C.'s study of pax in the period of the Roman Revolution is highly competent, persuasive and enlightening. The focus on peace forces readers to question a series of preconceptions about the Romans. The normal scholarly focus, of course, is on war, war-making and imperialism, with the constancy of war under the Roman Republic often remarked upon. W.V. Harris, for instance, emphasised that Roman armies went out and did massive violence to somebody almost every year of the Republic's history (War and Imperialism in Republican Rome, 327–70 bc [1985], p. 53). Yet C.'s study shows that Republican pax was a complex idea that should be discussed in its own right. No simple definition was ever sufficient, and there was no simple development from a Republican pax in the sense of pacification by an individual general to an Augustan pax that implied the empire-wide cessation of war. Peace could certainly depend on victory achieved through war, and might be advertised in the wake of specific victories. It could also be a matter of blessings and benefits of a more general nature. It could be associated controversially with the policies and exploits of individual generals, such as Pompey and Caesar, but it could also be a more general product of Roman imperialism. During the Augustan age, specific and general ideas of pax were widely deployed. It emerges, however, that peace, although heavily emphasised, was hardly conceived of as the new norm, with war as the exception, even though the end of civil war and the development of a professional, standing army meant that war began gradually to decline in the experience of Rome's citizens, especially those living in the capital and in Italy. This study shows that the concept of pax was always complex and far from rigid in definition. Through a careful, chronological approach, which employs a wide range of evidence, C. argues that a flexible concept of peace permitted its rhetorical use through ever-changing circumstances in ways that served the political purposes of various individuals and groups within Roman society.

It becomes clear that pax was continuously co-opted to serve different political positions. As such, its definition was not just complex, it was contested and continuously manipulated for the sake of power. Its character owed as much, if not more, to internal political developments as to external imperialism. This book is about the complexities and changes this process entailed through the late Republic, triumviral period and Augustan age. It is argued that pax was central to political discourse in these periods, a major concept for those wishing to win, undermine or legitimise power at Rome. Augustus, for instance, sought to control pax and institute the idea of the pax Augusta as the first wholly imperial concept of peace. There is perhaps a danger that pax might be over-emphasised in such an approach, but in the end C. seems to maintain a balanced perspective. She is constantly aware that contests for power at Rome relied on overlapping ideologies and ideas, and she is careful therefore to describe the discourse over pax as part of a wider discussion on the nature of Roman power. Even so, her study is surprising in the degree to which it is able to describe arguments over pax as being central to Roman discourses of power in her chosen time span.

The book begins (pp. 1–9) by properly discussing peace in relation to war and emphasising that pax has normally been studied in relation to Roman imperialism. Yet this approach tends to privilege the role of war and overlooks or gives insufficient weight to the role of pax in Roman political discourse. C. wants to remedy these deficiencies of earlier scholarship. When she investigates definitions of pax (Chapter 1), she finds a rich landscape of associated ideas, using both literary and visual evidence, and furthermore finds complexity and fluidity. The concept can be shown to have developed in the period under review. In fact, it was a focus of continuing, fierce debate. Dramatic changes began to emerge in the triumviral period (Chapter 2), when new attitudes were brought into play by the horrors of civil war and the readiness of armies to thwart the ambitions of their generals, particularly through reluctance to fight former comrades. It became possible to accept a pax that was less-than-absolute, required less-than-absolute submission and that could be negotiated less certainly than was normally the case in Roman foreign relations with external enemies, from whom the Romans required absolute surrender in non-negotiable terms. Pax could be won without a battle or campaign, instead of being won in consequence of a battle or campaign, after which pax would follow. Next (Chapter 3), the concept of pax over land and sea (terra marique) is discussed in respect of its civil war contexts, and as a prelude to later Augustan developments. The sea was a comparatively innovative element whose prominence owes much to the campaigns of Octavian and Agrippa against Sextus Pompeius and lesser admirals, especially around Sicily. It becomes clear that Octavian stressed the peace resulting from naval victories in a revolutionary way, indicating their importance to those on the brink of starvation in the capital and elsewhere in Italy. The triumphs of 29 bc and the construction of Nicopolis after the Battle of Actium, not to mention the prominence of the sea in Virgil's Aeneid, served to reinforce this concentration, which of course owes much to Octavian's less-than-stellar performance in land-based battles during the period of civil war.

Under Augustus, the new autocracy brought efforts to control peace, as with so many other ideas (Chapter 4). Matters of peace and war would be discussed, and peace would only be decided, in the Temple of Mars Ultor, the point from which generals would depart from Rome for their provinces, and a place that commemorated the brilliance of Augustus and his family in the arena of war. War and peace were under the emperor's control, and peace was advertised as though the imperial dynasty stood as guarantors of its lasting nature. The perpetuation of peace hence became an imperial policy because of the way in which it would redound to the glory of the Caesars. Nevertheless, the complex nature of pax remained. C. illustrates this basic point through a study of pax Augusta that focuses closely on the Ara Pacis Augustae (Chapter 5). This monument is, of course, very well known, but perhaps it has not previously been put into so enlightening a context. It is a monument with ‘meaning(s)’ in this study, and it is closely connected to Roma Victrix. The idea caught on. Peace became a more prominent concept in Roman religious thought, and numerous dedications to pax Augusta were made outside Rome in subsequent years. A final chapter describes the relationship between pax Augusta and pax Romana (Chapter 6), which was not simply a matter of elaborating a particular into a universal, but of deploying, through changing circumstances, concepts deriving from political discourse and political negotiation. The blessings of rule by Augustus gradually extended into the blessings of rule by Rome. The peace associated with the first emperor, or with others in his wake, became the peace associated with imperial rule. This chapter takes the story forward into the early Empire and demonstrates clearly that pax remained a vital element of political ideology for emperors of the first century ad.

The bibliography is comprehensive. Other aids to learning (tables, illustrations, index) are impressive. Perhaps the proofreading is not to the highest standard, but overall this is a very good book that adds to the scholarly understanding of both the concept of pax and also the political discourse of the period known as the Roman Revolution.