George Demacopoulos' study adds to the growing revisionist literature on the early papacy that is seeking to dismantle a neat story of the rise of papal power. D.'s focus is not on institutional history, however, but on the topos of the Roman see's Petrine origins; the topos that late antique popes thought would help their institution in ‘spreading power and influence’ (6). This is ambitious, but D. manages to control the rich material by employing ‘discourse analysis’, an investigation not of the truth of the Petrine claim, but a more restrained one of the diverse uses, purposes and receptions of the Petrine topos at certain, well-documented instants. His most significant conclusion is that, in the period under study, claiming the apostolic authority of Peter was something popes did in moments of weakness and to an unimpressed audience. Nonetheless, since these moments produced their most sharply honed rhetorical statements (in both textual and physical form), eventually the topos contributed to the papacy's ‘exceptional status’ (2).

In the Introduction, D. lays out his methodology and also briefly describes historiography on the early papacy, warning against the tendency of earlier scholars such as Caspar, Ullmann and even Pietri to conflate the later medieval memory of a powerful late antique papacy (structuring, for example, Carolingian papal letter collections) with the late antique reality. Ch. 1 surveys the earliest narratives on Peter, the earliest evidence on external recognition of the Roman bishop's appellate jurisdiction and the beginnings of the cult of St Peter in Rome. D. suggests that, while by the fourth century there was no unified Christian view on the nature of Peter or Rome's superior position, most fourth-century Christians understood Peter as having ‘held a unique position of authority in the early church’, even if not necessarily connected to Rome (37). Later popes could build on these foundations and among these D. focuses on Leo (ch. 2), Gelasius (ch. 3) and Gregory the Great (ch. 5). In all these instances, the range of their literary output and corresponding audiences (usually distinguished between domestic, western and eastern) are examined for both the presence and, crucially, the absence of the Petrine topos. This allows D. to argue, for example, that Leo — perhaps the pope best known for employing Petrine discourse and, as D. shows here, the inventor of the ‘Petrine subject’ (55) (the personification of the see of Rome as Peter) — in fact used it very sparingly, and mostly with external audiences in Gaul and (at first contact) in the East: audiences of whose loyalty Leo could not be sure. However, D. is not only interested in how the Petrine topos was broadcast, but also how it was received. Here ch. 4 plays a crucial rôle. Alongside a study of the Laurentian schism and the way one side of the schism harnessed Petrine discourse (Symmachus, was, of course, holed up at St Peter's in the Vatican for large parts of the schism), while the other (Laurentius) ignored it, this chapter also contains an investigation of the use of the Petrine discourse in Justinian's legislation. The chapter is a little disjointed, serving also as a chronological bridge between chs 3 and 5, but it provides evidence for the important observation that the Petrine topos could become an ‘echo chamber’ (94), where external parties — for example, Justinian during the debate around the Theopaschite formula — started to adopt the Roman bishop's Petrine claims when it suited their own search for apostolic credibility, and as such unconsciously contributed to the later memory of a strong papacy. At the same time, as D.'s analysis of the Life of Gregory of Agrigentum, which forms a postscript to his study, shows, alternative, non-papal Petrine traditions also survived into the seventh century and perhaps beyond, and these could even be used to challenge the pope's monopoly of the topos.

One of the real methodological strengths of this book is that it avoids dealing with the Petrine topos in soundbites, only concentrating on texts that employ it. Due to his holistic approach, D.'s conclusions about the frequency or rarity of the Petrine topos are based on sound underlying statistics and this lends much validity to his argument that we may over-estimate the importance of some passages, such as Gelasius' famous elaboration on Church and State in Ad Anastasium (a welcome translation of which, alongside that of another famous Gelasian letter, Ad Andromachum, trying to outlaw the Roman pagan festival of the Lupercalia, is found in the appendices). D.'s approach also provides an invaluable window into the Roman bishop's changing support base, which could indeed differ between individual popes, with Gelasius' lack of domestic authority particularly standing out. Following D.'s reasoning, however, one would then expect Gelasius to employ Petrine discourse widely when dealing with recalcitrant Roman aristocrats. This he did not, though he did forcefully insist on Rome's sovereignty and jurisdictional authority over the Church for this audience. Yet, according to D., where Roman bishops claimed these rights even without reference to Peter (as, for example, in the so-called Symmachean forgeries), audiences would still have understood the implicit connection, as Petrine authority was the ‘constitutive thesis that the bishops of Rome … were the uncontested ecclesiastical authorities' (112). As D. also argues throughout the book that Rome's claim to Petrine authority was not self-evident and had to be endlessly repeated, this seems to be expecting too much from late antique audiences. Despite such minor logical impasses, this is a beautifully written and authoritatively argued book. It should become essential reading for scholars, postgraduates and advanced undergraduates studying the late antique city of Rome and its episcopal see.