‘Che hanno a che vedere le donne e la politica? Nulla, se si vuol conservare la tradizione antica’ (p. 7; Quid feminae cum contione? si patrius mos seruetur, nihil, Val. Max. 3.8.6). So begins R.V. in her welcome addition to the scholarship on women and politics in late Republican Rome. R.V.'s authoritative volume uncovers and typologises female interventions in politics, shedding light on women's political practices in private and public spaces in Rome, their communication strategies, the legendary and historical precedents for their interventions, and male evaluations thereof. The women in focus are primarily senatorial and equestrian matronae.

The volume comprises an introduction, nine chapters divided into two parts, conclusions, a thematic bibliography, an index nominum and a table of contents. In the first six chapters R.V. traces the forms and transformations of female interventions in politics in ‘private’: in the domus and other domestic contexts. The last three chapters turn to female interventions in ‘public’: in the streets, in the Forum and beyond. By assembling numerous well- and lesser-known examples, she demonstrates the seriality and incidence of female interventions in politics in the Late Republic and the importance of the actors involved therein (e.g. the highest magistrates). R.V. reveals that (some) women were political subjects (p. 164) and had ‘una capacità di condizionamento della politica romana reale’ (p. 225). The volume is written in an accessible, jargon-free style, appropriate for undergraduate students and beyond, and will serve as an essential reference volume for any scholar interested in women and politics in the ancient Mediterranean.

Throughout the volume R.V. argues that women, individually and collectively, ‘interferirono nella politica cittadina’ (p. 219) through various interventions. The introduction contextualises and rationalises these interventions within the fluctus seditionum of the late Republic (after Val. Max. 3.8.6). Part 1's six chapters examine female interventions in primarily domestic contexts or spaces, including: the creation and dissolution of family ties through marriage and divorce (Chapter 1); the education and shaping of children (Chapter 2); their (women's) own and others’ deaths from funerals to suicides (Chapter 3); interventions on behalf of absent husbands and children (Chapter 4); interference in the initiatives of their husbands, sons, brothers and lovers (Chapter 5); and mediation between various parties (Chapter 6). Part 2's three chapters consider interventions in public contexts and spaces, including: demonstrations in the streets, in the Forum and elsewhere (Chapter 1); participation in court cases as witnesses and advocates (Chapter 2); and involvement in military activities from spectatorship to leadership (Chapter 3).

In their interventions in private and public spaces, women deployed gestural, visual and oral communication strategies; the latter included tears, lamentation and speeches (p. 222). R.V. determines that many of these strategies were adopted from domestic, funerary and religious practices (p. 222). Certain names appear regularly in her examples, for example Atia, Cornelia mater Gracchorum, Caecilia Metella, Fulvia, Hortensia, Iulia, Tertia Iunia, Octavia, Porcia, Sempronia, Servilia, Terentia and Tullia (e.g. pp. 219–24). Lesser-known names appear too, for example Afrania, Eppuleia and Tanusia (e.g. pp. 221–2). This impressive assembly of examples enriches the volume.

Various legendary precedents for female interventions in politics are adduced, including, for example, Hersilia and the Sabine women, Tanaquil, Lucretia, Veturia and Volumnia (e.g. pp. 13, 207–9, 224), as well as some ‘historical’ precedents from the early and middle Republic, notably the collective actions of women during various conflicts (pp. 167–77). In her analyses R.V. clearly indicates the polyvocality of contemporaneous male evaluations of female interventions, ranging from blame to praise; these were aimed occasionally at the women themselves (and built on female stereotypes), but more often at their male relations as a means to delegitimise or valorise the latter (e.g. p. 223). Her conclusions witness the manifold ways in which women were political subjects in the late Republic and how their interventions help us better decode this complex period.

