This collection of papers represents one of a pair of volumes arising from the From Oikos to the Familia: Framing the Discipline for the 21 ^stCentury conference (Gothenburg, November 2009). The first of these (R. Laurence and A. Strömberg [edd.], Families in the Greco-Roman World) features papers concerned primarily with the Greek and Hellenistic oikos, whilst this volume is dedicated to an examination of the familia of Imperial Rome and Late Antiquity. It is the intention of both volumes not to ‘seek to definitively define oikos or familia’, but to offer new interdisciplinary perspectives and to capture ‘a sense of the excitement and vibrancy of the ideas expressed at the conference’, particularly those concerning continuity and change. It is therefore slightly disappointing that marketing constraints have meant that the disciplinary divide between ‘Greek’ and ‘Roman’ contexts is perpetuated by the separate volumes (about which the editors express their regret). None the less, as a standalone volume this book makes a significant contribution to the ever-expanding corpus of scholarship on ancient families. It may fail to break down broader chronological or cultural barriers, but the impact of the transition from an imperial world to one of Late Antiquity is addressed more successfully, whilst the wide-ranging papers succeed in promoting the benefits of cross-disciplinary studies.

Families are approached from a number of perspectives, setting material culture and bioarchaeological evidence alongside epigraphic, iconographic, literary, legal and prosopographic sources. The collation of such disparate material is to be praised, for as N. Kampen points out, whilst ‘real interdisciplinarity’ remains unachievable, current scholarship is capable of providing ‘a kind of mosaic or collage of material that insists on diversity’, which in turn makes it possible to address in positive ways the fact that it is no longer possible to speak of the Roman family. In recent decades research has acknowledged the plurality and complexity of families as a product (and structuring device) of the social and cultural contexts in which they operated. Together, the individual contributions to this volume exemplify some key developments, including attempts to access family members previously side-lined or otherwise difficult to locate; the integration of scientific perspectives; examination of exceptions rather than a search for norms; alternative approaches to conventional sources; and critical interrogation of life-course frameworks.

In the opening chapter, the editors note that certain areas of family history have received less scrutiny than others, often not for want of interest but because they have been much harder to detect. With this in mind, several papers address apparently marginal groups. The critical review of evidence for the treatment of newborns in both life and death offered by M. Carroll represents a significant inroad into the deconstruction of ancient ‘childhood’. Children have featured prominently in recent scholarship, but those below the age of one year have proved much more difficult to locate. Carroll carefully debunks the standard view, perpetuated by ancient and modern texts alike, that infants were undervalued. Similarly, A. Pudsey's examination of the choices made by widows and divorcées in Roman Egypt makes use of census records and legal documents to emphasise the remarkable independence that was sometimes exercised by women often assumed to have become socially invisible. The search for emotional fathers in late-antique Gaul, in contrast to the stern upholder of patria potestas of an earlier period, leads E. Southon to the conclusion that by the fourth century discourses of fatherhood had changed significantly. This should caution us against assuming that even the more visible members of ancient families have been explored adequately.

R. Redfern and R. Gowland's presentation of the bioarchaeological evidence for childhood represents one of the most important chapters – important as much for its inclusion as its content. Archaeological approaches to families are not unknown but rarely deal with the physical remains of family members. The decision to juxtapose papers which address material more familiar to historians of the family with an overview of the insights bioarchaeology can provide into childcare practices, wet-nursing, health, mobility, treatment in death, diet and living environments, should encourage greater integration of such evidence into wider discourses of family experience. Indeed, one need only look as far as Carroll's assessment of infancy for a demonstration of its potential. Redfern and Gowland also draw attention to the need to think about the disparities between family experience: families in Rome, reconstructed from textual sources, were not necessarily typical.

Bioarchaeology offers an opportunity to consider individual experiences against a backdrop of shared cultural expectations, and this is a theme adopted in other chapters which seek to examine variations on the established ‘norm’, in some cases even the exceptional. Here, a focus on the small scale is shown to lend nuance and subtlety to the bigger picture. In this vein we find the provincial focus of S. Armani's discussion of the terminology used for nephews and nieces in Spain and its implications for socio-cultural integration; C.-E. Centlivres Challet's observations concerning the flexibility, even inversion, of gender roles within cross-generational relations as reported by Pliny the Younger, and the suggestion that dissonance might arise between ideals and realistic interactions; as well as the use of a mere four funerary reliefs by L. L. to consider the ways in which some, but not all, families presented their economic and social status in specific ways. It will not come as a surprise to read that occupations were an important aspect of lower-class identity, but the focus on discrete collections of material in these papers allows their authors to scrutinise the nuances of authentic family lives and to avoid generalisation: another indication of the shift towards families and their multiple realities, rather than a search for standardised experiences. To this we must add S. Tougher's examination of the complex relations that characterised the dynasty of Constantine the Great, including many maternal relatives whose presence has been under-appreciated. Emperors had distinctive families too, and there seems no logical reason to treat them as a homogenous group, distanced from wider socio-cultural or religious frameworks, or in exactly the same way as non-imperial families. At the same time, we find alternative approaches to more traditional forms of data, many of which ask how the realities of life affected the extent to which families adhered to, perpetuated or undermined idealised structures. J. Mander's examination of physical contact on funerary monuments, for example, highlights the importance of the provincial context for understanding the interaction between symbols of social status and affection; the exploration of Byzantine funerary commemoration by E. Davies makes use of this material to examine gender, age and status roles in contrast to its usual role in the explication of attitudes towards death.

The framework of the life course features in the majority of papers, although some deal with it more directly than others, in the process making significant observations about the extent to which expectations concerning age-related behaviour were fixed. Here the contribution of R. Laurence and F. Trifilò is significant: examining the use of the expression plus minus in epitaphs they call into question the extent to which transitional points in the life course determined from literary sources were reflected in the realities of commemorative practice. The latter, it seems, were as likely to be affected by the uncertainties of family life (and death) as orthodox expectations of life course trajectories. These observations are paralleled by C. Callow and H., who discuss the elite male life course in fifth-century Gaul. Here the tension between the ‘normative’ trajectory of the classical cursus honorum and the social and religious circumstances of late-antique aristocratic family life led to a reworking of the way in which the life course structured families and society, highlighting once again the prevalence of disparate experiences and the need to balance expectations with the actual environments in which people lived.

There are a number of typographical errors and inconsistencies; Figures 3.1 and 3.2 are difficult to read; some sub-headings are formatted differently and Golden (2010) is missing from the bibliography for the introduction despite being cited at least three times. These faults do not, however, detract from the value of the work as a whole. The rapid publication should be praised and largely cosmetic errors forgiven.

This volume reveals that, more than ever, ancient families provide a nexus for disparate strands of social history and archaeology. How many other contexts offer the potential to combine census records, medical writings and tombstones, or to set osteological data alongside personal letters and votive offerings? This volume is far from comprehensive but illustrates that as a cross-disciplinary field the study of ancient families continues to push the boundaries of socio-cultural history, seeking new routes and innovative combinations of material in the quest to understand what it meant to belong to different types of ancient ‘family’.