This new edited volume on Dionysius of Halicarnassus comprises an excellent and coherent collection of papers focused on bridging genres and cultures. The result of a conference in 2012, the volume endeavours to bring together the separate strands of scholarship on Dionysius’ historiography and rhetorical/literary criticism, as well as to use his work to explore the complex dialogue between Greece and Rome and the generation of Greek and Roman identities in the age of Augustus.Footnote ¹ Such themes fit well with the current trend in thinking about Dionysius, Greek intellectuals under the Roman empire, the rehabilitation of rhetoric and rhetorical theory, and contemporary thinking about migrants, cultural appropriation and the formation of identity. This volume therefore endeavours to offer a more rounded perspective on this prolific Greek writer living in Rome and to explore his relationship with Greek and Roman writers of the Augustan period.

The work opens with an introduction by the editors who outline the purpose of the volume, introduce Dionysius and his work, and summarise past scholarship. The long-disputed issue of Dionysius’ intended audience is also raised, and the reader is offered the question of whether a sharp distinction between ‘Greeks’ and ‘Romans’ was in any strict sense applicable to the world in which Dionysius worked. This volume offers a negative answer and suggests that this was another way in which this Greek writer aimed to unite Greece and Rome.

The volume proceeds in three parts: ‘Dionysius and Augustan Rhetoric and Literary Criticism’; ‘Dionysius and Augustan Historiography’; and ‘Dionysius and Augustan Rome’. Part 1 contains four chapters. The first, by Hunter, explores Dionysius’ idea of the critic and focuses primarily on his critical essay, On Thucydides. For Dionysius, the two main concerns of a critic are determining and evaluating προαίρεσις (a writer's intention/choice) and δύναμις (how a writer carries out the task), and Hunter explores how he assesses classical authors (notably Thucydides) using these criteria, while also acknowledging that the critic is judged along these lines too. Dionysius’ discussion of critical practice therefore also acts as a defence of his own literary criticism and historiographical writing, and the connection between criticism and historical writing is clearly drawn out. Next, N. Wiater turns the focus to Classicism and investigates how Dionysius produces an idealised image of the Classical past by separating the classical texts and ideas from their historical fifth- and fourth-century bc Athenian background. The past becomes bound with the texts themselves (‘past-as-text’) rather than the people who produced them. Dionysius’ Classicism is also shown to represent a romanticised ‘structure of feelings’ rather than a historically rooted phenomenon, which enables him to make it mutable and relevant to Augustan Rome. The next two chapters narrow down these discussions of the critic and Classicism by examining Dionysius’ remarks on two Athenian orators: Demosthenes and Lysias. H. Yunis investigates Dionysius’ preference for Demosthenes as the worthiest of the classical orators to study and imitate. Discussion centres on Dionysius’ advocation of Atticism over Asianism, his three-fold classification scheme (grand, middle, plain), and the importance of beauty and pleasure in appealing to the ‘irrational capacity of the mind’ (Thuc. 27.1). L. Viidebaum then explores Dionysius’ views on Lysias and charm. Analysis first focuses on the concept of χάρις and persuasion in Greek poetry, Latin venustas, music, the visual arts and art criticism, before turning to Dionysius’ judgements on Lysias’ χάρις. A difficult concept to define, it again depends on the same ‘unreasoning perception’ connected with Demosthenes’ skill, but associated with everyday language, wit and humour, and comes from the overall effect of a work. Examination of Dionysius’ evaluation of Demosthenes and Lysias demonstrates how he moves these two Greek figures into the centre of Classicism and formal education and connects them with the Augustan regime's attempt to revive traditional values in politics, morality and public aesthetics.

