This highly successful book examines the relationship between form and function in Roman oratory. Coverage is extensive, chronologically (from Cicero to Apuleius) and conceptually: oratory here includes free-standing speeches as well as speeches embedded in philosophical and historiographical texts; one chapter discusses reflections of oratory in statues. However, form and function are central to most chapters in some way, and the diversity is a strength, not a weakness. Pointing out problems is part of a reviewer's business, and I will do so briefly and selectively. But the general coherence of approach, together with the mostly very high level of the scholarship, make the volume instructive and a pleasure to read.

The first of the book's five parts, ‘The Orator and his Setting’, starts with J. Powell's exploration of the way in which form and content of Ciceronian court speeches were conditioned by their function as part of a trial governed by court procedure. Numerous insights emerge. For instance, witnesses normally appeared only after the advocates' speeches, and there were uncertainties about whether they would in fact appear; this explains, for example, some troubling aspects of Cicero's extensive demolition of Capito in Rosc. Am. (pp. 31–2). C. Steel's chapter, an analytical narrative of the exercise of the tribunician veto especially against other tribunes, is the only one that does not really fit the theme of the collection, despite attempts at identifying contextual elements of a speech as aspects of its form (pp. 37, 45, 49–50). G. Davies uses Quintilian to inform her fascinating and admirably balanced examination of possible oratorical gestures in togate statues, and illustrates important aspects of the form of oratorical performance.

C. Craig opens Part 2, ‘Rhetorical Strategies’. Developing his earlier work, he argues that in Rosc. Am. Cicero furthers a strategic aim (viz. obscuring the absence of a plausible motive for the alleged killing of Roscius Sr by Magnus and Capito) by manipulating audience expectations of indignatio, expectations based on standard rhetorical theory. As usual, Craig makes a number of good points, but the presupposition that a significant portion of the audience knew the relevant theoretical details remains highly problematic (a point acknowledged but not answered: p. 76). A. Riggsby shows that between the beginning and end of the Second Catilinarian, Cicero moves from fear to hope; and (pp. 98–104) that the cola at the end are significantly longer, while the clausulae, unremarkable at the start, have a ‘striking preponderance’ of cretic-spondee combinations at the end. Disorder thus gives way to order, in content as in form. R. Rees examines the main functions of narrative in panegyric. Some specifically rhetorical matters are problematic (e.g. Cicero does not classify historiography as an epideictic genre, pace p. 107). But he convincingly shows that panegyrical narrative served to amplify, to provide evidence and to enhance the celebratory mood ‘by replaying events’ (p. 121). B. Gibson's ‘Unending Praise’ makes and illuminates the point that the seemingly excessive length of Pliny's Panegyricus was in fact an inevitable consequence of the panegyrical challenge. A speaker needed to find a way to end a speech, but also to suggest that it encompassed all possible praise.

In Part 3, ‘Texts in Speeches’, A. Corbeill, in discussing Cicero's treatment of the soothsayers' response in Har. resp., unhelpfully regards this text as an ‘object’, and looks for a key to Cicero's practice in ‘the Roman rhetorical tradition’ on the basis of the much later Quintilian and of Cicero's two highly untypical treatises Part. or. and Top. (pp. 142–4 with n. 7). His analysis of Cicero's strategies is restricted, and some salient points are based on doubtful linguistic claims (pace p. 150, ‘author’ is at best a rare meaning of auctor in Cicero's time; and pace p. 152, the use of nuntiare in Har. resp. 23 fremitus nuntiet is not unparalleled, cf. Fam. 12.4.2, esp. Div. 1.99; OLD 7). J. Ramsey points out that the focus of Cic. Phil. 13 on Antony's letter of March 43 b.c. gives it a unique form, which he attractively explains by seeing a ‘rematch’ of Phil. 2 as an important function of the speech. He does seem to overstate his case in claiming this as the speech's primary function: surely Cicero's comprehensive refutation of Antony on the evidence of the latter's own words is extremely apt in the political and military situation of the time. R. May shows that the verse quotations in Apuleius' speeches serve clear argumentative functions. She also argues that they support Apuleius' Platonist credentials, and the cumulative case she makes is convincing.

