What is the purpose of research on the ancient world? This is not the place to discuss a most urgent (and unpleasant) question faced by today's classicists, squeezed between the obligations for relevance and novelty. But in order to review this monograph on the ‘beginnings of Latin literature’ it is necessary to start with F.'s indirect answer to that question, at the very close of his book: ‘to recover a sense of astonishment at the fact that this was taking place in a Homeric epic written in a language that was not Homer's’ (p. 247). The subject of the clause is Ennius' description of Xerxes' crossing of the Hellespont, as reconstructed from Ann. 369 S., a fragment that epitomises, in both form and content, F.'s research object in his book.

Readers uninterested in that ‘astonishment’ might overlook F.'s book, since factual information on the topic can be found in other (less enthralling) overviews, and the number of primary sources discussed is not substantial, although supplemented by an impressive range of secondary literature. Moreover, F.'s treatment is not exhaustive, not least because it does not delve into the comic corpus, and the narrative unravelled in his captivating prose is not completely new: apart from its ancient ancestry (e.g. Hor. Ep. 2.1.156), it builds substantially on F. Leo's epoch-making Geschichte der römischen Literatur.

The date of publication of Leo's (1913) volume, however, makes all the difference. As Goethe's Faust declares, nothing inherited is acquired automatically. Whilst nineteenth-century philologists could take their significance for granted, early Latin literature and its background are nowadays considered a minor, esoteric field. If one aim of research is to ‘earn again’ what has been inherited (as I believe it is), F.'s book is, in many respects, a masterpiece.

F.'s introduction sets the scene, outlining the coordinates of ‘the Roman experiment’, i.e. the development of a literature in Latin in the late third century b.c. F. reminds us that this was ‘a process profoundly implicated in dialogue with Greek culture’ (p. 8), in which the non-Roman inhabitants of multi-cultural Italy (e.g. Ennius) played a key role. Hence F. emphasises the importance of the ‘translation project’ (p. 6), which, according to a problematic tradition, began when the Greek Livius Andronicus staged Latin versions of Greek plays at the Ludi Romani of 240 b.c. F. forestalls charges of Roman-centrism or culture hierarchy, as well as of retrieving the idea of a pre-Livius cultural wasteland: nonetheless he confidently highlights the momentousness of 240 b.c. (‘the watershed’) and encourages our appreciation of the exceptionality of Latin literature.

To that end, F. surveys the practice of translation in the ancient world and beyond (Chapter 1), aiming to highlight the Roman anomaly. With an original comparative approach, F. collects evidence ranging from contemporary India to ancient Mesopotamia, showing that translation is not ‘a necessary nor a constant feature of cultural interpenetration’ (p. 19). Exceptions are arguably different from the Roman case, which involved an elite of rulers (not a subdued people), with mastery of a foreign language (not just a foreign script), systematically engaging with ‘high’ literature (not just technical works).

With Chapter 2 F. returns to Rome and devotes his attention to Livius Andronicus. F. analyses the (scanty) evidence, aiming to outline Livius' ‘comprehensive strategies of domestication and accommodation’, construed as tokens of ‘an assimilative imperial ambition’ (p. 64). Some of the discussion is avowedly speculative, but the chapter successfully demonstrates that Livius did not just produce word-for-word translations but rather artistic works in their own right; these display a degree of adaptation to their audience's culture, involving a balance of ‘domestic and foreign’, of ‘Romanization and Hellenization’.

In Chapter 3 F. ‘injects more nuance’ (p. 65) into these dichotomies, stressing the hybrid identity of the first writers in Latin: non-Roman by birth, bilingual or trilingual speakers, and yet paradoxically motivated by a ‘nationalistic’ desire ‘to establish a specifically Roman literary language’ (p. 74, quoting J. Adams). In their role as ‘culture brokers’ (p. 67) these semigraeci Latin pioneers betray a distinctive sensitivity for the language and society of their host culture. Again, F. points out that ‘such domesticating strategies are by no means normal in historically comparable scenarios’ (p. 79); no less unusual are the assumption that Roman culture could be incorporated into Greek norms, the bilingualism of the Roman elite, the contradictions of the first Latin translations and their influence on the development of the Latin language.

