This monograph, originally an Oxford doctoral thesis from 2005, is a comparative study of virtus in the Roman historians of the late Republic and early Empire: Sallust, Livy, Velleius Paterculus and Tacitus. Its aim is to show how the use of this central concept in the Roman value system evolved and reflected the changing political circumstances, and, further, how ‘it helps us to understand the Romans' conception of history more deeply’ (p. 8). The structure of the book is very clear-cut. The introduction deals briefly with the setting, focus and outline of the book. Chapter 1, still in essence introductory, discusses the etymology and meaning of virtus in Rome. B. articulates (p. 45) that ‘[w]ords – especially political words – are not fixed realities, but on the contrary, usage determines meaning, and the continuous development of a concept was expressed in its redefinition and reinterpretation. The imprecision of Roman political terminology, which does not help us to find one consistent translation, demonstrates that we are dealing with a piece of “evolving vocabulary”’. No problem with this: B. comes very close to cognitive semantics that stresses the contextual flexibility of meaning: the meaning emerges in context that narrows the semantic field of the word. However, it is baffling that she then makes – and sticks to – a very normative classification of virtus, proposing two meanings that she calls virilis-virtus (courage) and humana-virtus (virtue). This kind of classification results in the (to my mind non-existent) problem of overlapping of meanings (p. 32). Such observations as ‘there are some passages where it is very difficult to discern which kind of virtus the author is referring to’ (p. 33), and ‘[s]ometimes Cicero himself is deliberately ambiguous [i.e. in his use of virtus]’ (p. 37) reveal that the real problem lies with B.’s classification, of which the Roman authors were not aware. It is absurd to say, for example, that ‘characteristic of Velleius’ use of virtus in his historical narrative is the mixing of meanings between virilis-virtus or virtus-courage and humana-virtus or virtus-virtue’ (p. 134).

Chapters 2–5 are dedicated to the analysis of individual authors. The works of each author are treated separately. This is the most valuable section of the book. B. makes many interesting observations about the differing use of virtus in Latin historiography. She starts with Sallust, whose historical works are about the failure of virtus. The destruction of Carthage had freed the Romans from the metus hostilis with the consequence that the nobility – and even the homines novi – lost the sense of serving the state; their virtus changed into the vices of leisure, avarice and desire for power, which opened the road for political corruption and the decline of the Republic. The case of Livy is quite different: he offers exempla of virtus that belong to a distant past as lessons for the present situation. B. shows that in Livy ‘the Roman identity is closely connected first with the concept of virtus and then also with the concept of libertas’ (p. 84). In the early Republic, the constant struggles for the freedom of one's own country gave the Romans opportunities for the acts of virtus. Indeed, one finds the word virtus almost 300 times in the extant books. However, B. makes the thought-provoking observation that the use diminishes with the progress of the narrative: while there are 73 instances in the first pentad, the last one has only 15 (two books with no occurrences at all). The circumstances were clearly changing; it would be interesting indeed to know how Livy treated virtus in the lost part of his work.

Both Sallust and Livy associated virtus with the Republic. With Velleius Paterculus we move to the Principate, although Velleius himself apparently did not see any dramatic change between the Republic and the reign of Augustus and Tiberius – to him (just like to Sallust) the real turning point in Roman morals was the destruction of Carthage. Velleius expected the virtus (or virtutes – the plural form is rarely used by Livy and never by Sallust) of the princeps and the novi (as a homo novus himself he was naturally sympathetic to this group) to save the empire and to re-establish the lost morals of the Republic. A substantial part of the chapter on Velleius is dedicated to the Tiberian narrative, which appears different from the rest of his historical compendium. Its meaning is summed up by B.: ‘Tiberius represents not only the summit of Roman history but also the epitome of Roman virtus’ (p. 153).

Unlike Velleius, Tacitus saw a fundamental change from the Republic to the Empire, which diminished the opportunities of the Romans for showing courage or moral excellence. In his works Tacitus offers examples of many good Romans, generals in particular, who are admired for their merits – but strikingly without the word virtus in their description (with only a handful of exceptions, first and foremost Tacitus’ father-in-law Agricola). According to B. ‘[t]here seems to be an expansion in the “virtuous vocabulary” which can be explained partly by the increase of the possible circumstances in which a Roman could find himself, especially during civil wars in the principate. It is striking, then, that they do not seem to deserve the word virtus in Tacitus’ view’ (p. 200). Thus, instead of using the word virtus, Tacitus uses words such as moderatio and constantia. According to B. ‘rather than actually replacing virtus, what these examples do is qualify the “mode” and even the “mood” of traditional virtus. Constantia and moderatio opposed metus and adulatio, and as such they were closely related to virtus, the customary courage and valor that had always been essential in Roman political life’ (p. 227). Her conclusion that Tacitus ‘challenges the traditional interpretation of virtus’ and ‘virtus does not change in the same way as politics, but its manifestations do’ (p. 240) left the present reviewer somewhat unsatisfied. Could it be after all that Tacitus did not use the word virtus in connection with the men deserving praise because he still took the word in its traditional republican sense – as is clearly demonstrated by the fact that he could link the word with the Germans who showed virtus in the fight for their libertas?

The book is clearly written although at times B. harps the same string too often. Once or twice I found her reflections to be based on superficial reading. She writes, for instance, that ‘[Catiline] is so brave that Sallust cannot but admire his courage. He possesses the finest martial qualities of the Republic and his army exhibits the virtus proper of old times (prisca virtus)’ (pp. 57–8). Whether or not Sallust's description of Catiline includes admiration is a matter of dispute; in my mind the mention that Catiline performed the duties of an active soldier and of a good general (strenui militis et boni imperatoris officia simul exequebatur) simply expresses Sallust's approval, not admiration. As to the claimed virtus of his army, Sallust in fact attributes it to the veteran cohorts of Petreius and not to Catiline's army. Only a few slip-ups caught my eye, most notable on page 18, where the Plato quotation in Greek is a sentence longer than the translation in the main text.