Two excellent chapters on ‘Speeches in Philosophy’ follow. C.J. Classen (whose recent death deprived the field of a uniquely broad and energetic scholar) argues that Velleius' speech in Cicero's Nat. D. 1 is undermined by its ‘unphilosophical’ form. Classen stresses that many of its elements are also found in Cicero's own speeches, but this is of doubtful relevance (were readers supposed to regard these as improper rhetorical tricks?); however, he also points to Velleius' aggression and lack of concentration on proper philosophical argument, thus convincingly showing that Cicero means to discredit Epicureanism from the start. H. Hine's discussion of Seneca's use of direct speech in his prose works will be read with profit by anyone interested in the interplay of form and function in ancient literature and beyond: the variety of such speeches and of the ways in which they interact with the surrounding texts is brought out by sensitive and nuanced analyses.

Part 5 concerns ‘Speeches in Historiography’. W. Batstone on Sallust's Catiline is unconvincing. Most crucially perhaps, when claiming that Catiline's speeches help reveal that the work presents a conflict about Roman virtue, he is unclear about whether he is interpreting Sallust (pp. 229, 236, etc.) or analysing problems inherent in the Roman value system of which Sallust is part (pp. 245–6; cf. 239). C. Kraus points out the centrality of language and communication to Caesar's Bellum Gallicum, and presents astute analyses of the few passages where Caesar employs silence to underline his narrative. C. Smith shows how, in Livy's treatment of the struggle of the orders, three widely separated speeches in the second pentad interact (6.40–1, 9.34 and 10.7–8) – an interaction, he argues, relevant to issues of triumviral and early Augustan Rome. R. Mayer examines the interplay between oratory and narrative in Tacitus' Annals, particularly ‘narrative displacement’: putting items ‘properly’ belonging in the narrative into speeches instead. Although one may doubt some explanations (pp. 286–7: are the charges of Seneca's adultery and harmful usury really ‘swept under the carpet’ by their deployment in Suillius' invective in 13.42?), a clear picture of Tacitus' varied and masterly use of such techniques results. Most of A.J. Woodman's treatment of Seneca in Tacitus consists of an innovative discussion of the exchange of speeches between Seneca and Nero in Annals 14.53–6. He throws doubt on the scholarly consensus that speeches in historians avoid allusions to the original speaker's style. He argues that accordingly, the almost totally un-Senecan language of Seneca's speech (pp. 299–302) is unexpected, and explains this as pointing up the unreality of the age and the contorted relationship between Nero and his teacher (p. 308). The speech may be more Senecan than he allows: for example, despite parallels elsewhere, Senecan mannerisms are surely echoed by ubi est animus ille (14.53.5), the self-address and the personifications (pace p. 300). Yet Woodman's case is important and plausible, and deserves further exploration.

One not uncommon problem with the notion of (oratorical) form occasionally emerges: rhetorical theories, particularly the rules for the parts of a speech (exordium, narratio, etc.), are sometimes taken too seriously as principles guiding the composition of ancient speeches (or even ancient texts in general). For example, the editors in their introduction, rather arbitrarily, regard what they see as the narratio and the partitio in Cicero's Leg. Man. as unexpectedly short, and conclude that Cicero included them to produce a textbook structure, ‘to show off his mastery of his art’ (p. 9); and Ramsey (p. 159) unnecessarily adds the labels exordium, narratio, etc., to his convincing four-part analysis of Phil. 13 (cf. Classen, pp. 206–7; Batstone, p. 232). Similarly, Kraus attempts to connect proponit in Caes. BGall. 1.17.1 to the rhetorical term propositio (p. 253; contrast p. 261), and 1.1.1 divisa to rhetorical divisio (Rüpke's connection with geography is rejected without argument: p. 251 n. 18). Fortunately, none of the arguments and analyses is really affected. This is a fine collection.