Damasus, bishop of Rome from 366 to 384, was well known for his love of letters. In De viris illustribus 103 Jerome of Stridon also ascribes to him ‘a special talent for writing tasteful verse’; apparently he ‘produced many short works in heroic meter’ (p. 1). When making such statements, as everyone knows, Jerome cannot always be trusted. But in this case his claim is easily verifiable. Almost sixty of Damasus' poems survive as inscriptions among the early Christian monuments of Rome. In 1942 they were first published in a critical edition by Antonio Ferrua. The present volume offers a fundamental overhaul of Ferrua's contribution and much new and innovative material. Since Ferrua the authenticity of a number of poems has been called in question, while the authorship of other poems has been established, and new poems have been discovered. Dennis Trout, well known for his studies on early Christian Rome and its epigraphy, presents the poems in an expert but at the same time accessible way. Arranged, as already in Farrua, topographically, ‘according to the system of roadways leading into and out of the city’ (p. 66), the poems are printed in Latin, with critical apparatus, and accompanied by new English translations and critical discussions. A map of the city helps with the orientation. A set of facsimile plates gives an impression of the material condition of many of the texts. There are comprehensive introductory chapters on Damasus and Rome, the main features of Damasus’ verse, the question of Damasus and the Carmen contra paganos, the relationship between monumental poetry and the emerging cult of saints, and on Furius Dionysius Filocalus and Philocalian Script (pp. 1–52). There is also a detailed description of the corpus, a section on other texts from the period that help to situate them (calendars, itineraria, lives and syllogae), and on other, related, collections of poems (pp. 53–68), besides a range of helpful chronological and other lists and indices. The volume should therefore appeal to a relatively broad audience at different levels, students and scholars alike, who are interested in (late) Latin poetry, in epigraphy, in early Christian and late antique Rome, in Damasus and his time, in the Roman martyr cult and in the developing cult of saints, and, more generally, in the Christianisation of late antique Rome.