Among a wealth of excellent studies and translations of individual Latin authors (Plautus, Catullus, Lucretius, Cicero, Ovid, Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, Martial, Juvenal, and Statius), I was delighted also to find packed into my crate of review books the latest work by Anthony Corbeill, Sexing the World.Footnote ¹ With the innovative sociological-cum-philological approach familiar from his previous works, which belongs to cultural history as much as to literary and linguistic studies, Corbeill here tackles the question of how grammatical gender in ancient Latin language maps on to, and influences, a Roman cultural worldview that is binary and ‘heterosexual’, where grammatical gender is identified with biological gender. His study argues for the material implications of apparently ‘innocent’ grammatical categories. As a case study focusing on the Latin language and its relation to Roman culture and thought, it also makes a contribution to wider debates about how language shapes human perception of the world. Corbeill's main focus is on the Romans’ own narratives about the origins of their binary gender categories in a time of primordial fluidity, a ‘mystical lost time’ (134), that is reflected in the story told in each chapter, where transgressing gender boundaries is a source of power for gods and poets alike. In Chapter 1 the narrative in question is formed by the etymologizing accounts of the very grammatical term genus as fundamentally associated with procreation, and in Chapter 2 by Latin explanations for non-standard gender of nouns, with Chapter 3 being a demonstration of how Latin poets tap into the supposedly fluid origins of grammatical gender, to access their mystical power. In Chapter 4 the story is of how the androgynous gods of old became more rigidly assigned to one gender or another over time, while in Chapter 5 the shift is from the numinous duality of intersex people to the more mundane concern that they should be categorized in legal terms as either male or female. Each chapter, as Corbeill says, represents a self-contained treatment of a particular aspect of Latin gender categories; in sequence each can also be seen to trace a similar trajectory, from flux to binary certainty. In every case, it seems, early gender fluidity is represented by the Romans as gradually hardening into a clear binary differentiation between male and female. Corbeill is less interested in the reality of these narratives than in what they themselves tells us about Roman attitudes towards sex and gender, with their essentializing message about a heterosexual gender framework. With its wide-ranging erudition, clear and compelling prose, and fascinating insights of broad relevance, this is a thought-provoking study, even though it leaves many questions unanswered, especially in relation to the role of the neuter (‘neither’) gender and its interplay with the compound ‘both-ness’ of hermaphrodites.

Beginning my diachronic survey of the other books under review is Laughing Awry, a study of Plautus’ comedies by another of our most interesting contemporary Latinists, Erik Gunderson.Footnote ² This is a study that aims to get under the reader's skin and use humour as provocation, mirroring the discomforting humour of the subject matter and destabilizing the scholar's pose of objectivity. Gunderson's book begins in confrontational mode, drawing attention to the extent to which we are implicated in Roman comedy's games of power, authority, and expression, with an evocative and disturbing discussion of the opening of Fellini's film I Clowns, itself a musing on the horror and enchantment of the circus clown; you can only take a dispassionate line on Plautus, Gunderson suggests, by ignoring the bucket on your own head. The remainder of the opening chapter outlines a Lacanian approach to analysing power relations within which the rest of the book is framed; using other people is fun, but being used is unpleasant (‘For some, this play is all fun and games; for others it is painful and humiliating’ [211]). The book presents its own ‘comic’ argumentum after its title page, rather more enigmatic than the plot summaries of the argumenta usually appended to the ancient plays; the author's writing varies in style throughout the text, sometimes playful and colloquial, occasionally cryptic, usually engaging and evocative. The detailed discussion of the plays that we find in the subsequent seven chapters (e.g. Pseudolus in Chapter 6, Amphitryo in Chapter 7, Epidicus in Chapter 8) is, however, unexpectedly accessible, robust, and grounded, delving into the familiar issues such as the problem of genre in the Amphityro, the relationship between gods and men, the metatheatrical frissons, the dynamics of relations between audience, actors, and characters, the anxieties about status and identity (‘The powerful do as they wish. The powerless are reduced to clutching at scraps of their selfhood’ [188]) – all familiar ideas, but engagingly and thoroughly elucidated, and all within the context of Lacanian thought. This would be a fun book to give to students to get them thinking (quite hard) about the implications of comedy, ancient and modern.

