This chunky volume offers a wide range of thought-provoking papers on the theme of the publication of public documents as inscriptions in the Roman world. Together they make an important contribution to our understanding of why documents were set up for public display on stone and bronze, how location and monumental context contributed to their significance, and what mechanisms lay behind the translation of document into monument. Above all, they demonstrate that such inscriptions were far from inevitable off-shoots of centralized administrative practices, but rather were often the result of the motivations of individuals and communities. They were not intended to furnish archives for consultation, but comprised selective dossiers intended to memorialize relationships between Rome and provincial cities and their inhabitants in a positive way, or to resolve particular problems (such as abuses of requisitioning: see below).

Chapters focus on the archaeological context of inscribed documents (H. von Hesberg, dealing specifically with documents inscribed on temples in Asia Minor during the Hellenistic and Roman periods); on different chronological periods, including Republican Rome (J.-L. Ferrary), the Imperial period (W. Eck), and Late Antiquity (D. Feissel, who includes a catalogue of 107 inscriptions recording official state documents, a.d. 324–610); on contrasting geographical areas, with Baetica representing the West (A. Caballos Rufino, with an appendix cataloguing legal documents inscribed on bronze from the province) set alongside cities of the Greek East (R. Haensch); on the various mechanisms whereby public documents were transformed into inscriptions (C. Kokkinia), the rôle of legal experts in providing access to knowledge of Roman law in the provinces (G. Kantor), the abundance of documents used in the administration of Egypt (A. Jördens), and the legal context of inscribed imperial constitutions in Late Antiquity (C. Kreuzsaler, questioning whether legislation had to be published in order to take effect); and on the characteristics of inscribed documents, demonstrating that inscriptions were not necessarily faithful copies of their prototype, with differences in inscribed copies of the same document being the result not so much of carelessness as of consciously offering improvements (A. Eich), and exploring the different perspectives on provincial government that emerge from inscriptions as compared with documents reported by Josephus (C. Eilers). A final chapter (H. Flower) examines what happened to inscribed public documents and laws which bore the name of a disgraced emperor. She argues that responses were far from universal, and that communities made individualized decisions about whether to destroy, modify, re-inscribe, or preserve such inscriptions. Each of these papers individually offers many insights into the nature of public epigraphy in the Roman world and together they illuminate changes in epigraphic culture over time.

Of particular interest are three papers offering new inscriptions and revisions of already known ones. T. Hauken and H. Malay publish here a new edict of Hadrian on requisitioning, issued during his travels through the province of Asia in a.d. 129. The emperor describes how in the course of his travels he has become aware of complaints about the abuse of the requisitioning system by Roman soldiers, and is issuing this edict in virtue of his proconsular powers with the aim of clarifying the rights and responsibilities of both soldiers and provincials. This inscription, virtually complete, adds to the already considerable body of evidence showing that requisitioning remained a contentious issue over a long period, as well as illustrating the way in which a travelling emperor might make himself accessible to petitioners. Hadrian's conciliatory approach is perhaps indicated by his use of the word ethnos instead of eparcheia to refer to the province, which may be interpreted as a sign of respect for the inhabitants of Asia.

G. Souris and R. Haensch republish an inscription which was first edited by N. Milner and A. Hall, RECAM III 112 (SEG 48.1583). They argue that the inscription contains a single document, and that it illustrates how abuses by officials on an imperial estate had prompted the tenants to appeal to the emperors, who then attempted to resolve the complaints by issuing this document. In this way it offers a picture both of the negative side of Roman administration and of imperial attempts to protect tenants.

H. Müller gathers together a number of fragments, new and old, that all appear to belong to a single inscription of a.d. 137/8, a letter to the magistrates, boule and demos of Pergamon from the emperor Hadrian, in which he rejects their proposal to supplement the existing temples of Rome and Augustus and of Trajan and Zeus by building a temple in his honour. It shows Hadrian's concern to prevent the Pergamenes from over-stretching themselves financially, and now confirms that a cult statue of Hadrian was added to the temple of Trajan and Zeus Philios only in a.d. 138, as a compromise, instead of building another new temple. It is unusual to find a negative response from an emperor recorded on a monumental inscription, but the Pergamenes evidently considered Hadrian's response to be sufficiently favourable towards them even so. The inscription clearly illustrates the way in which cities in the region acted out their local rivalries by trying to associate themselves ever more closely with the power of Rome via emperor-worship. In an appendix, Müller reassesses some inscribed fragments that belong to a dossier concerning the establishment of the Traianeia Deiphileia festival.