This volume has its genesis in a philosophical discussion group on animal ethics, and it aims to introduce ancient ideas about the treatment of animals to a non-specialist readership. H. comments in his introduction that it has three potential audiences – classicists, philosophers and general readers, though he adds self-deprecatingly that he feels the work satisfies none of these groups fully. In fact it is written with a philosophical audience most clearly in mind, providing contextualised extracts from a wide variety of ancient writers, divided into two sections. The first, outlining ancient ideas about animal ethics, occupies the longer half of the book, while the second aims to compare the treatment of animals in real life, an original approach and one which offers a more rounded picture than simply contrasting the views of different philosophical schools.

After an introduction outlining the scope of animal ethics as a topic and discussing previous work on animal ethics in antiquity, Part 1 consists of six chapters: Chapter 1 surveys ancient ideas about animal reason and intellect, drawing largely on philosophical texts. Chapter 2 treats the question of justice among animals, and Chapter 3 ideas about vegetarianism. Chapter 4 collects passages on animal behaviour, offering a varied and largely non-philosophical set of texts, including animal similes, the range of animal capabilities and imagined animal lives. Chapter 5 on animals and cultural identity is very short, consisting of extracts from Herodotus, Strabo and Caesar, while Chapter 6 examines the role of the animal in bucolic poetry. Part 2, treating the realia of animals in antiquity, offers a series of shorter chapters on animal study and experimentation, animals in warfare, food and farming, animals in religion, and hunting and entertainment.

The first and obvious question is: how does this sourcebook differ from Newmyer's 2011 collection, Animals in Greek and Roman Thought, which similarly aims to ‘make readings from Greek and Roman authors accessible to a varied audience’, including students of philosophy and ethics and classics, and readers on animal rights? One might expect to find a significant overlap between Newmyer's work and H.'s Part 1, but although they treat similar topics (justice towards animals, vegetarianism, animal intelligence) there are in fact very few shared extracts. This stems from H.'s stated aim to draw on a range of sources beyond the standard philosophical texts; while a few passages such as Democritus on justice or Porphyry on vegetarianism cannot be excluded, H. draws on a wider selection of literary and historical sources (Greek drama, epic, Caesar and Tacitus) to give a broader and more multi-vocal approach to the topics. Moving beyond solely philosophical perspectives in this way proves valuable, especially in Chapters 4 and 5 which treat views of animal behaviour and animals as cultural markers. The comparative material in Part 2 also introduces some individual and novel perspectives: the discussion of warfare, for instance, includes some interesting material on violence towards animals as an aspect of war, and the chapter on farming brings out very effectively the cruel nature of some ancient agricultural practices. Other chapters, however, follow rather well-trodden paths, especially that on spectacle and entertainment, which includes many descriptive accounts of particular games, and the short chapter on sacrifice is similarly descriptive; neither reflects back on the philosophical attitudes very clearly.

H.'s presentation weaves the extracts in each chapter (most of them short) into a continuous discussion with linking paragraphs providing introduction and commentary to each. This is effective in giving coherence and direction to each section as well as background to the extract, but it is somewhat surprising to see in the introduction a claim that ‘the sources are left to speak for themselves’ (p. 10), something which few people think happens these days. Where texts are didactic this is perhaps justifiable, but it is more problematic in the case of literary extracts. For instance, H. is keen on the potential of the Greek novel as a source, citing Longus on the image of the bucolic life, and making a particular case for the importance of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses for ‘understanding ancient views of animality’. Yet the context of the novels is barely touched upon, and the passages of Apuleius used are presented as straightforward evidence for the hard lives of draft animals without any reference to the complexity of attitudes within the work. While the extracts in each chapter are organised broadly chronologically, with Greek sources before Roman, the arc of development remains implicit, and the discussion tends to treat ‘antiquity’ as a single continuum without drawing contrasts between periods or regions. This is something of a missed opportunity: it would be interesting to have some discussion of why farming information comes almost exclusively from Rome, for instance, and what the institution of animal hunts and massacres as public shows tells us about specifically Roman attitudes.

The most significant editorial choice is signalled in the title and reiterated in the introduction: this is a selection of texts, excluding both inscriptions and archaeological evidence. The justification for the exclusion of inscriptions is said to be practical, on the grounds of space, but the realia section certainly suffers as a consequence, especially (as H. himself notes) the chapters on sacrifice and entertainment. The Res Gestae is in fact the sole inscription cited (in Chapter 12), though it makes no reference to animals. More significantly, there are only six illustrations, somewhat randomly chosen to accompany particular texts, and no reference to archaeological material at all. This is an omission given the aim of Part 2 to delineate ‘the ethical parameters of Greek and Roman society in regard to animals’ (p. 11): it is in archaeology that much relevant work on animal lives is being done, for example the investigation of canine or bovine skeletal remains as evidence for their treatment in life. The literature-only approach makes for a rather traditional (and top-down) view, and leads to interpretations which are more pessimistic than they need be, since it is mainly outside the literature that we find evidence of affection for animals, for example the naming of working mules, or the epitaphs for dogs. Even a few such examples would add considerably to the idea of ethics in practice.

The volume is nevertheless a welcome response to the increasing scholarly interest in animal life as an aspect of the classical past, and is a very interesting attempt to marry theoretical ideas with an understanding of lived experience. It will certainly find its core market among those concerned with the history of animal ethics, providing an excellent foundation for understanding the debates about justice, animal rationality and relations between humans and animals. Classicists may find it somewhat broad-brush in its approach to antiquity, but nevertheless will find much of interest in a wide-ranging and thought-provoking study.