Any academic publication I enjoy reading ends up with many scribbles, notes and comments pencilled on its pages. The ancient historian Seth Bernard has written such a book, and some critical remarks provided below are subordinate to its substantial overall qualities. His manuscript forms essential reading for those interested in the expanding political-economic sophistication of Rome between 396 and 168 BC, from the capture of the Etruscan city-state of Veii until the end of the Third Macedonian War. As Bernard argues, mid-Republican Rome is frequently taken for granted or even marginalised, although it is a critical episode in the development of the city. The period chosen allows him to tackle, in seven chapters, a number of widespread views that are problematic when set against the increasing weight of the Roman state from the fourth to early second centuries BC. He does so by combining archaeological data with an elegant but critical review of the existing ancient literature and inscriptions. Hence, he creates in Chapter 3 an intricate argument to counter the idea of the complete destruction of Rome during the Gallic sack around 390 BC, as later recorded by Livy and others. Meanwhile, in Chapter 6, he deconstructs the notion that labour supply at Rome was predominantly slave-based during the third century BC. He makes a case instead for artisans of different origins and statuses that complements the rapid urban progress of that century. With reason, Bernard rejects arguments for improved sanitation and decreased infant mortality as explanations for the natural growth of the urban population. Instead, he documents the immigration of craftsmen from various regions attracted by a rising demand for skilled labour in Rome. This concurs with recent comparative studies into early state formation of pre-industrial societies, detailing that population growth in thriving capitals prior to the nineteenth century AD often hinges on nucleation, relocation and immigration.

The heart of the book, in terms of evidence, is a catalogue of public building projects, presented as an appendix. This is a fundamental dataset given the quality of the existing evidence for the period, both in terms of ancient texts and archaeology. Such catalogues, enumerating temple foundations as well as including fortifications, aqueducts and roads, have been published before, but the format obtains significance in Bernard's holistic approach. Nonetheless, this inventory is somewhat capricious as it records only one type of activity, the construction of state-controlled buildings. Most civilisations consist of much more than the state arrangements, however. The Roman gentes (clans) as a socio-economic establishment will have lost some of its significance during this period, but they must still have made up a significant part of the mid-Republican economy. The limited number of public building projects during most of the fourth century BC leads Bernard and others to stress the social tensions and even waning of Rome (it is described as having “stalled”, p. 74). A decline of Rome, however, is not detectable. Given events such as the Gallic invasion, or the strain caused by the incorporation of Veii and its territory into the Roman state, it is quite an achievement to have maintained Rome in its existing form and even expanded it with, for example, the construction of extensive Republican circuit walls c. 390–380 BC. Moreover, the emphasis on growth makes one wonder how this is defined. It is unreasonable to expect a constant rate of development over centuries of Roman expansion, and the increase in territory and population as a result of the conquest of Veii, would represent for most scholars a considerable upsurge in economic substance. Public building projects in Rome itself may not reflect this, however—assuming that all projects in the fourth century BC were, in fact, recorded.

Chapter 4, ‘A cost analysis of the Republican circuit walls’, is, for me, questionable as it is speculative and relies heavily on a single model of cost analysis. The content of the chapter could have been improved by providing a range of options determined by adding variables to the analysis. As it stands, only one figure is proposed: 6.8 million person-days of work (tab. 4.3). The benefit of the chapter is that it highlights the enormous investments in resources and labour required to erect the substantial (11km-long) fortifications encircling Rome. Some questions arising from this fascinating chapter are: why, having mined the almost one million blocks of Grotta Oscura tuff stone, each weighing on average almost 230kg, were the subjected Veian population not also involved in the subsequent transportation of the blocks to Rome and the unskilled tasks required during the construction of the walls? Is it credible that the circuit walls were uniform in appearance given the wide-ranging differences in topography of the terrain encompassing the seven main hills of ancient Rome? Bernard could have suggested some alternatives, such as the use of monumental agger and fossa only at those sections of the circuit where the terrain had limited natural defences; for example, in the valleys between the hills and on the Esquiline Hill. At settlements elsewhere in Etruria and Latium, walls were erected along the edges of steep hills and plateaux without associated earthworks (i.e. aggeres without fossae): could this not also have been the case for some sections of the republican walls of Rome? This model, created for the early fourth-century BC circuit walls, becomes problematic when one later reads that such analyses are speculative before the later second century BC, due to the paucity of evidence, and thus not applicable to other public buildings. Despite these limitations, I found this chapter most informative.

To close this review, I reiterate some of the main strengths of the book. Many of the topics are considered holistically and intertwine over several chapters, rendering the author's arguments more persuasive. The volume comes together to provide a vivid description of the mounting sophistication of Rome during the mid-Republican period. This is an excellent and ably presented book, balancing a wide-ranging approach with intricate detail.