P.'s work over the last thirty years has made an enormous contribution to our knowledge of ancient Greek wagon-roads, especially in the Peloponnese. He has published books on southern Megalopolitan territory (1985) and on the area from Corinth to Argos and Arkadia (1995), besides numerous articles in journals and books. He has now produced a very big book with an immense wealth of information on the road-network of Lakonikê, which he has studied throughout the thirty-year period. If one compares the present work with his earlier books, certain technical advances are obvious, such as the use of gps and computer-generated maps, besides the dvd with 277 photographs that accompanies the book (as does a map of the whole area at 1:150,000). None the less the basic problem has remained the same – finding surviving traces, often very short, of the parallel wheel-ruts that made up the road; and the answer has remained the same – the ‘kafeneion method’, finding local people who know the local countryside well enough to act as guides. Over 30 years P. has built up a vast range of such acquaintances in Lakonia, many of whose faces appear on the back cover.

The heart of the book is the catalogue of roads. It lists 100 roads, of which P. considers 92 certain and the other eight probable. Traces of these roads are preserved in hundreds of different localities. Standard details are given of each item in the catalogue, together with a map on a scale of 1:50,000 and, in most cases, points established by gps readings. Many roads, but not all, are also illustrated by a photograph, either at the back of the book or on the accompanying dvd. The results can be appreciated by looking at the map that accompanies the book, where the roads are marked. The Lakonikê had a remarkable number of roads, and some places had several roads leading to them: unsurprisingly Sparta itself was one such, but Geronthrai takes the prize with eight roads. Main strategic routes are of course served by roads, but it is more surprising to find that a road (No. 87a) followed more or less the line of the crest of the northern part of Taygetos, up to a height of ±1813 m. Some show the skill of Lakonian roadmakers, for example no. 68a west of Epidauros Limera where it is evident at three different spots that, because of the sloping rocky terrain, a road-surface was built up artificially (see also plate 26). P. notes (p. 591) that the nature of the rock in the eastern and south-eastern areas of Lakonikê is relatively more favourable to the preservation of wheel-ruts, but the considerable number of roads in that area can also be explained by the need to have access to the eastern coastal area. Taygetos, on the other hand, despite the road on its crest, was a barrier to movement, and roads on it are few. After the catalogue there is an extensive analysis of the roads found respectively in northern, eastern, southern and western Lakonia.

For many readers the catalogue of roads, and the associated maps, will be the main reason to consult this book, but there is more to the work. In the introduction there is a definition of the ancient Greek cart-road, and of the features that can be recognised, including forks, retaining walls and road beds. Then following the catalogue and the analysis of the roads there is a long discussion of the origins, dating and duration of the road-network in Lakonia and indeed in the Peloponnese. In both cases P. restates and defends vigorously views that he has developed over the years. While noting that Marchand at Kleonai and Lolos in Sikyonia report different measurements, he argues (pp. 38–43) that the standard gauge of the Greek road was 1.40 metres, with rare exceptions (e.g. nos 76 and 79 in his catalogues, both roads from quarries). In the lengthy discussion of the origins and development of the road-network (pp. 515–54) he maintains his view that roads were developed in the Peloponnese for military purposes, organised by Sparta through the Peloponnesian League, though once built they were also used for other purposes such as trade. Argos, he supposes, will have learnt the value of road-building from its enemy Sparta. Doubts about how the Peloponnesian League developed in the sixth century, and about how tightly it was controlled by Sparta then and later, might raise questions about P.'s view, but he states his case forcefully. He goes on to argue (pp. 554–64) that in Lakonia in the Roman period the existing network of Greek roads continued to be used, and that there were few paved Roman roads.

Clearly strong feelings run through this book. One is a sense of the loss of a Greek countryside where villagers – especially, but not only, shepherds and hunters – ranged over the landscape and knew it in detail: now there are fewer flocks, and much more wild vegetation obscuring any traces of antiquity. Another is the sense that the ideas presented derive from the experience gained in thirty years' work on ancient roads in several regions of Greece, and must be defended vigorously against doubts or criticism. It is in any case clear that in thirty years, while others have contributed studies in one region or another, P. has laid the groundwork for our understanding of Greek roads, and that discussion of roads, whether the views expressed match those of P. or not, now rests on the insight that he has made possible. It is important that others now join him in such research, and the extensive analysis of the roads of Sikyonia by Y. Lolos (Land of Sikyon [2011], pp. 93–179) is welcome.

However, the present volume also gives a remarkable amount of the information about the dense roadwork of the Lakonikê. That in itself raises problems – why did the Spartans need so many roads? But clearly anyone interested in how Lakonia was organised and exploited from the archaic period to the Roman needs to read this book.