Salido is to be congratulated on this substantial book on Roman military granaries and store buildings which marks the first really significant discussion for almost 40 years. As he points out, most of the influential work on granaries occurred in the 1970s, the first being Rickman's seminal Roman Granaries and Store Buildings (1971), motivated by Meiggs' work on granaries at Ostia (1960). Two important publications followed, on timber and stone military granaries in Britain, by Manning (1975) and Gentry (1976) respectively. Soon after, Petculescu published on military granaries in Dacia (1980). Since then, with the exception of the Italian peninsula and the Eastern Empire, there has been limited overarching discussion, but many examples published within excavation reports. S. rightly saw a need for a large body of work on granaries in the Western Empire, and so restricts himself to this area, specifically Britannia, Gallia, Germania, Hispania and Mauritania Tingitania.
The period covered by S. ranges from mid-Republic to Late Empire. The inclusion of Republican examples may surprise, as the book's title uses the term ‘Empire’; but S. defends this, saying that the early ones were built when the empire started to be created, e.g. in Spain, and so the Empire as such began at different dates, according to location.
Discussion starts with analysis of the classical literary evidence for the architectural aspects and administrative personnel. S. indicates that, unsurprisingly, there are now problems in our understanding of the classical technical language; even terms for specific types of storage, though here, horreum seems to have been the common term for the building, rather than granarium.
S.'s assessment of the various attempts to reconstruct storage capacities appropriately concludes that it is difficult to reconstruct reliable figures.
The long section on architectural analysis discusses the development of granary typology. There is a thorough and excellent discourse on the various types (classed as a–g), with details of construction systems, structural elements and storage conditions offered, and hence the sort of produce likely to be stored in each type. This is informatively supported by lists of examples of each type, usefully cross-referenced to the gazetteer, and aided by data tables for each known granary, ordered by type.
With equal thoroughness, S. presents an exploration of the historical development of these buildings, starting with Livy in the third century b.c., through to the Late Empire. There is copious referencing to examples from each period (Republican, Augusto-Tiberian, etc.) and useful distribution maps. Each period has a convenient summary, with standardised format of location, orientation, typology etc.
S. discusses evidence for the foodstuffs forming soldiers' diets, based on examination of remains from granaries and latrines, but concludes that the material only allows the general view that diet was wide-ranging and a variety of grain types was consumed, though the most common were wheat (triticum) and barley (hordeum vulgare).
The change in the physical form of granaries is examined, linking this to possible procurement and distribution systems, themselves altering to reflect the differing situation of Roman expansion and then entrenchment, with the physical form of granaries becoming more ‘permanent’ correspondingly. S. makes an interesting observation that whereas several ‘supply bases’ have been found in Britannia, Gallia and Germania, surprisingly none has yet been found in Hispania.
Over 250 pages of the book are devoted to a substantial analytical gazetteer of the known military granaries from the Western Empire. S. has assembled an amazing 307 entries, grouped by area (Britannia 208; Gallia and Germania 87; Hispania 11; Mauritania Tingitana 1), reflecting his huge research effort. Entries are the structures actually within military installations; ones in nearby vici and canabae are excluded. Numerous plans and photographs illustrate the gazetteer, but frustratingly not every site has them. The very good bibliography at the end of each entry allows the interested reader to chase missing plans, but it is a shame they were not included here. A useful addition would also have been location maps, e.g. by area. Nevertheless, the gazetteer alone makes the book an invaluable research resource. A nice touch at the end of the book sees the inclusion of 14 full-page collections of plans grouping structures of each type. Each group is drawn at the same scale, allowing easy comparison of size.
In short, this is an excellent book. Of note, is that 2011 also saw the appearance of another large tome on granaries, Horrea d'Hispanie et de la Méditerranée romaine, edited by J. Arce and B. Goffaux, but not seen by this reviewer.
