The latest in Pustet’s attractive series on Bavaria’s archaeology, this volume also joins a long tradition of writing Germany’s Roman history through a regional lens. It is direct heir to the authoritative Theiss volumes for Roman Germany organised Land by Land, sharing two authors as well as much of its structure and thematic emphasis with that series’ Bavaria volume (1995). Thus the first part is a historical account focused largely on Raetia, the province sharing much of its territory with modern Bavaria. A detailed narrative of Roman military expansion occupies chs 2–17, from the Alpine campaigns of Drusus and Tiberius to Limes building north of the Danube and the Marcomannic wars. Raetia sees its second-century Blütezeit (‘golden age’) examined in chs 18–23, followed by crisis, contraction and transition to successor entities from the third to the later fifth centuries (chs 23–35). The second part, a gazetteer of 150 sites, doubles the size of the Theiss volume counterpart by incorporating rural settlements and early medieval cemeteries discovered through development-led excavation (albeit at the expense of losing synthetic entries for the Raetian limes and Via Claudia Augusta). To these are added an introduction to the history of researching Roman Bavaria (ch. 1) and at the end the novelty of texts and translations of c. 280 selected inscriptions, linked to chapter themes.

Taking account of research in the 30 years elapsed since Theiss’s Die Römer in Bayern, this volume too will be an essential reference tool, especially since Raetia features little in the 2015 Oxford Handbook of Roman Germany. Most immediately apparent in this updating is the new evidence for episodes of violence that gave birth to the province and marked its history. Thus for example camps and encounters linked to the 15 b.c. Alpine campaigns have been identified not only in the Swiss Alps (e.g. Crap Ses gorge, Septimer pass) but also in Bavaria, spectacularly in the Roman arms assemblage at Döttenbichl. This is now identified as offerings at a shrine of Iron Age type (Brandopferplatz), perhaps spoils of a battle for control of the Ammertal route towards the Voralpenland and Danube (ch. 4). Military occupation ab initio is revealed by the emerging testimony for the first garrison at Augsburg-Oberhausen, housing legionary and auxiliary soldiers from c. 8/5 b.c. until likely destruction by flooding in a.d. 6/9 (ch. 5). Archaeological traces of the civil conflict of a.d. 69, the Marcomannic wars and the third-century invasions are also carefully set out, and fieldwork at Künzing and Passau finally complements the famous account of the unravelling of Roman frontier authority in the life of St Severin with formerly elusive stratified sequences running through the fifth century (ch. 34). Beyond battles and garrisons comes new evidence for provincial society and economy. For example, the hilltop Auerberg complex, possibly Strabo’s Damasia, is identified as a site analogous to the more famous Magdalensberg. Within its ramparts this short-lived centre housed traders pursuing economic opportunities offered by Roman armies, abandoning the Auerberg in the Claudian period for easier living closer to the transalpine via Claudia Augusta linking Augsburg and Verona (ch. 8). Large-scale area excavation has now enabled rural settlement to be characterised beyond villa residences. For example, the water-mill and granaries at Ingolstadt-Etting illustrate large-scale crop-processing and storage linked to garrison demands on Raetia’s agricultural economy in its Blütezeit (ch. 19).

The shift implicit in the title, from the ‘Romans in Bavaria’ to ‘Bavaria in the Roman period’ is substantiated by incorporating more archaeological evidence from north of the Danube and foregrounding the diversity of peoples in Raetia (chs 2, 11, gazetteer). For example, inhumation burials of the mid-first century a.d. Heimstetten type and contemporary Elbe-Germanic material culture, exemplified by finds at Aindling-Sand (Augsburg), illustrate the continued presence of an Iron Age descendant population and/or migrants from Alpine regions and central Europe from the province’s earliest days. However, if its profile is greater, this material is not always fully integrated. Brandopferplätze exemplified by Döttenbichl are key evidence for population continuity (101), but are not discussed in the religion chapter, dominated by inscriptions and statues. Despite the focus on ‘peoples’, Bavaria’s striking evidence for ancient population and microbial genetics remains in the background. It can only be coincidence, but a striking one nonetheless, that the Chiemsee findspot of the one epitaph from the Roman empire commemorating death from the Antonine plague (a.d. 182, no. 80.5) lies only 100 km east of the cemeteries near Munich (Ascheim and Altenerding) where aDNA analysis has revealed Yersinia pestis as agent of the Justinianic plague.

With this series comes a conscious shift towards encouraging public interest in Bavaria’s past (13). The excellent images, browsable short chapters with occasional flip titles (e.g. ch. 17 — legio III as Raetia’s grösste Arbeitsgeber, a precursor to Ingolstadt and Munich’s industrial behemoths), evidence this turn. To judge from the cover objects — Theilenhofen helmet, Eining parade armour — and many reconstruction drawings of soldiers, this broader readership is anticipated to have its sights trained on the Roman army. Given this engagement goal, the absence of guidance on sites to visit or archaeological itineraries is a little surprising. One frustrating consequence is the greater labour required to exploit references. These underpin every topographic entry, but their usage in chapters varies — sometimes none, sometimes in long undifferentiated lists at chapter ends. Diminutive print size for references and bibliography and the lack of cross-references between text and gazetteer will also slow readers’ further explorations. Their separate placing at the book’s end (notwithstanding cross-references) marginalises inscriptions both as historical sources and as monuments, for example the massive milestone cylinders punctuating the via Claudia Augusta’s spectacular Alpine engineering.

In short, this handsome book is a worthy successor to the Theiss series, albeit of coffee-table dimensions (2.75 kg) rather than a compact handbook. Sitting a little awkwardly between popularising work and specialist synthesis, it is nonetheless a key gateway to research on Bavaria’s Roman antiquity. The narrative framework is traditional, but Bayern zur Römerzeit supplies readers (with some perseverance) the materials to write their own Raetia.