L.'s volume examines the impact of Septimius Severus on the city of Rome and his construction of an imperial image through, primarily, monuments and their imagery. L. argues for a focused plan that was primarily designed to emphasise the stability of imperial rule – past, present and future. The book explores changes to the city that did take, or might have taken place during his reign, as well as analysis of Severus’ use of events such as his Parthian triumph or the ludi saeculares. It demonstrates meticulous research on the structures and imagery of Severus and makes some interesting observations on individual monuments, and how he used the reconstruction of parts of the city to incorporate himself and his dynasty into physical landscapes of ‘good’ emperors.

L. deals with sections of the city in turn. Each monument that might be connected to Severus in any way is examined, with more doubtful works being relegated to an appendix. Chapter 1 deals with the context of Severus’ work at Rome both in terms of the state of the city in a.d. 193 and in terms of his seizure of power. Chapter 2 explores both the issue of ‘propaganda’ and the debates over the usefulness of the term/idea for the ancient world – coming down firmly on its appropriateness for the way that emperors attempted to convey messages to an audience, and the variety of messages that Severus might have been articulating through his building work. Chapters 3 and 4 – ‘Usurping History in the Roman Forum’ and ‘Respecting Tradition in the Campus Martius’ respectively – examine two of Severus’ responses to the opportunities presented by the built environment of the city. Chapter 5 looks at some of the key Severan monuments such as the Septizodium and the production of new ‘Severan’ spaces. These central chapters on the forum, the Campus Martius and the new Severan spaces are perhaps the most important given the regions of the city that are investigated – the deliberate links to Augustan and Flavian spaces that L. adduces in the forum are often persuasive. Chapter 6 examines the Palatine and Chapter 7 looks at public works and administration. Appendix 1 deals with a variety of other structures and others that L. regards as being doubtfully connected to Severus. Appendix 2 provides texts and translations of a number of key literary sources and inscriptions for Severus’ work.

The volume is successful in showing the development of the city under Severus and what Severus may have been attempting to achieve but there are a few areas where L. might have adopted different approaches to get more out of the material. As noted above, there is a useful rehearsal of the debate over propaganda in Chapter 2 but throughout the book, although there are clear links made between the monuments and the argued intentions of Severus and there is a sense of the populace responding to the Severan themes during the discussion of the porta argentariorum (pp. 137–48), more generally there is perhaps not enough focus on how this material might have been read and experienced by an audience in practice and occasionally too much weight is given to particular readings or potential experiences. So, for instance, L. suggests a deliberate sight line being created between the Temple of Vespasian, restored by Severus, and the Porticus of Gaius and Lucius which ‘represented the dynastic ambitions of three emperors: Augustus, Vespasian and Severus’ (p. 90). It is true that a viewer standing in either structure might have seen the other monument (although the Temple of Saturn might have interrupted some potential views) but who would have appreciated any message over such a distance, if one existed? At the same time L. sees another sight line between the Arch of Severus and the rebuilt Temple of Vesta; both sight lines intersect at the point that L. argues (persuasively) that the Equus Severi stood. On L.'s Map 3 where the sight lines are drawn out, however, they only intersect near the Equus Severi and only if the far eastern end of the Porticus is used as the destination of the sight line – if the middle of the Porticus (as is done for the other monuments listed), or the western end is used (the much closer end) the sight line does not pass near the proposed location of the statue. Perhaps it would have been safer to focus on the forum Romanum becoming the forum of Severus through his work; L.'s idea of Severan dominance of this urban landscape really does work without pushing individual points too far.

L. is generally rightfully cautious in attributing work in Rome to Severus with a series of monuments’ proposed Severan links being rejected. So, L. concludes that there is not enough evidence to suggest that it was Severus who made the changes to the grain dole at Rome (pp. 187–9) and L. is undoubtedly correct, given the range of meanings that a temple might convey, to point to the weakness of arguments that adduce Julia Domna's hand in the reconstruction of the Temple of Vesta on the basis of the temple appearing on one of her coins (pp. 61ff.). Occasionally a more explicit examination of the nature of the source material that is being relied upon might have been made. For instance, although there is a warning about the use of the Historia Augusta on p. 11, elsewhere it is used without any great sense that this might be a problematic source – the section on Severus’ horoscope (pp. 40–6), for instance, is entirely reliant on the Historia Augusta.

Although the book is focused on Rome perhaps more comparisons might have been made with Severan Lepcis Magna. Although very different in scale and history the changes at Lepcis might have informed the examination of the changes in the imperial capital, especially as the creation of the armature, to use MacDonald's term, of the colonnaded street and its associated monuments at Lepcis could be seen as the full articulation of a Severan dynastic monument created in a space where the emperor had much greater potential for unhindered action than in the centre of Rome. Work on the Severan monuments of Lepcis (e.g. J.B. Ward-Perkins, The Severan Buildings of Lepcis Magna [1993], which L. does cite) might have informed interpretations of the ‘Severan monumental zone’ (pp. 117–32) and in particular the relationship(s) between space and movement, object, text and audience, that were surely at the heart of successful or unsuccessful propagandistic or dynastic statements of power, tradition and change.

L.'s conclusion that Severus indelibly shaped Rome of the third and fourth centuries is undoubtedly correct. Although the visitor to Rome might not have found Severus and his family as inescapable as at Lepcis, his building work would have ‘written’ him into the landscape of the capital. L.'s book is a useful reminder of the power of the emperor within his capital, the extent of Severus’ work and the potential complexity and fast-evolving nature of imperial propaganda. The volume will become an essential read for scholars examining the development and topography of Rome, imperial propaganda and the reception of Severan monuments and space in the provinces.