Discount the tiresome ‘alternatives’ in the title; disregard the muddled introduction which cannot decide what ‘late antiquity’ is or explain what a ‘classical tradition’ might be: this is none the less a commendable collection of eight shortish and agreeably unpretentious essays on some persons, books and ideas of the fourth to the fifth centuries; it does not need any superimposed grand ‘theme’ to justify itself. Christopher Kelly writes of the way in which Eusebius relates chronologically biblical and Greco-Roman history. Richard Flower discusses the negative portrait of Constantius ii in Athanasius, Hilary and others. Mark Humphries explains the trope of the Goths as Gog and Magog in Ambrose's De fide. Derek Krueger has some useful things to say on the role of liturgical practice in the interpretation of the past. Gavin Kelly writes all and more than all worth knowing about Festus' Breviarium. Mark Stuart Williams evinces a, to me, welcome appreciation of Ausonius whose vignettes of Gallic life I value and who wrote a most touching poem on parting from his son (pp. 22f in Green's maddening OCT edition). I regret that he spent so much space on the poet's Vergilian cento but I suppose there is a necessary word to be said about learned literary buffoonery; that painfully silly and lewd piece is no worse than you can find in Claudian. Neil McLynn offers a fresh evaluation of Basil of Caesarea's Address to young men on the value of Greek literature, and Claudia Rapp explores the Sitz im Leben of hagiography.