Part 2 contains three chapters on Dionysius’ historiography. S.P. Oakley offers the first piece on the expansive nature of the Roman Antiquities and the reasons for its length. Criticism of Thucydides (Thuc. 13–21) and four programmatic comments (Ant. Rom. 1.1.8; 5.56.1; 7.66.1–5; 11.1.1–6) reveal Dionysius’ concerns about appropriate and consistent coverage of topics in historiography, the importance of speeches and reporting them fully, the inclusion of both warfare and politics to promote variety, and the need for fullness and precision (ἀκρίβεια) in all detail. Two episodes are analysed, Dionysius’ accounts of the conspiracy to restore Tarquinius Superbus in 509 bc (Ant. Rom. 5.1.1–13.5) and the events in 500 bc (5.52.1–57.4), alongside Livy's shorter versions, to illustrate that Dionysius practised what he preached and that his critical works clearly engage with the practices in his historiographical one. Next, C. Schultze provides an insightful examination of Dionysius’ treatment of the deaths of two Roman women: Horatia (Ant. Rom. 3.21–2) and Lucretia (4.64–83). Dionysius’ version of these stories is substantially different to Livy's, as the former emphasises archaic elements in contrast to the present in the Horatia episode, aligns the historical agents and passions of the regal period with that of Greek epic and tragedy, omits the well-known story of the testing of the wives in the Lucretia episode to preserve her pristine character, and turns the narrative away from Lucretia's personal drama and towards Rome's future by focusing on the political change that comes afterwards. These differences reflect not only the environment surrounding morality and women in Augustan Rome, but also how Dionysius blends Greek and Roman elements for his own objectives. Continuing with the theme of mixing Greek and Roman cultures, M. Fox offers a chapter on Dionysius’ account of the prehistory of the Roman polis and his claims for the Greek origin of Rome in Book 1. Fox focuses on the texture of Dionysius’ text in exploring this feature, rather than the historical nature of it, and argues that by his (Herodotean) method of including various accounts of Rome's origin (there are five waves of migration) Dionysius exhorts the readers to collaborate in reconstructing Roman ethnicity and to accept that his conclusion about Rome's Greek origin is the most reasonable one. In the same way that Dionysius defends his own critical practice by positioning it within established traditions of criticism (as outlined by Hunter), he also asserts the authority of his own historical conclusions by positioning it within established traditions of Greek historiography.

Part 3 contains three chapters on Dionysius’ position in between cultures and in the context of Augustan Rome. C. Pelling begins with Dionysius’ views of regime change, individual agency and his relationship with the Greek historian, Polybius. While Dionysius saw his own work as a prequel to Polybius’ Histories, he also criticises Polybius for his casual treatment of Rome's early history and stresses that the causes of Rome's success were established much earlier in the regal period. He prefers to blur the edges of constitutional change, stresses continuity through traditions and custom, and asserts that individual agency is the determining feature of Rome's success. Constitutions matter, but individual reason, deliberation and experience have even more significance. D. Hogg continues by questioning to what extent the Antiquities are Roman. The chapter focuses on Dionysius’ account of the Decemvirate (Ant. Rom. 10.50–11.44) and illustrates how it engages with the traditions of both Roman and Greek historiography: it has strong parallels with Livy's account, but in the second preface in the middle of the episode only engages with Herodotus and Thucydides. His portrait of the leader, Appius, as a man who falls into tyrannical madness strongly resembles the tyrannical madness found in Herodotus’ Cambyses. It engages equally with the Roman theme of metus hostilis, ‘the fear of the enemy’, and the tempestuousness of the decemviral speeches may also mirror the chaotic nature of the senate at the end of the Republic. The Roman Antiquities can therefore be described as both Greek and Roman. The final contribution by de Jonge throws light on Dionysius’ connection with Roman literature and considers the similarities between Dionysius’ On Composition and Horace's Ars poetica. A long list of common themes can be found, but Dionysius’ and Horace's idealisation of the skilful arrangement of ordinary words is considered most significant. This was not a new concept but seems to have held special interest for writers in the Augustan period, likely aided by Augustus’ own elegant and moderate style of speaking and Virgil's imitation of Homer's arrangement of unpretentious words. All three chapters, therefore, suggest that Dionysius engaged with both Greek and Roman historical and literary traditions and shared in the same discourse that connected Greek and Roman writers in Augustan Rome.

The volume finishes with an insightful envoi by J. Connolly, who draws the themes of the papers together with a discussion of migrancy, in more than one sense the governing theme of the volume. Dionysius demonstrates the ‘doubleness’ of migrant writing as he stands between two cultures and genres and showcases the value of migrant intellectuals and artists in contributing to the preservation, regeneration, coherence and stability of society. A thoughtful note concludes suggesting that the reader use Dionysius and his writing to reflect on contemporary issues of migrancy in the twenty-first century.

This volume does what it sets out to do and offers a collection of chapters that bridges genres and cultures in its exploration of Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the Augustan period. While sections separate the scholarship on rhetoric/literary criticism and historiography, all contributions straddle both genres in their discussions and thereby go some way to resolving this structural rigidity. Its cross-cultural discussion also supports the editors’ suggestion that we should be less concerned with whether Dionysius’ audience was ‘Greek’ or ‘Roman’. Dionysius was himself Greek, wrote in Greek and was influenced by Greek rhetorical and historiographical traditions, but he also responded to and engaged with Roman literature and ideals. We must appreciate this complexity if we are to understand him more fully.