This fascicle of CIL II², the volume dedicated to the new edition of the Latin inscriptions of Hispania, is the posthumous work of Géza Alföldy. According to Stephen Mitchell, the former president of the Association Internationale d'Epigraphie Grecque et Latine, Alföldy ‘contributed more to the progress of Latin epigraphy, and in particular to Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, than any other individual scholar since Mommsen’ (http://www.aiegl.org/id-2012.html).

Géza Alföldy (1935–2011) dealt with the Roman epigraphy of Tarraco for nearly all his academic life. He first came into contact with it in 1965 when he was preparing the Fasti Hispanienses (1969); ten years later, he published his seminal Die römischen Inschriften von Tarraco (1975), a work which provided the model for a modern epigraphic corpus, inspiring a generation of scholars and exercising a profound influence on the subsequent fascicles of CIL. A. retained his interest in the inscriptions and history of Roman Tarraco, and, after recovering from the illness that unfortunately kept him away from research between 2006 and 2008, he devoted the last years of his life to preparing the new fascicles covering the Latin inscriptions of the city and its territory: fascicles CIL II²/14, 2–4. Of these, A. himself had the opportunity of presenting fascicle 2, in Tarragona in May 2011, before his death in Athens only six months later. Fascicle 3 was published the next year (2012) and fascicle 4 is expected to appear at the end of 2014, or beginning of 2015. As opposed to the 1,080 inscriptions gathered in A.'s corpus of 1975, the three CIL II² fascicles will collect 2,359, including those coming from the Ager Tarraconensis. Tarraco, a Roman colony founded by Caesar and the capital of Hispania Citerior since Augustus, thus offers one of the most important epigraphic sets from the Roman Empire, with an exceptional record from the initial Roman presence in Hispania (in the late third century b.c.e.) until Late Antiquity.

Fascicle 2 (noted by B. Salway and A. Cooley, JRS 102 (2012), 177) includes the religious inscriptions (tituli sacri) as well as those relating to the emperors, senators, equites, soldiers and members of the imperial administration and the impressive series of inscriptions, mostly statue bases, related to the concilium prouinciae Hispaniae citerioris, especially to the provincial flamines and flaminicae (14, nos 815–1199). Fascicle 3 (2012) brings together, amongst others, the inscriptions of the magistrates and priests of the colony; those relating to collegia, professions and foreigners; the loca adsignata of the theatre and amphitheatre; and finally funerary inscriptions (14, nos 1200–890). Finally, fascicle 4 will cover the smaller fragments: tituli on mosaics and instrumentum; the Christian inscriptions; those from the Ager Tarraconensis as well as an addendum to fascicle 14.1 by Juan Manuel Abascal (covering the southern part of the conuentus Tarraconensis); and the general indices.

Fascicle 3 contains 690 entries, all of them illustrated, as usual in recent volumes of CIL, with photographs or drawings, except those lost items lacking any pictorial documentation. Each entry contains a detailed description of the support, the conditions and place of discovery, conservation, a photograph (generally excellent) or drawing, a transcript of the text, illustration credits, a bibliography organized chronologically (truly comprehensive), a critical apparatus including lectiones uariae and different interpretations, a brief comment and a proposed dating.

Amongst the inscriptions found in the fascicle should be noted the remarkable series of statue bases (Tarraco has an impressive collection), funerary plaques and altars dedicated to magistrates (nos 1201–36) and seuiri Augustales (nos 1237–67); some tituli concerning collegia (not very common in Hispania; nos 1268–75a), such as those of the centonarii (no. 1273) and fabri (no. 1272); the inscriptions indicating the reserved seats (tituli sedium) for certain individuals or groups in the theatre (nos 1364–91) and amphitheatre (nos 1392–1432), including the arkarii of the uicesuma hereditatium (no. 1392) and the seuiri (no. 1393), and more than four hundred funerary inscriptions (nos 1433–890).

In this fascicle, the Republican inscriptions have not been differentiated from those from the Imperial period, a departure from the approach taken in Die römischen Inschriften von Tarraco (nos 1–18). This editorial decision obscures the important collection of inscriptions dated to the second and first centuries b.c.e. (no fewer than 21, recovered in the city), on which see now B. Díaz, Epigrafía latina republicana de Hispania (2008), nos C58–78. Several of these Republican inscriptions appear scattered throughout the volume (nos 1200, 1314, 1447, 1521, 1560, 1607, 1624, 1626, 1661, 1686 and 1703; also in CIL II²/14.2 nos 840, 865, 870, 977, 988 and 991), including three interesting ‘bilingual’ texts: no. 1778, and another two now lost, but preserved through drawings: no. 1284 (where lintearia is correctly understood, in my opinion, as an indication of job and not as a cognomen) and no. 1882. Unusually, in nos 1284 and 1882, A. did not include a transcript of the text, which in the Iberian part offers some variants not collected in the apparatus criticus (see now I. Simón, Los soportes de la epigrafía paleohispánica (2013), nos P36–7). In 1200, the interpretation, which is not fully convincing, of Ephesius(?) as the magister of a conuentus ciuium Romanorum and not a collegium remains controversial (see the literature cited at 1200).

In conclusion, the three CIL II² fascicles concerning Tarraco constitute an outstanding example of A.'s mastery in the edition of Latin inscriptions and one of his most illuminating contributions to the understanding of the Roman world.