This volume shows the ways in which persuasion is adaptable to different genres, times and places within the Greek and Roman world. In the introduction the editors survey definitions of persuasion, pointing out that coercion is a phenomenon close to it, and define its features and purposes. They explain the need of the present volume in terms of modern scholarship; it will examine Greek and Roman oratory, but also historiography and poetry, especially epic and drama, and the ways in which persuasion is manifested and functions in Greco-Roman texts and contexts. The book contains a total of twenty chapters grouped into six parts.

Part 1 comprises two chapters discussing the rhetorical aspects of Roman poetry. A.N. Michalopoulos explores the beginning of Act 2 of Seneca's Agamemnon (125–225), the scene between Clytemnestra and her nurse, in particular the principles and techniques of persuasion both use, their argumentation, the presentation of their characters, the power play and the relationship between them, and their appeal to logic and emotions. Papaioannou examines the persuasion strategies employed by Odysseus and Ajax in the Hoplon Krisis in the literary versions of Ovid and Quintus of Smyrna, who wrote his epic independently from Ovid. Both ancient authors experiment with the structure and staging of the conflict, challenge the Homeric tradition and create their own original works.

Part 2 examines persuasion in Greek and Roman oratorical and historiographical narrative. E. Volonaki traces gaps between ancient rhetorical theory and practice concerning the role of the narrative in dicanic speeches and investigates techniques and strategies by which it functions as a rhetorical means of persuasion. The article lacks the originality it claims and is not referenced to the same standards as the rest of the contributions, not least because it suffers from multiple bibliographical omissions. A. Tsakmakis shows that despite Teutiaplus’ rhetorical strategies and devices he failed to persuade the Spartan admiral Alcidas (Thuc. 3.29–31.1) because the latter acted out of fear, which led to inaction and thus is contrasted with Sparta's new policy and interests. M. Kythreotou examines Brasidas’ speech at Acanthus (4.85–7) and shows Thucydides’ implicit message about the power logos had in enhancing a pre-existing fear, which operates as a means of persuasion in this case and is expressed through various stylistic figures. G. Vassiliades argues that Livy in his Ab urbe condita associates the juxtaposing speeches of Valerius and Cato on the Oppian law with the major philosophical issue of Rome's moral decline and implies through his narrative that his readers should consider none of them the winner of the debate. M. Paschalis discusses rhetoric in Virgil's Aeneid; he examines speeches that receive no reply, dialogues that may actually be parallel monologues, which sheds light on the emotions and the psychology of the parties involved, on factors outside the sphere of rhetoric and on speeches that have no practical effect.

Part 3 shows how indirect persuasion works in similar ways across literary genres. Serafim explores how language stirs up emotions in indirect ways, especially fear, and creates a specific disposition in the audience. He discusses the techniques of medical metaphors, reinforced by the use of the imperative, and religious argumentation, which refers to the gods as inspecting the court and the speakers’ opponents as impious. G. Evangelou shows that in his letters to Atticus Cicero appeals to pity for his banishment and feelings of guilt for the way in which Atticus treated him before and during his exile. Cicero also uses emotions to convince Atticus to lend him money for Tullia's marriage and later for the shrine he wanted to build in her honour. However, in all these cases the emotion was ineffective. J. Devereaux shows that Seneca intended to persuade his readers through language structures marked with emotions and ambiguities to join him in a shared quest for truth, and explains why Quintilian considered Seneca's style, known for its brevity and mixture of poetry and prose, dangerous and appealing to Rome's youth.

Part 4 examines the relationship between gender and persuasion. K. Kapparis looks at the intersection of oratory and gender in trials where one of the litigants was a woman, and examines how gender affected the construction of the case and how sociocultural stereotypes on body, dress and the material construction of femininity served the needs of persuasion. J. Evans explores masculinity in Thucydides’ theory of stasis, investigates how Pericles and Nicias capitalise on masculinity to persuade their audiences and, through a comparison with Callicles’ discourse in masculinity in Plato's Gorgias, explains Alcibiades’ hypermasculine rhetoric and effeminate lifestyle. T.D. McClain shows that women's direct speeches in Livy's history are appropriate and that the audience is persuaded and acts in concert with the women's words. These speeches use the same technique: conditionals, questions, imperatives, identity/definition, pathos and ethos.

Part 5, the longest in the volume, examines how language, style and performance are related to persuasion. T.-I Liao shows how Demosthenes 18 transcends the theoretical generic borders of rhetoric (judicial and deliberative), compares this piece with some of his dicanic and symbouleutic speeches, and pinpoints differences and similarities with them through the use of personal references (‘we’, ‘you’ – plural and singular). R. Brock shows how Xenophon exemplifies the whole gamut of persuasive speech in Xenophon's Hellenica, Cyropaedia and Anabasis by examining direct and indirect speech and dialogue, and shows how the historian adopts tactics of contemporary forensic oratory but also deviates from it (for cross-examination in oratory one may add S.C. Todd, in P. McKechnie [ed.], Thinking Like a Lawyer [2002]). Then S.C. Todd examines the way in which Greek historians deploy language about witnessing, argues that there are differences between orators and historians in the way in which they use the nouns μαρτυρία and μαρτύριον and shows that witness terminology is absent in passages where modern translators think it is present. A. Vatri argues that poetic quotations in the Attic speeches reflect a real practice and shows that their effect depended on the ability of the audiences, but mainly on how they were performed, i.e. the distinctive voice of the speakers, recitation, gestures and the conveying of the right ethos. A relevant publication by M. Edwards, in J. Roe and M. Stanco (edd.), Inspiration and Technique (2007), is not mentioned. For Dem. 19.255 one could consider D.M. MacDowell, Demosthenes On the False Embassy (2000), who argues (p. 312) that the orator wanted the clerk to read out Solon's Eunomia, but not all of it because of its length (39 lines), and that he makes rhetorical use of only a part of it. M. Neger examines the way in which Pliny the Younger, in his Letters, discusses means and techniques of persuasion and puts them into action. She identifies Pliny's three levels of communication: the editor of letters and his readers; the writer and his addressees; the acting figure and his audience in the letter-narratives on trial. In her analysis Pliny is self-centred but avoids self-praise.

Part 6 focuses on the rhetoric of numbers in historiography and oratory. T.A. van Berkel reads Pericles’ speech in Thucydides 2.13 as an example of numerical rhetoric, which boosts the confidence of the listeners and exhorts them to action, against the direct persuasion of sight, in comparison with Diodorus Siculus’ version of the same speech, and the speeches of Archidamus, and the speeches of the Peloponnesian commanders and Phormio before the battle at Naupactus, which thematise the same rhetoric. R. Sing underscores the limitations of Thucydides’ Pericles as a source for reconstructing the rhetoric of strategic financial decision-making and then compares it with Demosthenes’ financial rhetoric, which relied on an accumulation of specialist knowledge and popular understanding.

The volume has a bibliography, but some studies cited in the footnotes are not included. There is also an index locorum. It is deeply grounded in the original sources and augurs well for future studies on the role of persuasion. The footnotes are full of helpful information and observations, with ample guidance on bibliography related to each topic. This is a useful collection of papers, which deserves thorough study.