Three conceptual issues provoke comment, namely R.V.'s approach to politics, the ‘female model’ and space. In the introduction and throughout she presents women and politics in Republican Rome as antinomic (e.g. pp. 7, 216). For R.V. politics ‘rappresentava una prerogativa esclusivamente maschile’ (p. 7) and comprised (1) magisterial and military careers, (2) activities within places of the city intended for political life – the Senate, the assemblies, the courts and the Forum, and (3) speech in public settings. Such an approach may be too restrictive. A more expansive and inclusive one could have proved fruitful, for example, S. Dixon's ‘pursuit and exercise of real power’ (C&M 34 [1983], 91), or K.-J. Hölkeskamp's reading of political culture as ‘the discursive environment in which power is legitimated’ (Reconstructing the Roman Republic [2010], p. 55), or C. Rosillo-López's conception of formal and informal institutions and politics in the Republic (Public Opinion and Politics [2017], esp. pp. 16–18, 221–2). Alternatively, Cicero's and Livy's rem publicam capessere could have opened up numerous lines of inquiry (e.g. Cic. Att. 16.7.7; Cael. 72; Fam. 1.9.18; Off. 1.71–2; Livy 34.2.11). Women like Fulvia and Servilia certainly engaged in the res publica.

R.V. considers ‘[l]a ragione principale dell'ingresso delle donne nella politica romana è … l'eccezionalità del tempo dei conflitti intestini’ (p. 12; cf. pp. 10, 216). For R.V. emergency, pietas and legendary and historical precedents legitimised many female interventions (e.g. pp. 12–13, 223–4), some of which otherwise constituted violations of the ‘female’ or ‘matronal’ model (e.g. pp. 7–8, 189, 212, 219, 223). This model, which R.V. finds in funerary epigraphy, was supposedly archaic and relatively unchanging (pp. 7–8). In her assessment the model was characterised by: (1) specific roles for women, namely wife and mother; (2) specific appearances, behaviours and virtues, namely appropriate clothing and gestures, beauty, devotion to wool-working, private and moderate speech, silence, marital fidelity, moderation and pietas; and (3) specific spaces, namely the domus (e.g. pp. 7–8, 12, 48–9, 213). But was there really one archaic, unchanging model for all women in Rome? For senatorial, equestrian, other freeborn, freed and enslaved women? For priestesses who sacrificed pro publico? Assuredly not. The examples adduced for this model – the laudationes Turiae and Murdiae and the famous elogium for a Claudia (CIL VI 1527; 10230; 15346) – are either late Republican (laudationes) or potentially inauthentic (elogium: M. Massaro in Spurii lapides [2018], pp. 93–135). Models present in earlier sources appear far more dynamic and variegated (e.g. Plaut. Amph. 839–42; Aul. 167–9, 478–535; Mil. 679–700; Most. 280–9; Polyb. 10.4–5; 31.26–8; Nepos fr. 59M; Cato, fr. 158 ORF ⁴; C. Sempronius Gracchus, fr. 48 ORF ⁴). Without consistent corroborating evidence from the earlier Republic, an archaic, unchanging model and so-called violations thereof are not easily sustainable.

Space and spatial concerns lie at the heart of R.V.'s volume (p. 15). Building on her approach to politics and the female model, she categorises space and spatial contexts into public/institutional and private/non-institutional, coupling men with the former and women with the latter, especially the domus (e.g. pp. 8, 11, 15). This dichotomy leads to a division of female interventions into those that spatially abided by, or violated, the female model. Certainly, some men linked women with the domus in the late Republic (e.g. C. Sempronius Gracchus, fr. 61 ORF ⁴; Cic. Rosc. Am. 149). Yet, as Russell has demonstrated, (1) the elite domus was remarkably public (e.g. the atrium), (2) public, private and sacred spaces were conceptually and practically blurry (e.g. the Forum), and (3) there were essential differences between ideologies and practice in terms of gendered spaces and spatial practices (A. Russell in TRAC 2015 [2016], pp. 164–76). Here, too, a more expansive approach could have offered additional insights into women, politics and space in Republican Rome.

R.V.'s lucid prose, helpful footnotes, clear translations of ancient sources (although is a contio ‘la politica’?), index nominum and thematic bibliography enhance the utility of the volume. A general index and engagement with the classic studies of P. Culham and F. Münzer are desiderata. While a more expansive and inclusive approach to politics, the female model and space could have yielded broader results, this volume remains an invaluable contribution to scholarship on women and politics in the late Republic. R.V. persuasively confirms that matronae were a force to be reckoned with in the res publica.