his first monograph U. takes on a fascinating task – and surely not an easy one. The author formulates his own interpretation of Juvenal's Satires by applying the modern theories of globalisation and their related concepts to the Juvenalian depiction of Rome and the Empire. These key concepts of U.’s argumentation include, but are not limited to, circulation (which he regards as being especially important in the destabilisation of the City and the Empire); time–space compression (reflected in the first passage of the core of Juvenal's programmatic poem [lines 22–31]); boundaries; de-territorialisation and re-territorialisation; and rhizome (which plays a central role in the book's epilogue).

U. not only presents the Satires from an interdisciplinary point of view, but he also connects Juvenal's world with ours, and this dovetails with the intense scholarly interest in Roman verse satire. In order to make his arguments clearer to the average Classicist, who may be unfamiliar with some of the above-mentioned concepts or those like McDonaldisation and glocalisation, U. offers a very detailed introduction to the modern theoretical basis of his analysis. The four main chapters after the introduction are built around the core concepts and motifs of U.’s interpretation: ‘Culture and Globalization’ (Chapter 2); ‘Food and Globalization’ (Chapter 3); ‘Globalization and the Periphery’ (Chapter 4); and ‘Globalization and the Army's Circulation of Empire’ (Chapter 5).

The (re)interpretation of the Satires begins with the first lines of the collection. In the metapoetic tirade in lines 1–6 of the programmatic poem U. discloses a subtext referring to the overcrowdedness of Rome and its literary sphere (pp. 74–5). Accordingly, the words si vacat in line 21 do not simply mean ‘if you have time’ in U.’s reading (as understood, e.g., by the essential commentaries of E. Courtney and S.M. Braund), but refers to the lack of physical and poetic space: the satirist is demanding room in overcrowded Rome (in both senses). As I have already mentioned, the subsequent lines reflect on the ‘time–space compression effect’ of globalisation, and U. moves on, singling out passages that support his comprehensive explanation of the Satires; these argumentations are regularly complemented with references to former studies on Juvenal as well as the Greek and Roman literature preceding the poet.

Generally speaking, U.’s analyses open up new and intriguing interpretational fields, or bolster previous results with additional arguments. For instance, his reading of Satire 4 extends the metaphorical approach of the giant turbot that was suggested by W.S. Anderson (‘Studies in Book I of Juvenal’, Yale Classical Studies 15 [1957], 21–90) and others, by emphasising the size, the origin and the ‘richness’ of the fish that ‘resonates with Juvenal's programmatic images of excess that are a result of increased trade and connectivity’ (p. 79). The fish as a motif connects Satires 4 and 5, since in the interpretation of the latter, U. attributes even greater importance to the seafood that symbolises the different meals of the patron and his humiliated client (see Chapter 3, esp. pp. 72–3 and 86–8).

Two-way flow is another key idea in U.’s reading of Juvenalian Rome. The outward flows represented by Rome's expansion have their counterpart, namely the inward flow of goods, people and cultures (see e.g. p. 51), and as a necessary consequence, Rome becomes the competing ground of different cultures, and this is eminently epitomised by the sportula scene (lines 95–105) of the programmatic poem (pp. 55–7 and 60). The expansion of the empire is, of course, achieved by military force, and U. devotes a whole chapter (Chapter 5) to the often overlooked, incompletely preserved closing poem of the collection. U. applies a promising approach towards Satire 16, discussing the presumed subjects of the lost part of the poem based on its connection with Satire 1.

The parallels between the first and the last poems of Juvenal suggest a notion of the closed and complete nature of the collection of satires, having a single narrator (but allowing the assumption of multiple personas) throughout the oeuvre. In disclosing this narrator's general attitude towards globalisation and its processes, U. makes an essential observation in Chapter 3, while discussing Satire 11, which presents the narrator's humble invitation to a modest meal. Juvenal, who views Rome as an economic hub (p. 41) of international influence (p. 48), does not reject these phenomena outright, but ‘appears to embrace some middle ground along the multiple axes of the idealized past and decadent present, and the local and foreign’ (p. 92). This remark is also based on passages on food, which play a crucial role in the reading of Satires 4 and 5 as well.

Apart from some passages that seem to be over-interpreted in order to conform with U.’s explanation of Juvenal (e.g. concerning campo in 1.19, it seems unconvincing that the ‘traditional’ interpretation of a metaphorical campus should be set aside, and this campus should be identified with the Campus Martius; see pp. 14–18), I found only one shortcoming in U.’s argumentation. While discussing Satire 3, it would have been better to make a clear distinction between the narrator and the poem's interlocutor, Umbricius, who is clearly satirised by the poet in this invective (as pointed out, e.g., by Braund, M.M. Winkler, G.A. Staley, P. Hardie and G. Gellérfi), and therefore his thoughts and ideas are not shared by Juvenal – or his narrator. This lack of a clear distinction is adequately demonstrated by attributing the words uttered in lines 62–5 to Juvenal, or the mentioning of Prochyta in the narratorial introduction to Umbricius.

This is the only weak point in U.’s otherwise well-reasoned and convincing thesis. The volume is a valuable contribution to Juvenalian studies, and it offers a stimulating new interpretation of the Satires by disclosing a set of secondary or tertiary meanings behind some well-known and much-interpreted passages of the poems, and enriches the Juvenalian corpus with a promising new interpretational layer.