How do symbols gain and change their meanings? The question is an important one, and oddly neglected in most analyses of Roman emperorship. The monumental Die Strahlen der Herrscher (1998) by Marianne Bergmann aside, there has been little attention for ways in which specific symbols of imperial power changed significance and function over time. Bettina Bergmann's ambitious monograph, an adaptation of her 2006 dissertation, focuses on the functions of Roman wreaths and their depictions and descriptions in the late Republic and early Empire, to find out how this particular symbol of status could end up denoting imperial power.

Half of the book comprises actual text (1–220) and substantial endnotes (223–77), with the other half a detailed catalogue of the material evidence used in the text, often with further discussion of details (279–390), tables of depictions of wreaths and of Jupiter on Republican coinage (based on RRC) and of Jupiter on non-numismatic evidence (based on LIMC) (391–473), and indices of images, textual and epigraphic evidence, names, places, and monuments (475–515). The analysis, in short, is based upon painstakingly assembled source material. This analysis, in turn, is divided into four parts. A fairly short first chapter (5–35) deals with the wreath in cult, followed by a longer one (37–108) analysing the rôle of wreaths during triumphs. By far the longest chapter (109–83) looks at the function of the corona graminea (112–34) and the corona civica (135–83) in a military context, after which B. discusses (185–205) how the corona civica became an important symbol for the princeps outside of its original military context.

The very evidence-based approach of this book works well. B. rightly observes that in a ritual context there was no general regulation about wearing wreaths, and that depictions of wreathed participants could therefore be used to indicate status, as she shows by a fresh reading of the Ara Pacis (18–35). Likewise, meticulous attention to the evidence concerning the laurel and gold wreath worn by the triumphator leads to suggestive views on the Boscoreale Cup and Trajan's Palestrina relief (98–108). Unfortunately, however, B. has not made use of Mary Beard's important observations in The Roman Triumph (2007) about the reliability of triumphal accounts and depictions in this section, nor of Ida Östenberg's thorough analysis of depictions of Roman triumphal processions in Staging the World (2009). B.'s suggestion, in her valuable third chapter, that Caesar is shown wearing the corona graminea on coinage from 44 b.c., convinces again through the systematic combination of all literary and material (numismatic) evidence (114–31). Finally, a detailed account of the development of the use of the corona graminea and corona civica by individuals in late Republican times makes clear how Octavian consciously made the former a ‘corona non grata’ (202) as a result of the specific historical development of that particular wreath. He instead chose the latter as the wreath with which he was to be depicted post 27 b.c. The civica, as B. shows, was less ‘tainted’ than the graminea by Caesar and the civil wars.

There is, then, much of value in this book. More importantly, the clear way in which the evidence is assembled, made accessible and interpreted will make this solid work of great use for a long time to come, especially for scholars interested in the construction of the image of the first princeps. It is, however, not always easy to read, especially as some of the detailed discussions do not seem to lead to a development of argument, but are rather tangential. Still, they are always interesting, and through its methodical eye for detail the book shows how much can be learned from systematic study of one symbol. One can only hope that an analysis of the ways in which wreaths changed meaning in the post-Augustan period will follow soon.