The ancient city of Corinth has been the subject of more or less continuous excavations by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens since 1896. During this time large areas of the civic core have been excavated as well as a number of monuments in the hinterland of the city, notably at Lechaeum and Isthmia. Roman and late-antique Corinth, as the provincial capital of Achaea, is well represented in textual sources, supplemented by a rich epigraphic corpus recovered during the excavations. Despite (or perhaps because of) this wealth of material and long excavation history, Corinth is a hard site to get to grips with for those who have not been intimately involved with its exploration. The excavations are reported in interim statements in AJA and later in Hesperia, while an ongoing series of volumes gives detailed descriptions of the materials and buildings explored in different parts of the site. Accessible syntheses, however, have long been lacking.

In this context, B.’s new study of Corinth's late-antique phases, based on her 2008 doctoral thesis, is welcome. Her involvement in recent Corinth excavations has given her a detailed understanding of the site and its excavation history, although at the same time it means that the book is sometimes overly deferential to the approaches and interpretations of those who have been previously involved with the site.

The book covers themes that are familiar to anyone who has taken an interest in the debates surrounding the changes that occurred in the urban centres of the Mediterranean during late antiquity. B. acknowledges (p. 10) that her focus is traditional in this sense, with an emphasis on authority and urban institutions and their physical manifestation through the media of public buildings, statuary and epigraphy. She is undoubtedly steered in this direction by the nature of the data created by over a century of excavations that have been shaped by the mores of classical archaeology with its (over)emphasis on sculpture, architecture and inscriptions. Archaeology at Corinth has also been heavily influenced by Pausanias' description of the city in the second century and significant scholarly energy has been devoted to debating the relationship between the excavated structures and Pausanias' text. Pausanias was particularly interested in the monuments and statues ‘still left of the ancients' (2.2.6), and this interest was followed by the American excavators. B. revisits this ground at various points throughout the book, and the discussion of the public and sacred spaces around the forum (Chapters 2 and 6) goes into considerable detail on the identity of various buildings, particularly temples, in relation to those named by Pausanias.

The changing nature of public space dominates the book, although B. presents extensive evidence for the maintenance of urban infrastructure until the early fifth century, while baths and fountains were maintained and aggrandised into the sixth century. The switch from secular to Christian authority is attested by the written evidence with the city council and the governor of Achaia largely disappearing from the sources after the early fifth century. The idea that Corinth was the seat of the governor has been questioned in some scholarship, but B. makes a convincing case for a gubernatorial presence, noting that the governor is attested in the epigraphic record at Corinth far more than at any other site in Achaia (although this could in part be a result of the level of excavation, which has resulted in an exceptionally rich corpus of inscriptions). The epigraphic attestations of public office steadily diminish through late antiquity, but continue to appear, usually in the context of Christian epitaphs. Christianity of course has an early influence at Corinth through the evangelical activities of Paul, and conflict with Christians is frequently attested through (later) martyrdom stories. B. makes the interesting observation (p. 32) that martyrdoms at Corinth are concentrated in March and April and suggests increased conflict perhaps associated with the celebration of Easter or at the time of the biennial Isthmian games, held in the spring.

The impact of late-antique change (in which Christianity was a key element) is dramatically attested in the apparent removal of large quantities of statuary from the public realm, followed by its destruction or reuse as building material. In common with previous excavators of Corinth, B. devotes a great deal of attention to public statuary, the subject of the longest chapter of the book. We might also note that 16 of the 35 images in an otherwise under-illustrated volume depict statues (as does the cover), suggesting perhaps that the importance of public sculpture is over-emphasised. Notwithstanding this caveat, the fate of statues in Corinth is undeniably intriguing, showing deliberate removal of heads and their disposal in drains, while others were marked with the sign of the cross. Production of public statuary had actually continued into the early fifth century, and at least seven male marble bodies have been found depicting individuals wearing the chlamys with cross-bow brooch and belt-set, demonstrating the way that dress with military connotations became current in public life in late-antique Corinth.

Of the temples, only the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore shows what is, in B.’s opinion, unambiguous evidence for Christian destruction. In common with other late-antique towns, Corinth saw the construction of multiple churches, although there is no evidence that any were built on the sites of temples. The evidence for Christian building within the public areas of the city is currently limited, although B. notes some evidence for an unknown sixth-century church to the east of the forum, which she suggests ‘would almost certainly have served as the cathedral of Corinth’ (p. 125), although later (p. 136) she also notes that the enormous Lechaeum basilica could also be the Episcopal church. The rich evidence for Christian life is present throughout, including the 4,000 lamps, many with Christian invocations, deposited in the so-called Fountain of the Lamps in the northern part of the ancient city.

This is a valuable book that makes accessible the wealth of data for late antiquity resulting from more than a century of excavation by the American School. It is frustrating in that the often quite dense analyses of the city's topography are not aided by the very limited illustration of the book. The site plans (which are familiar from other Corinth publications) are reproduced at a scale and resolution that render them inadequate for following the arguments of the text (even if the reader wishes to constantly flip to the front of the book to consult them). Some of the broader discussion (for example in relation to the changes in urban life evidenced through Christian building on pp. 147–9) also seems curiously under-developed in comparison with the time spent discussing the relationship between Pausanias' testimony and the earlier Roman topography. Finally, in revealing the rich data from the Corinth excavations, B. also perhaps inadvertently demonstrates the limitations of traditional classical archaeology with its emphasis on epigraphy, monumental building and sculpture. The dramatic changes in the public areas of the towns of the late-antique Mediterranean are now well known and have been documented by scholars like B., who have drawn nuanced conclusions by meticulous research on the results of earlier (often imperfect) excavations. We must hope that the next 100 years of work at Corinth continue to widen its focus to include the mundane as well as the monumental and thus paint an even fuller picture of this fascinating site. This important book will provide an invaluable reference for such future scholarship.