These nine essays from a conference at Oxford in 2010, form ‘part of a larger project, Individuality in Context’ whose ‘principal investigator’ is the final essayist. ‘Late antiquity’, means 100 to 600 ad; the abstraction ‘individuality’ is understood by five essayists metaphysically, by four morally. Standing apart from the rest, properly individual, is a stylish piece by Mark Edwards on Firmicus Maternus the Christian defender of rational astrology who argued that practical astrology was compatible with freedom of the human will. This essay is neat and crisp with a good ending. It is a pity that the author neglected to read the proofs which contain four silly misprints in the Latin. The most interesting piece, by expert Christoph Markschies with a messy title which I omit here, has been given to the world before three times apparently and no doubt will be again. He writes authoritatively on the Valentinian Gnostics and Ptolemaeus’ letter to Flora. The problem was to accommodate the alleged unification of the Aeons with their diverse multiplicity. The Aeons sing as a choir in parts and their music, he wittily suggests, is ‘contrafact’ to the tune of Plato's Ideas: as it might be when you sing ‘While Shepherds watched their flocks by night’, to the tune of ‘On Ilkley moor bar t'at’. The essay sprawls but has more than one good thought in it. Riccardo Chiaradonna demonstrates, I think conclusively, in ‘Plotinus on sensible particulars and individual essences’ that Plotinus held conflicting views on the question. Julie Brumberg's essay, ‘Logico-grammatical reflections about individuality in late antiquity’ is a disappointment for reasons which will be evident to any reader but include the fact that she avoids the use of Greek: alas, because she knows much worth communicating. Johannes Zachhuber writes about ‘Hypostasis’. Rightly he ‘takes a rather sceptical view of the grand claim made by some scholars according to which the Cappadocians pioneered a new appreciation of individuals’. Rightly too he emphasises the role of the Chalcedonian Definition in refining the notion of ‘hypostasis’. However, in the process he vitiates the discussion and creates conflict where no conflict is. ‘Bundle’ does not translate syndromee when a syndromee of ‘properties’ (idiomata) is spoken of but ‘concurrence’: rivers may concur/run together but not into bundles. Basil/Gregory of Nyssa said that such concurrence was ‘around’ (peri) each (sc. substrate); bundles do not have that around which they subsist. To appreciate the issue it is necessary to work through the discussion in Peter of Callinicus’ Against Damian bearing in mind the injunction that scholars were not put into this world in order to read interesting books. Alexis Torrance writes on individuality and identity- formation in monasticism, saying competently nothing new. The same can be said of Yannis Papadogiannakis on ‘Individuality and the Resurrection in some late antique texts’. Christophe Erismann writes a clear and useful piece on John Philoponus, reliably concluding that John's tritheism was a consequence of his philosophy: the Tritheist Controversy of course, started from the interpretation of patristic authorities. Wilhelm Gräb ends the book with a piece involving Augustine and Troeltsch. He uses the phrase ‘transcendent ground’ which kills the essay for me.