Of the three functions generally distinguished in Roman declamation — rhetorical exercise, literary composition and a mirror of Roman morals — Neil Bernstein adopts the last of this triplet as the central theme for his study of the slippery subject that declamation always is. The book's title bears the somewhat vague indication ‘Later Roman Declamation’, the result of the unknown origin and date of the Declamationes Maiores (DM) of Pseudo-Quintilian. These nineteen speeches may have been composed in the later first through the third centuries a.d., and most probably were collected (and attributed to Quintilian) in the later fourth. By that time, other works were composed in a similar vein, such as the imperial speeches (Panegyrici Latini XII) and the imperial biographies gathered in the Historia Augusta, which both at least partly relied on earlier works by other authors than the compiler. The latter collection even contains an explicit reference to DM (Triginta Tyranni 4.2).

One clear difficulty posed by DM is the lack of any explicit indications of the time of composition. This means (inevitably) that B. — who should not be blamed for the texts' reticence! — can offer only very general observations on Roman ethics, identity and community. B. focuses on four themes: authority (ch. 1), verification (ch. 2), reciprocity (ch. 3) and visuality (ch. 4). In broad terms, ‘authority’ relates to questions of power and subordination in legal (or military) contexts, ‘verification’ deals with validity of legal evidence, ‘reciprocity’ concerns mutual benefits in both social and domestic relationships, and ‘visuality’ covers all aspects of sight in juridical and rhetorical contexts.

B. — and again understandably — compensates for the lack of specific historical context by drawing attention to literary parallels (and to a much greater extent than the rather misleadingly incomplete index locorum indicates). The themes are further illustrated by examples from rhetorical handbooks, mainly Cicero and Quintilian, or Hermogenes. In B.'s treatment of parallel sources it often remains unclear how the authors quoted relate specifically to the declamations (for example: ‘Terence's Adelphoe and … his Heautontimorumenos offer parallels' (84)). But (and the problem persists) how should these parallels be read? As specific indicators of context or as illustrations of (seemingly timeless?) Roman views on ethics, identity and community? For example, the discussion of disciplina, auctoritas and pudicitia in DM 3 (the Miles Marianus case) (28–32) is clarified with examples from Cicero, Plutarch, Velleius and Valerius Maximus, but omits Suetonius, Sallust or the emperor Augustus. Augustus' version of his auctoritas — which must somehow have influenced subsequent rhetorical discourse — goes unmentioned in the discussion of maximus quisque auctor (26–7).

More too might be done with some of the literary parallels. B. rightly takes the killing of children before their parents' eyes as an example of extreme cruelty and grief, and quotes DM 7.10 (‘The Poor Man's Torture’) (139): a son is killed in his father's sight (in conspectu patris), which is also mentioned earlier in 7.4 and 7.5 (in the latter case, patris is replaced by meo, from the father's perspective). The scene is connected with the episode in Virgil, Aeneid 2 of Pyrrhus killing Polites before Priam, who mourns that this happens coram me (2.538). Certainly, the comparison holds, but there are better examples to illustrate the point. Firstly, the formula coram me (cf. in conspectu …), occurs no fewer than three times in DM 7: in 7.5, 7.12 and 7.11 (the last as coram patre). Secondly, this frequently recurring theme in the Aeneid is programmatically prepared in Aeneas' speech at 1.95: the Trojans died ante ora patrum. This element recurs in DM 7.2 ante oculos meos, and in 7.13 as ante oculos sit morientis unici vultus. Briefly, the thematic similarities are well observed by B., but, in this case, better examples with direct verbal parallels could have been cited. Above all, the question remains how the parallels exactly relate to the texts under discussion: do they tell us something about Roman ethics and society in general, and if so, in what historical context, or do they operate as literary tricks in a legal setting?

In Part II (147–64), B. enlarges the scope of the book with a Renaissance response to DM 1 (‘The Bloodstained Wall’) by Juan Luis Vives and the humanist reaction to the latter by Lorenzo Patarol. The chapter further elaborates the theme of blindness, at the hands of later learned scholars who show themselves well versed in classical literature. Patarol's speech innovates by a constant production of general truths constructed with the verbs debere and posse.

Although the historical and literary contexts could have been elaborated further, B.'s book offers a useful overview of current issues in the discussion of Roman declamation. For the most part, the study stays safely within the walls of Sophistopolis (the much used metaphor for declamatory arguments and truths introduced by D. A. Russell, Greek Declamation (1983), which constitutes the world in which the orators act). Helpfully, B. includes the Latin texts with translations of the themes of the cases discussed (Appendix 2) and a comprehensive bibliography. In sum, B.'s book will serve as a good research tool for the preparation of commentaries on individual speeches as well as both a reliable and readable introduction for all those interested in this formerly neglected backwater of Latin literature.