The subject of this book, a light revision of Heusch's Düsseldorf Habilitationsschrift, is Gellius' concern with memoria, a word of frequent occurrence in his work, but also a topic with resonance in modern Germany, where she documents a vogue for the study of cultural memory as of something in danger of being lost. Her erudition, amply displayed in unashamedly dense footnotes — she repudiates the contrary practice ‘in (amerikanischen) wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten’ (ix) — extends beyond antiquity to French and German philosophy as applied to culture and literature; references abound particularly in ch. 2, where in one sentence (42) she cites Jan Assmann, Ricœur, Halbwachs, and Husserl, and ch. 3, where she discusses Aleida Assmann's exposition of the difference between Speichergedächtnis and Funktionsgedächtnis, before admitting that unlike the collective Speichergedächtnis, the memoria invoked by Gellius is nearly always assigned ‘einem konkreten Subjekt’ (100). No doubt those English-speaking readers who claim to rise above the intellectual ground floor of empirical fact will find it hurtful that, whereas the contributions of Anglophones to classical scholarship are liberally recorded in her bibliography, the only general writings in English listed on either cultural or literary theory are two articles on intertextuality and quotation by Heinrich Plett.

Having in her introduction reviewed the ‘Stand der Gelliusforschung’ and demonstrated the significance of her topic for times she deems not altogether unlike the Antonine age, H. next examines the place in Roman culture of memoria, the collective memory of ancestral exempla in which the living sought to be included, but also the training of individual mnemonic powers. Gellius becomes the focus in the massive third chapter (49–189), which examines in great detail his references to memory and its means of preservation and cultivation, his modes of citation, his purposes in citing, the truth or fiction of claims to quote from memory, his quotations from Greek in the original, in translation, or both, his suppressions of intermediate sources, the extent of his reading, and his encouragement of memorization. Ch. 4, on the Graeco-Roman culture of memory, is also long (191–301); after a brief survey of Antonine culture in general, H. considers the implications of Gellius' title before examining bilingualism in the Attic Nights and in Antonine culture generally; she then very perceptively discusses the phenomena known as Atticism and archaism, reviews the ‘Protagonisten der griechisch-römischen Bildungskultur’ as portrayed in the Attic Nights, and analyses the means by which things Greek and Roman are brought into relation with each other by comparison or synchronism.

This brings her to ch. 5, ‘Das Bildungskonzept der ,Noctes Atticae‘ im Schnittpunkt griechischer und römischer Traditionen’ (303–402); after noting the parallels for the dedication to Gellius' children, she compares the place of otium in Gellius, Cicero, and the younger Pliny, noting the increased importance of learning as the chief employment of free time, and considers the rise of popularizing works such as the Attic Nights and the Konversationslexika current in Germany since 1796, observing the range of information Gellius provides in the way of ‘enzyklopädische Bildung’ but also the predominance of grammar (in its broad ancient sense) and rhetoric. She then turns to medicine, which demonstrates Gellius' concern for usefulness, unravels his somewhat complex attitude to philosophy, and elucidates the moral as well as intellectual components of his ‘Bildungsbegriff’, ending the chapter with a brief survey of his influence on European humanists.

Finally, a brief ‘Fazit und Ausblick’ brings us back to the theory of cultural and individual memory before noting the traditional and the innovative features of Gellius' work and pointing future scholarship towards the study, not only of particular chapters, but also of the relation between its literary form and its time of composition, to determine whether, in content and structure, he played a greater part in the development of the late antique encyclopaedia and the medieval artes liberales.

This is a very rich book, which read from cover to cover, footnotes and all, amounts to a serious monograph on the Attic Nights at large; rather than express the conventional hope for an English translation, which would be difficult not only because of the many references to German culture, I urge students of Gellius not familiar with German to learn it. There is such a wealth of sound sense and good comment that it seems churlish to look for points of disagreement; nevertheless, I do not find in Gellius' complaint that Nigidius Figulus seems to have written rather to assist his own memory than to instruct his readers (NA 17.7.5; likewise Stilo at 16.8.3) ‘Zurückhaltung gegenüber der Mnemotechnik’ (171), but rather frustration at finding mere heads of argument when he sought a methodical exposition. On bilingualism in Late Antiquity (223–4): I miss a reference to Libanius' complaints about the defeat of Greek culture by Latin. At NA 11.8.4 (221–2) does Cato mean that Postumius ought to have learnt Greek properly, rather than that he should have stuck to Latin? The poem cited from Hartmann Schedel's Weltchronik (p. 400 n. 255) was lifted from the Brescia Gellius of 1485.

The book is attractively presented, though I have noted wrong Greek accents in σόϕιαν (101), ἀντίστρɛϕον (266; correct on 364), and wrong word-division in ‘archaisier-enden’ (244).