This book, based on a 2016 doctoral thesis, sets out to look at the ‘Romanisation’ of Noricum as a whole. Previous scholarly discourse on this topic has, according to the author, hitherto concentrated on specific smaller regions of the province. Notwithstanding the wider view suggested by the book's title, its main focus is on the Norican urban élite and the extent to which the Norican towns adopted infrastructure and cultural traits associated with Rome. Although its title suggests a new contribution to our understanding of cultural change in the Roman provinces, in essence the book is a thorough but very traditional study based mainly on historical sources. Its theoretical premise is outlined at the beginning of chapter 2 where the author reflects on the so-called ‘Romanisation debate’ of the past three decades. He argues that by abandoning the term ‘Romanisation’ and replacing it with new concepts, Anglophone scholarship has simply engaged in a change of terminology, suggesting he is unaware that new terms like ‘discrepant experience’ (D. Mattingly) denote very different concepts to what was originally envisaged as ‘Romanisation’.

The book sets out to show the role of the local élite in adopting and replicating Roman cultural phenomena, and as such finds itself in the intellectual milieu of M. Millett's work of 1990. It is perplexing that the author does not engage with the discussion in Germanophone scholarship that resulted in the change from the term Romanisierung (in which the Romans were seen as the active party) to Romanisation (in which the local population played an active role), even though he chooses to use the latter term. The definition of ‘Romanisation’ that forms the basis for the study (the ‘political, social, economic and cultural changes in a new Roman province’: p. 11, my translation) perpetuates the notion that a single phenomenon explains all the changes that a region underwent over the space of several centuries. The rest of chapter 2 is a series of lengthy surveys of phenomena the author considers to be the main components of ‘Romanisation’, such as citizenship, patronage and urbanisation. These form the focus of what follows.

Within these theoretical constraints, the book largely succeeds in its aims. Chapter 3 looks at the pre-Roman period, providing a summary of ancient literary sources about the region and what we can discover from both them and archaeological sources about the political groupings of the region and the scale and nature of their contact with Rome. Chapter 4 sets out the history of the Roman annexation of Noricum in the late first century b.c. based almost entirely on Roman written sources. The discussion of these is dextrous and thorough, although readers might ask themselves whether, for example, five pages of discussion as to whether the province was declared in 16 or 15 b.c. (pp. 89–94) is strictly necessary for the purposes of the book. Chapter 5 looks at the first phase of Roman Noricum up until the first municipia were formed, examining economic and settlement structures and the composition of the local élite based mainly on epigraphy and archaeology, while chapter 6 is a brief survey of the history of Noricum in the first three centuries a.d. based on literary sources.

The core of the book is a town-by-town survey of the region's urban centres (Aguntum, Celeia, Iuvavum, Virunum, Flavia Solva, Aelium Cetium, Ovilava and Lauriacum), providing a brief overview of the archaeological evidence for the development of each, focusing especially on the traditional markers of Roman urban life (e.g. insulae, forums, baths, temples) and associated military camps. It then discusses the legal status of the town (when it became a municipium or colonia), followed by a discussion of the local élite, based mainly on honorific, votive and funerary inscriptions. The method here is to look at individuals, focusing on nomenclature, legal status and career, with the author mainly interested in the presence of Roman officials and the extent to which the ordo decurionum consisted of locals versus newcomers. The study identifies some interesting differences between the towns in terms of their development (such as whether they were formed from a pre-Roman settlement like Teurnia or were new foundations like Aelium Cetium) and the extent to which they developed ‘Roman’ urban infrastructure and practices. Chapter 7 concludes with summaries of the chronology of urbanisation of Noricum and the composition of the élite in Noricum based on epigraphic evidence, examining the extent to which Italians were part of the local élite and as such responsible for the ‘degree of Romanisation’ of the town.

Chapter 8 briefly discusses ‘other factors in the Romanisation of Noricum in the post-Claudian era’, such as villas, the extent to which the smaller vici showed Roman urban elements, the presence of ‘Roman’ trades, the nature of the province's trade routes and centres, and the spread of citizenship up to the constitutio Antoniniana; a final section looks at epigraphic evidence for the patronage system, concluding it was an important factor in élite Norican society. Chapter 9 summarises the ‘Romanisation’ of Noricum as a whole, concluding that Roman involvement and interest was minimal, and that it was mainly the locals who initiated the changes described in the book.

The main text is followed by a series of excellent town plans and a lengthy appendix containing tables of all the inscriptions from each town mentioning individual people, the origins of their names and concordance with main corpora.