Lange's goal in this book (a revised version of his PhD thesis) is to study ‘the ideology of the regime of Octavian’ (1) in Octavian's years as triumvir and then sole ruler of the Roman world (43–27 b.c.). Whereas many writers, both modern and ancient, have seen a sharp break between the triumviral period and the so-called ‘first settlement’ of 28–27 b.c. and what follows — that is, between Octavian and Augustus — L. suggests that the ‘settlement’ is in important respects the culmination of what precedes.

As his subtitle suggests, there are three strands to the argument. The first, and most interesting, concerns what L. calls the ‘triumviral assignment’. The Lex Titia of November 43 b.c. that established IIIviri rei publicae constituendae, L. argues, gave the triumvirs a specific mission to complete over their five-year term: pursuing Caesar's assassins, ending civil wars, and setting the state back in order. Arguably this was achieved after Philippi — which is why Lucius Antonius could raise a protest when Octavian arrived back in Italy; but prosecution of (civil) war against Sextus Pompey by Octavian and (foreign) war against the Parthians by Antony provided de facto justification for extension in 40 b.c., and then in 37 b.c., when the triumvirate was officially renewed. After Sextus’ defeat at Naulochus (36 b.c.), Octavian and Antony each made proposals to surrender his powers — the powers, L. argues, lapsed only with abdication — but the proposals were never acceptable to one another. And so technically Octavian held triumviral powers through the start of 27 b.c. Only then could he resign, having now completed his ‘triumviral assignment’ (by ending civil war, and setting the state back in order over 28–27 b.c.). The account of the settlement in the Res Gestae shows ‘the huge importance of the triumviral assignment in the official ideology’ (190).

This reconstruction — presented chronologically across the chapters of L.'s book — is especially compelling in explaining various developments of the 30s b.c., including the gestures towards ‘constitutionalism’ that treatments of the triumviral period have only briefly noticed (see, e.g., my comments in Caesar's Legacy (2006), 60, 161, 303). Given, though, that Octavian dropped the title triumvir in 32 b.c. — well before Antony's defeat and death — and that there is no demonstrable emphasis on res publica constituta as such in 28/27 b.c., one may question how significant the ‘triumviral assignment’ itself was in 27 b.c.

A second, important, strand of L.'s work concerns Actium, and here he joins others in questioning some of the conclusions of Gurval's important study Actium and Augustus (1995), including, above all, that Actium was of relatively little importance at the time in public perception. That Octavian was voted, and accepted, an Actian triumph (along with other honours extensively discussed by L.) is the most obvious weakness of Gurval's position. L. also rightly devotes a great deal of attention to the establishment of a Nicopolis (‘Victoryville’) at the site of Actium. There quinquennial games were established and an elaborate victory monument built on two terraces, incorporating an altar as well as the rams of over thirty of Antony's ships dedicated (as a massive, partially preserved, Latin inscription attests) by Octavian before 27 b.c. to Mars and Neptune pace parta terra [marique]. As with the Senate's honours, it was not just victory celebrated at the victory monument, but also peace. A third body of evidence examined by L. concerns evidence for Actian monuments in Rome. Throughout, L. is keen to emphasize that the view that Octavian presented Actium as a foreign war against Cleopatra, rather than a civil war, is mistaken. Indeed, Octavian from the start quite likely did acknowledge that there were Romans on the other side, for that was part of what made Cleopatra so frightening (cf. Hor., Epod. 9.11.16 and see Caesar's Legacy (2006), 356). But while Antony could be accused of fomenting civil war — and late in life, when writing the Res Gestae, Augustus could count Actium as one of the bella civilia that he fought — there is no contemporary evidence for Augustus representing Actium primarily as a civil war as such, and it surely was useful to emphasize the foreigners on the opposite side.

Apollo is the third strand of this book, though a subsidiary one, and understandably, since the evidence is tenuous. Again, doubt is cast on another argument of Gurval, that it was only with Vergil's Aeneid that Apollo was credited with a rôle in Augustus’ victory at Actium. By 36 b.c., it seems clear, when Octavian vowed to build a temple to Apollo on the Palatine (not necessarily adjacent to his own house, cf. T. P. Wiseman, JRA 22 (2009), 527–45), a relationship was in place, which was strengthened in the years to come. The old temple of Apollo at Actium was rebuilt by Augustus, and nearby was a ten-ship monument, while at Nicopolis itself Apollo's quinquennial games were reborn, a statue of Apollo was likely included on the upper terrace of the victory monument, and Apollo with lyre is shown on a semicircular base discovered in recent (and not yet fully published) excavations by Konstantinos Zachos. The Apollo temple in Rome, L. argues, was reconceived by Octavian as a victory monument after Actium, but again one where peace would be celebrated. The relationship with the god, though, likely did go back quite early — even, L. attractively suggests, to Octavian's stay (45–44 b.c.) in Apollonia, Apollo's city.

Anyone interested in the triumviral period or the early years of Augustus will want to read and reflect on this multifaceted book. L. deserves credit for a number of fresh ideas. My chief reservations are that he does not say more about the opponents of the triumvirs, who had their own claims to make, and also that he relies so much on the Res Gestae as a source for ideology forty years prior. Later in life, as Augustus faced death, and with over forty years of peace under his belt, it suited him to try to celebrate all of his career (from 44 b.c. onwards). But one has to wonder whether in 28 and 27 b.c. he really did wish to present events of the last few years, even tacitly, as completion of the triumvirs’ mission, and whether the ‘triumviral assignment’ had much purchase ideologically. More salient then was criticism of the (early) triumviral period — with the finger all too often pointed at the dead Antony.