The aim of this book, as stated in the introduction, is to take a sweeping view of the concept of identity in the western Roman provinces in the first three centuries ad, and to explore how we can move scholarship forward in this area. The focus is deliberately not only on ethnic identity, which, as Revell argues with some justification, has been over-privileged in recent scholarship, but also other types of identity such as status, gender and age.

The book starts with a chapter discussing the state of play in theoretical approaches to identity in the Roman Empire. This includes a critique of what Revell calls the ‘common-sense’ approach, which sees Roman society as essentially the same as ours, the over-familiarity causing a ‘feedback loop in our interpretation of Roman society’ (p 5). Among the recent developments she singles out for commendation are: the increasing acceptance that identity was something that was fluid rather than static; the integration of approaches from neighbouring disciplines like Foucault’s focus on the body; and the point of view of marginalised groups like women, children and the lower social orders. A major theme in this chapter and throughout the book is identity as performative. This builds on Revell’s earlier work, such as Roman Imperialism and Local Identities (Revell Reference Revell2009), which, among the work of other scholars such as Pitts, has been at the forefront of the argument that identity is something that is enacted and sustained through the repetition of certain practices. Consequently, it is argued, it is less the superficial qualities of things (for example, buildings, vessels) that we should be looking at, and more the way they were being used and by whom.

The next chapter, ‘Ideas of Roman Ethnicity’, discusses the extent to which we can use the concept of ethnicity for Roman identity. Based on the work of A D Smith, it assesses the main criteria for ethnicity in their applicability to the Roman situation, and concludes that although Rome was a vast empire, and Roman culture an imperial one, there was such a thing as a Roman ethnic identity, but it was based on ‘links between abstract concepts, everyday practice and material culture’ (p 41). The chapter that follows, ‘A Poly-ethnic Empire’, looks at the fundamental paradox of the Roman Empire: that it was characterised in cultural terms by both unity and a great deal of variety in almost every aspect of human life. An array of examples is discussed, the main point being that people can have several ethnic identities at once. This chapter also points out something that both I and others have argued, but which is still not taken enough into account: that Roman activity often directly affected not only the way ethnic units were distributed, but also their fundamental character (see, for example, the ‘martial ideology’ of the Batavi in the work of Nico Roymans).

The chapter entitled ‘A New Provincial Elite’ looks at the potential of Roman conquest to disrupt existing social structures and their expression, and explores elite self-definition through the material remains of the activities of the local magisterial class, such as fora, curiae, etc in provincial towns, inscriptions of various kinds and elite urban houses. It is made clear that, even within this class, there was considerable variation across different provinces in their ‘responses to the magisterial model’ (p 82), such as a lack of statuary and honorary epigraphy in Britain. In ‘Looking for the Non-elite’, Revell suggests three ways in which current scholarship is making inroads into this less visible territory: through material culture, evidence for labour patterns and physical manifestations of social ranking, such as at theatres. She discusses the concept of ‘entangled spaces’ – the fact that the same locations in Roman towns were used by different people for different things.

The final two chapters, ‘Gendering the Provinces’ and ‘Age and Ageing’, look at the small but growing number of such recent studies. The first explores some of the more successful approaches to gender, such as looking at dress styles, funerary art and epigraphy, and the presence of women and children in and around Roman forts. Similarly, funerary commemoration is presented as a rich source for age identities (‘the most under-studied and under-theorised aspect of identity within archaeology as a whole’, p 127), to which is added burial practice, grave goods and skeletal remains. It is made clear that the construction of both gender and age identities differed significantly across the various regions of the Roman West.

This book constitutes a valuable overview of current identity studies as applied to the western Roman provinces, and succeeds in its task of collating ‘approaches which have proved successful in Roman archaeology or archaeology more widely’ (p 17). It is likely to prove enormously useful to researchers, especially undergraduate students and anyone trying to gain initial insights into this complex and fast-growing field.