In Chapter 4 F. takes a step back and focuses on the period 364–240 b.c., between the institution of ludi scaenici and Livius' first stagings. According to F., both events originate under influence of and in competition with Hellenism: the ludi of 364 were a ‘Greek-style innovation’, although mediated through the Etruscan filter, whereas the shows of 240 b.c. were a ‘new variety of religious Hellenizing’ (p. 121), allowing the triumphant Romans to enter the Hellenistic cultural arena. In both origin and content, these ‘reforms’ reveal the ‘assimilative and hybridizing’ (p. 110) nature of Roman culture. Whatever its precise contours, Livius' undertaking remains an unicum, and F. warns modern observers not to assume that it would be inevitable.

In Chapter 5 F. elaborates on the ludi of 240 b.c., stressing their interconnection with the First Punic War: these were indeed the celebratory games for the Sicilian victory, which put the Romans at the centre of the Hellenistic Mediterranean. This new supremacy had critical cultural implications and resulted in an ambivalent relationship with Greek ‘otherness’, characterised by a melange of self-confidence and inferiority complex, openness and defensiveness, selection and rejection. This is traceable in Roman cultural history (e.g. the periodical expulsion of philosophers from Rome) and indeed informs the beginnings of Latin literature. In F.'s words, ‘[t]he translation project … [becomes] a kind of fractal of the larger relationship, since it put a focus, from the lexical level up, on sameness with difference, fidelity with innovation’ (p. 133).

Chapter 6 follows these beginnings expanding into ‘a torrent of experimentation in other Hellenizing literary fields' (p. 152) and gradually converging into a proper Latin literature, with its own canonical tradition and a self-confident Roman identity, shown, for example, by the production of non-translated works. However, despite the Roman character exhibited, even these works remain firmly rooted in Hellenistic literary culture. In following this development, F. emphasises another key feature: the ‘scholarly’ dimension of early Latin literature, itself calqued upon Hellenistic models. Again, F. underlines the novelty of this operation, disclosing his fascination for ‘the most overtly modernizing period of Roman cultural history’ (p. 153).

In Chapter 7 F. assesses the immediate reception of the new literature. Relying on what little evidence we have, he reconstructs ‘the impact and reach of the new literature’ (p. 179) in Roman culture and society, discussing the effect of drama on Roman audiences, the systematisation of religion and philosophy, the literacy of the elite, the poets' professional clientelism, the dissemination of texts. Again, the details of F.'s arguments are bound to be speculative, but the general picture is vivid and plausible.

The final chapter (8) is the longest and the most original, as well as the most ‘polemical’, targeting the ‘narrative of continuity’ recently put forward by W. Suerbaum and T. Habinek. After an opening section confirming the anomaly of the ‘translation project’, F. discusses the evidence for the Roman verbal and artistic production predating the ‘revolution’ of 240 b.c.; he provides a comparative overview of Greek and Roman songs, including a close reading of the Carmen Aruale and some Greek cult hymns, emphasising their non-literary nature. F. substantiates his ‘narrative of discontinuity’ by construing another anecdote reported by Livy – the commission to Livius Andronicus of a hymn to Juno in 207 b.c. – as a ‘new departure’ from previous cultic production.

The volume ends with a recapitulation of its main themes, concluding that ‘the Romans were not only joining, but reconfiguring, the worldwide web’ (p. 237). As shown by these and other quotes, F.'s prose is accessible and engaging, and, quite apart from its argumentative merits, this book is a great pleasure to read. F.'s book ‘earns again’ an appreciation of the origins of Latin literature, raises important questions and above all rewards the reader with a ‘sense of astonishment’ (p. 247), without which serious research is difficult. It will encourage readers to delve into the world of early Latin literature and is a must-read for anyone prone to dismiss its significance; it gives reasons to hope for a new boost of interest in one of the most interesting periods in human cultural history.