Meanwhile, a collection of essays about women in Roman Republican drama, edited by three key players in the field and with contributions from several more, consciously rides the wave of the recent expansion of scholarship in the areas of performance, audience, and social and cultural context.Footnote ³ Its aim is to present current issues and debates in the field to students and non-specialists, through a focus on the engaging subject of the representation of women in these plays, and its wider cultural significance. The three contributions in Part One (‘Women in Performance’) explore aspects of the way in which performance is staged in Roman drama – through dress and music, as well as descriptions of bodies on stage. Part Two (‘Women in Roman Drama and Society’) explores the representation of women in drama, and its relation to contemporary society, and includes chapters on the more elusive representation of women in the fragments of Fabulae Togatae and of Republican tragedy. Finally, Part Three (‘Receptions’) explores the influence of Roman comedy on later literature, through chapters on Machievelli's Mandragola, Shakespearean drama, and the eighteenth-century Brazilian puppet opera Anfitriado, based on Plautus’ Amphitryo.

It is not evident from the main title of Elizabeth Marie Young's first monograph, Translation as Muse, that it represents, among other important things, an invigorating new study of the poetry of Catullus, and a contribution to our understanding of the extraordinary era in which he lived and wrote.Footnote ⁴ The focus of her study is the centrality to Roman literature of a particular mode of proud, celebratory, competitive, and creative form of translation, as dialogue with earlier writers, that is bound up with the Roman practice of imitatio. Her aim is to reposition Roman literature within translation studies (5) and to draw attention to the recognizably modern aesthetics of some of its attitudes, which are comparable to recent concepts such as ‘unoriginal genius’ (195–6). Drawing on recent ground-breaking work on translation in Roman literature (especially that of S. McElduff and M. Bettini), she turns the spotlight on Catullus, and on his ‘heroic translation’, arguing that our modern preconceptions about the relationship between original and translation, and about the status of the latter as derivative and inferior to the former, obscures our understanding of the extent to which Catullus’ poetry is permeated by translation. Even if scholars no longer see his poetry as the spontaneous outpourings of a passionate young man, Young argues that we still cherish a sense of it as wildly creative and inventive, and this does not chime with our modern conception of translation as a lesser art, derivative and second-rate. Young's mission is to demonstrate that translation in fact permeates Catullus’ poetry in all kinds of unexpected ways, but that this in no way diminishes the poet's inventiveness. In fact, her analysis is driven by the important idea, outlined persuasively in the introduction, that, for the ancient Romans, translation was not only taken seriously in literary terms but was viewed as a form of power, something for which one takes credit. In the chapters that follow, the analysis of a selection of poems from Catullus’ corpus reveals that the poet is practising translation throughout, often in ways that we moderns would be unlikely to recognize immediately. Chapter 1 discusses the ‘aesthetic insubordination’ of our old friend Poem 64, suggesting that the poem's purple patches take over the whole. Chapter 2 analyses the role of foreign luxury items in Catullus’ poetry – the pilfered Spanish napkin, Greek cloak, and Bithynian tablets of Poems 12 and 25, the pungent silphium and barbaric basia of Poems 5 and 7. Deploying the concept of ‘material unconscious’ (54), she argues that Catullus’ literary appropriation of Greek literary motifs (‘kleptomaniacal iambics’ [63]) is paralleled by his poetic characters’ appropriation of foreign objects and their transformation of them into objects of powerful cultural significance. The skill lies in generating new meaning and value from existing material, but the literary self-reflection is also a reflection on Roman contemporary cultural practices surrounding imported goods. Chapter 3 begins by exploring Poem 4 and its talking ship as an expression of anxieties about Roman imperialism in the east, and about shifting social status. The subsequent discussion of the later parody of this poem by the pseudo-Vergilian epigram Catalepton 10, which parodies the Catullan poem with its depiction of a muleteer from Transpadane Gaul, is shown to take up some of these anxieties, transferring them to the Transpadane poets themselves. Young explains that she has structured her monograph to work inwards from more alien modes of translation to be found in Catullus’ work towards the more familiar, so as to gradually deconstruct her readers’ preconceptions about translations and finally bring us, in Chapters 4, 5, and 6, to the poems that we first think of as translations: of Sappho 31 (Poem 51) and of Callimachus (Poem 66). This defamiliarization technique is successful; in the preceding chapters Young has articulated a rich understanding of Catullus’ ‘heroic translation’ which now enables us to read these poems with new eyes. Indeed, her rich discussions of individual poems map out between them an approach to Catullus’ poems which should have plenty more mileage. Young is especially attentive to possible word-play, sound, metre, and philological detail, she often has a very nice turn of phrase herself, and many of her lines are highly quotable. I was not surprised to learn that she writes her own poetry. Perhaps unexpectedly, given the close focus on poetics, this study also conveys an excellent sense of Catullus in his milieu, and of the implications of his poetry in his contemporary world; it should be of relevance to historians of the period as well as to those interested in the practice of translation.

