Mosaics have not fared well in the hands of classical archaeologists. Modern viewers have traditionally treated them as panel-paintings laid out on the floor: consider how mosaics are frequently displayed on museum walls, for example, or how book reproductions perpetuate the ideal of a ‘vertical’ bird's-eye view.Footnote ¹ Scholars, too, have been quick to identify mythological subjects, homing in on ‘figurative’ motifs. But we still lack an adequate framework for approaching more ‘ornamental’ components – or for challenging that segregation in the first place.Footnote ²

Such is the backdrop to Hallie M. Franks's exhilarating new book on ‘mosaics and metaphor in the Greek symposium’.Footnote ³ The volume examines some of the earliest mosaics known to us, from the later classical and Hellenistic periods (between the end of the fifth and third centuries bc).Footnote ⁴ Franks aims to understand these materials in their original spatial setting, laid out in the andron – literally the ‘men's quarters’ – of the classical Greek house. In particular, she connects their imagery to the social activities associated with that space, revolving around the Greek symposium, or drinking party. As an ‘integral part of the setting for the symposium’ (3), Franks argues, mosaics took advantage of the rituals that unfolded around them: if the iconography swims with intoxicating designs, that imagery takes us not only to Dionysus, but also to the sorts of activities over which he presided. Classical and Hellenistic mosaics are consequently shown to take up, in their own particular way, the sorts of themes that had long occupied archaic and classical vase-painters. Over the last forty years, the study of sympotic pottery has been overhauled by new anthropological and sociological approaches: French scholars in particular have shown how drinking vessels actively reflected, influenced, and quite literally contained contemporary cultural thinking about the symposium.Footnote ⁵ By contrast, there has been very little systematic attempt to explore mosaics in related terms. As Franks puts it, ‘While the pottery and its imagery have been extensively and very justifiably explored, less attention has been paid to other imagery in the andron and its capacity to engage the event in a similarly active way’ (3).

‘Metaphor’ – specifically, the way in which ‘metaphors facilitate the understanding and articulation of the abstract…through more concrete interactions’ (5–6) – plays a crucial role in all this.Footnote ⁶ Greek mosaics did not just adorn or decorate, Franks argues. Rather, they gave concrete form to ideas about the andron as physical and figurative arena: if they shaped the sympotic activities that took place there, they also related them to others, in a series of kaleidoscopic and multisensory ways. Wherever we look, mosaics took up ