Rules and regulations, privileges and bans, and military law (ius militare) defined the Roman soldier's legal status and governed most of his daily life. Even after his honourable discharge, they affected his life as a veteran. They also described his official relation to the Roman state (the res publica Romana) and to the emperor. The Roman soldier's legal status also had a major influence on his behaviour towards civilians. Issues of such historical scope, therefore, naturally attract scholarly interest. Hence S.'s book (the published version of his 2005 doctoral dissertation at the old and renowned Faculty of Law of the University of Vienna) has several predecessors.Footnote ¹ Yet S. chose not to inform his reader in what way his book differs from earlier attempts at the same subject, and why he felt that it was necessary to re-examine the Roman soldier's legal position. Moreover, S. presents his subject in a descriptive and summarising style, without presenting his methods and objectives, and without an analytical approach. An overview and full discussion of the sources is also missing. S. claims in his preface that he has taken all relevant books and articles published before the end of 2010 into account. However, his patchy bibliography falls far short of this ambitious goal. Thus, the two most recent publications date only to 2003, a third one was published in 2002 and another in 2001. The few other publications from after 2000 are all lexicon articles from ‘Der Neue Pauly’ dating from 2001 and 2002. Ignoring the results of practically an entire decade of research is hardly a serious attempt at an intellectual engagement on a scientific level with the subject of a doctoral thesis. Unfortunately, the rest of the book confirms this impression.

The slim volume of 114 pages of text is divided into twelve mostly short and sweeping chapters, of which the first and the last comprise a brief introduction and the conclusion respectively. Chapters 2 and 3 are dedicated to the organisation and the branches of the imperial Roman army and its development since the early Republic, as well as to recruitment and conditions of service. This might have been the place to investigate the scope and the development of the ius militare with respect also to the differences in Rome's treatment of the various branches of the army. Yet, throughout the book (with few exceptions), historical development receives insufficient attention. Chapter 4 is on penal law but the few pages fall far behind earlier treatments of the same subject. Chapter 5 treats the soldier's income and property as summarised in 1998 by G. Wesch-Klein (cf. n. 1.). S. is at his best when presenting legal issues such as the peculium castrense (goods acquired during military service) and its development over time, as in Chapter 6. Next, a chapter of little more than two pages on soldiers' clubs (collegia) is followed by one on marriage law and the legal restrictions on soldiers' marriages, including lengthy quotations from Greek papyri. S., of course, could not have known that a new military diploma, which was published only in 2011, now shows that Septimius Severus never abolished the ban on legal marriage for soldiers serving in the Roman army.Footnote ² Hence all reconstructions of the legal aspects of soldiers' unions with their women now need to be reconsidered. The book continues with a chapter on inheritance law followed by a few remarks on captivity and the ius postliminii (Chapter 10). A final chapter discusses discharge and veteran status (pp. 88–111). Although S. recognises the importance of the documentary evidence in such respects, military diplomas in particular, he did not take the trouble to make full use of these texts. P. Holder's Roman Military Diplomas V (2006), the many diplomas published in recent years in the journals Chiron and Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik and others, and even the Année Épigraphique all appear to be unknown to S. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that several conclusions are based on an obsolete state of research. To mention just one example, S. believes that all military diplomas for the Emperor's horseguard (equites singulares Augusti) date to the reign of Severus Alexander (222–235 c.e.), and takes this to draw a number of conclusions on the Roman citizenship of the soldiers serving in the horseguard. However, already in 1994 U. Stylow published a diploma for an eques singularis Augusti from the reign of Hadrian (8 April 133 c.e.) in Chiron 24. This diploma has since been reproduced in all relevant collections such as RMD III 158; AE 1994, 1519; M.P. Speidel, Die Denkmäler der Kaiserreiter (1994) 758, etc. Moreover, further second century diplomas for the Emperor's horseguard have been published since. It would not have taken much to find these texts and the relevant published research. The concluding two pages contain further errors.

A short and reliable introduction for students into the Roman soldier's legal position might have been desirable, just as a thorough scholarly treatment may have. This, unfortunately, is not the most accurate and up-to-date treatment of the subject, nor does S.'s book live up to what one might expect from a European doctoral thesis.