In her short and lively introduction to the translation of Catullus’ poems that she has completed with Jeffrey Thomson, Jeannine Diddle Uzzi develops an extended comparison between the Roman poet and the modern rap artist Eminem. The ‘desire to approximate the experience of the ancient audience for the modern’ (2) is a valid one, and the comparison (though perhaps already itself becoming dated) helps to elucidate Catullus’ combination of violence, intimacy, playfulness, and vulnerability.Footnote ⁵ The translation itself is, I think, aimed at a general public rather than students. There is no parallel Latin text, and in this respect it is less useful for teaching and reading than Guy Lee's translation for Oxford World's Classics from 1990; the translation sticks more or less as close to the Latin as his does, and sometimes retains an awkward literalness. Indeed, it often seems less successful than Lee's in every way. Compare for Poem 12 Lee's ‘you misuse your left hand; while we joke and drink you lift the napkins of the careless. You think it clever? You're wrong you fool. It's a downright dirty and vulgar trick’ with their version: ‘you misuse your hand when you lift napkins of guests lost in wine or talk. You think you're witty? Fool, it escapes you how tiresome you are, how banal’ (43). The latter is both a less accurate rendition of the Latin (losing the implications of sinistra and mistranslating the quamvis…est) and one that is less elegant and effective in the English.

Catullus’ contemporary Lucretius is the focus of an accomplished study by W. H. Shearin, The Language of Atoms.Footnote ⁶ The thrust of this book is that to appreciate the therapeutic aspirations of Lucretius’ great poem it helps to think in terms of modern speech-act theory; however, in the spirit of a comparative literature approach, the study aims not so much to apply modern critical theory to ancient literature in a mono-directional fashion as to bridge the gap between the two. The first chapter, then, argues that an interest in performative language, a sensitivity to the power of language to act, is already present in Epicurean thought, so that the discussion of the themes of ‘promises’ and ‘nomination’ in Lucretius’ poetry in Chapters 2 and 3 is tracing the development of a ‘native’ theory (56) in ancient philosophical writing, rather than imposing on our Latin texts ideas that originated thousands of years later. In Chapter 2 Shearin discusses the prominent use of the language of fides in the De rerum natura, deployed in Lucretius’ attempts to draw a line between perception and interpretation, and to reassure his readers that we humans can trust our senses; when they appear to deceive us it is our own interpretations that are at fault. Lucretius sees himself as a mediator between the natural world and his Roman readership, on the model of a fetial priest. Chapter 3 identifies Lucretius’ tendency to supress proper names, including that of Epicurus himself, or to use them to denote something more indistinct than expected (the individual Memmius, for instance, morphing into a general reader), and argues that this may reflect a commitment on Lucretius’ part to a popularizing mission, ensuring that his philosophical messages are accessible and generally applicable. The final chapter, ‘Carachrestic Origins’, continues to develop one of the book's running themes, the ‘figurative conflation of humans and atoms’ (142), through an analysis of Lucretius’ anthropology and the role played within it by the story of the origins of language. In Lucretius’ politicized account, language, with its democratic qualities, also has the potential to misinform and mislead: in other words, to intervene in the natural world for better or for worse. This is not a book for newcomers to Lucretius, who will find themselves lost in the technical detail; rather it is a highly specialized discussion of language and philosophy that deserves to be read with full attention.

