In my first term of graduate school, I joined a seminar on ‘Intertextuality and Reception from Alexandria to Rome and Beyond’, taught by none other than Richard Thomas, who pioneered the intertextual approach to Classical literature in his 1999 collection Reading Virgil and His Texts: Studies in Intertextuality. I went in not knowing what ‘intertextuality’ meant, beyond a foggy and tenuous ‘understanding’—if it can be called that!—of Julia Kristeva's 1974 definition: cette transposition d'un (ou de plusieurs) systèmes de signes en un autre. I nevertheless learned that the concept could provoke fruitful discussion when applied both capaciously and rigorously. This is the approach taken by the editors of the present book, who stress in their Introduction (1–12) that intertextual discussion involves both great power and great responsibility. Their outlook is reflected in the volume's meticulous organisation, which places nineteen contributions, first given as work-in-progress presentations at the Fondation Hardt in 2015, into five accessible sections.

The first group shares a ‘micro’ approach to intertextuality, focusing on specific devices, structures and techniques. Helen Lovatt sounds out echoes in the Aeneid and Thebaid, persuasively demonstrating how words such as interea (‘meanwhile’) signal narrative transitions in both texts (21–42). The following pair of chapters, by Tim Stover (43–64) and Damien Nelis (65–86), showcase intertextuality's potential by illuminating different aspects of Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica. Stover historicises the epic, linking Meleager's political ambition (Argonautica 3.598–725) not only to past literary models (Virgil, Ovid) but also to Valerius’ present (the Year of the Four Emperors) and even future history (Tacitus). In contrast, Nelis takes a literary approach by comparing the structural elements of Valerius Flaccus’ voyage narrative to those of Apollonius and Virgil. The next chapter, by Raymond Marks, combines both historical and literary analysis: it equates the self-destruction of Rome in Silius Italicus’ Punica to Ovid's real-life recklessness (87–106).

A sense of mischievousness underpins the second section, which opens with Michael Dewar's chapter on how the so-called ‘neoterics’—Catullus and his avant-garde contemporaries—influenced Flavian epic (107–32). Federica Bessone follows with an exploration of ‘impertinent’ allusions in Statius (133–68): when read against similar affairs in Aeneid 4 and Catullus 64, the Achilleid's romance degenerates into farce. Antony Augoustakis likewise highlights the playfulness of Flavian epic in his exploration of Todeskette, ‘casualty lists’ filled with wordplay and intertextual throwbacks (169–86).

This theme of subversion continues into the third group of chapters, which focus on specific characters. Mark Heerink reads the Argonautica as an elegised version of the Aeneid (187–204). While the latter portrays an elegiac character, Dido, as a mere obstacle between Aeneas and his epic destiny, the former never quite makes that generic transition, continuing an indefinite lament through the stories of Hypsipyle, Heracles, and Medea. Heerink provides a compelling explanation for this contrast: Valerius Flaccus wrote his ‘elegiac epic’ as a complaint about Vespasian's Rome, a society which had long since lost faith in the Augustan imperium sine fine (201–2, referencing Verg., Aen. 1.279). Chiara Batistella and Lavinia Galli Milić also take on Valerius’ oeuvre, but their exploration of the proleptic networks which situate Medea and Hecate in the wider tradition—which stretches from Homer to Seneca—could be more focused (205–42). François Ripoll is more successful with his hyper-distilled analysis of Ulysses in Statius’ Achilleid, a character served up three ways: in his signature crafty flavour, as a playful prequel to his Homeric manifestations, and finally as a metatextual stand-in for the poet as ‘master manipulator’ (243–58).

The penultimate group is split into two subsections: three chapters on epic character types, followed by two on space and topography. Marco Fucecchi delivers an exciting read of Silius Italicus’ Hannibal, who, read alongside Lucan's Bellum Civile, represents tragedy squared: a villain combining the brutality of Caesar and the ignominy of Pompey (259–82). Gianpiero Rosati likewise focuses on ‘evil heroes’, in particular Statius’ Capaneus, who exemplifies the ambiguity of epic villainy in that his monstrous behaviour is redeemed in death (283–304). Rosati's meditations on the fascination of evil and the function of moral ambivalence in epic are especially insightful (301–3). Thomas Baier similarly muses on the allegorical power of literature by examining the relationship between divine characters and real-world political figures (305–22). He demonstrates that this connection became particularly tangible in the Flavian period, when emperors—no longer assured of the eternal prosperity prophesied by Augustan poetry—actively wielded religio to reinforce their own imperium. This sort of manufactured divinity was also transferred onto past poets. As Alison Keith observes, the temple of the Sun at Colchis in Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica 5 and the temple of Apollo at Cumae in Silius Italicus’ Punica 12 are both poetic monuments to poetry itself, enabling Flavian epicists to worship at the altar of their Augustan idols (323–48). Carole Newlands takes up the same theme in her chapter, which focuses on how Statius linked himself to Virgil by centring his poetic geography on the Bay of Naples (349–72).

The final section examines the role of digital technologies in intertextual research. In their chapters, which draw respectively from the Punica and Achilleid, Neil Bernstein (373–88) and Peter Heslin (389–408) both advocate for using software to find instances of allusion and repetition. When used correctly, such solutions can free up time, diverting scholars away from tedious searches and towards interpretation. Both authors nevertheless acknowledge that we are a long way away from easy-to-use corpora, with Heslin sensibly suggesting that a good first step would be to digitise the Zettelarchiv of the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, which would provide a hand-lemmatised repository of Latin literature (406). These reflections are followed by a case study by Neil Coffee and James Gawley which demonstrates, through digital analysis, that intertexts typically consist of rare words, and that Greek epic probably has more word rarity than its Latin counterpart (409–20). In the closing chapter, however, Stephen Hinds makes a compelling case for man over machine (421–45). His lively meditations, which mine the opening lines of Greek and Latin epic for cross-linguistic puns—such as the Iliadic μῆνιν, which pops up as the opening salvo of Juno's Aeneid 1 speech in the form Mene (‘What! I …’)—lie far beyond the present capabilities of digital tools. Technology has nevertheless been put to good use in compiling a meticulous and accurate Index Locorum (451–75), which rounds off the volume.

The editors are owed congratulations for this book, which achieves what compilations rarely do: despite incorporating diverse perspectives, from the literary to the historical and methodological, it maintains cohesion throughout. While certain chapters are more incisive than others, none seem superfluous, and all give credit to the framework of intertextuality, which is always employed with both creativity and restraint. The editors humbly suggest, in their Introduction, that a ‘considerable amount of work still remains to be done on Flavian intertextuality’ (14); if future publications on this subject will all be of this standard, then I for one look forward to reading more.