In 56 bce, not long before the deaths of both Lucretius and Catullus, the middle-aged Cicero delivered his speech on the allocation of the consular provinces (De provinciis consularibus), with its defence of Roman imperialism and rule in the provinces, its (expedient but reluctant) praise for Caesar, and its attack on Piso and Gabinus. Luca Grillo's new commentary, with extensive notes, provides an invaluable aid to teaching the text in Latin, while facilitating the students’ grasp of its political and rhetorical significance.Footnote ⁷ Grillo's introduction gives extremely helpful orientation to a student reader, with substantial information about the historical background, Cicero's career, the political situation, the legal context, and the key players, rendered in accessible fashion. This is followed by analysis of the speech in terms of structure and rhetorical strategies which will not only equip new Latinists to appreciate this speech but will provide them with a useful introduction to Roman oratory in general. The extensive commentary continues this good work: the linguistic support is constantly supplemented by comments on the rhetorical techniques being deployed, as well as explanation of the less obvious content. In short, this looks like an excellent commentary and study aid.

Similarly useful for the novice, although it has less linguistic support, is Tyler T. Travillian's commentary on Pliny the Elder's Natural History Book 7 and Book 8.1–34, which explicitly aims to enable those who may as yet know little of the ancient world to appreciate the work of a long underrated author, specifically the fascinating treatment of human beings (and the human-like elephants) in this section of his work.Footnote ⁸ To this end, the commentary includes various helpful appendices of basic information, such as a list of Roman numerals, abbreviations of common praenomina, conversion tables for ancient weights and measure, maps, and a glossary; there is also a fully annotated list of the sources to which Pliny refers in the introduction. Travillian's enthusiasm for this work is eloquently communicated in the introduction: the organization of material is shown to be carefully wrought, the reflection on human condition is profound and fascinating, and the style of Latin worth is a sympathetic study in its own right. (My only quibble is a partisan one: for all his concern that Pliny be appreciated as a writer, Travillian is rather quick in his brief mention on page 26 to snub Valerius Maximus for his lack of ‘clear plan’ and ‘uncritical mass of anecdotes’!)

As we move into the Flavian era, this a good time for those of us who are teaching undergraduates about the wit and worth of Martial's poetry, with the simultaneous publication of two slim books which together make an excellent teaching package. Gideon Nisbet has translated a wide selection of Martial's epigrams for the Oxford World's Classics series, including a parallel Latin text (so indispensable, even when one is teaching the poems only in translation, for explaining word-play and vexed interpretations) and explanatory notes at the back, which are brief but helpful.Footnote ⁹ Its representative selection ranges across Martial's oeuvre, including poems from On the Spectacles, Xenia, and Apophoreta, as well as from all twelve books of the Epigrams.

Nisbet's selection was published in time for me to adopt it as the set text for our students, and I hope that they will use it in conjunction with Lindsay and Patricia Watson's Martial, a new contribution to the attractive Understanding Classics series from I. B. Tauris.Footnote ¹⁰ What is so good about this little book is that it provides an overview not so much of Martial's poetry but rather of approaches to Martial's poetry, so that it orientates the student or general reader within the confusing landscape of scholarly interpretation, and equips them to read this immediately engaging but always difficult poet for themselves. The chapters are thoughtfully arranged so as to facilitate this. We begin with ‘Why Read Martial?’ There are several good reasons given, which may be boiled down to various combinations of pleasure and knowledge: as the Watsons say, Martial's poetry contains much that feels familiar to a modern urbanite, especially its frank obscenity and its depiction of a bustling corrupt city. It also provides a wealth of details about the Rome of Martial's day: about patronage and the production of poetry, food, bathing, the materiality of late first-century Rome, and, of course, sexual mores of the day. Moreover, the poetry itself is witty, beautifully constructed and has had a lasting impact upon Western literature. Chapter 2 entertainingly outlines ‘Obstacles to the Understanding and Appreciation of Martial’, and will make evident to students the extent to which scholarship is shaped by the eras that produce it. Martial provides an excellent illustration of this always salutary lesson, as scholars have been variously revolted by or sympathetic or indifferent to Martial's sycophantic flattery of the ‘bad’ emperor Domitian, his unseemly interest in the material gains of writing poetry, or his obscenity. In Chapters 3 and 4, which explore Martial's humour and the characteristics of his poetry, there is no shying away from the crude, sexually explicit, and disgusting elements in the poems, but the authors provide an even-toned treatment of many of the most explicit poems. These discussions of individual poems consistently model an exemplary and eye-opening interpretation of difficult lines, demonstrating to students that these dense poems need to be worked away at before they will yield their meaning to a modern reader, but that such hard work will pay off most gratifyingly if one is able to make it to the punchline. As the authors make clear, even in the ancient context Martial's poems were often designed to pose interpretative riddles for the reader (80). Finally, Chapter 5 charts the vicissitudes of translations and editions of Martial's poetry and Chapter 6 his enduring influence upon subsequent poets; all of this brings out the importance of interpretation and context, an excellent message for the novice Latinist, intrigued and baffled by these gems. Throughout all this the authors clearly map the landscape of scholarship on Martial – the debates, the recent developments – in such a way as to provide all the materials necessary for further exploration. Supplemented with critical guidance from the teacher, this book provides an excellent starting point for the study of Martial's poetry.

Another useful addition to teaching materials for those of us who teach in translation is Stanley Lombardo's slim and elegantly rendered translation of Statius’ Achilleid, which will deservedly bring this delightful epic beginning to a wider audience.Footnote ¹¹ Peter Heslin's engaging introduction conveys a clear sense of why this poem might be appealing to modern readers, and how it relates to the weighty literary tradition that is its ancient context.

Catherine Keane warns us that her study of Juvenalian satire will not make a funny book (2); rather, this is a serious and incisive investigation of what Juvenal contributes to Roman theorization of emotion.Footnote ¹² For Keane, Juvenal's Satires do not so much express emotions (such as anger and disgust) as dramatize emotion and reflect upon aspects of its nature and significance. For instance, in her reading of Satire 6, she leaves aside the debate about whether the reader is invited to side with the invective or view it as self-satirizing, and is more interested in reading the satire as an ‘exercise in conveying anger, fear, and disgust’ (70). Postumus is the victim of scaremongering and the real goal of the satire's diatribe is ‘not to dissuade Postumus from marrying but to succeed in making him embrace anger’ (78). Indeed, in Keane's view, the overarching aim of the satires is the representation of human emotional experience, in all its complexities and with all its uncomfortable challenges. Each book of the Satires is shown to have its own emotional plot, into which Juvenal seeks to draw his readers, from the ‘Anger Games’ of the first book, through tranquillity, to the tempered anger of the later poems. The monograph offers a rich discussion of Juvenal's oeuvre and represents a stimulating contribution to the study of ancient thought about emotion.

As well as making a valuable contribution to the study of Pliny the Younger (an author who has attracted increasing attention in recent years), Ilaria Marchesi's edited volume Pliny the Book-Maker offers us an appealing vignette of collaborative scholarship.Footnote ¹³ The heart of the book is the substantial study by John Bodel ‘The Publication of Pliny's Letters’, investigating the process by which Pliny went about creating and publishing his multi-volume collection as a coherent whole. Prior to publication here, Bodel's study had already been in circulation for many years among scholars in the field, and has had profound influence on the literary and thematic study of Pliny's Epistles. In this volume, Bodel's essay is accompanied by four shorter pieces that pick up and run with his ideas in a variety of ways. Christopher Whitton's exploration of the structure of Book 2 of the Epistles is an especially delightful read, written as it is in epistolary form, its insights and arguments conveyed through a series of letters addressed to his friends and colleagues. It is a brilliant piece of scholarly writing, experimental and (yet) exemplary.

Finally, the weightiest tome of all: edited by a collaborative team comprising a professor of Renaissance literature and a professor of Latin, The Oxford Handbook of Neo-Latin is an interdisciplinary endeavour that performs a most welcome task in bringing together into a single volume a wide of variety of scholarship that is being undertaken in disparate fields, yet all pertinent to the study of Neo-Latin.Footnote ¹⁴ The three sections into which the handbook is divided each bear witness to the diversity of material and approach: Part I, ‘Language and Genre’; Part II, ‘Cultural Contexts’; Part III, ‘Countries and Regions’. An appended section entitled ‘General References’ provides a very valuable guide to further reading and reference in the field in general.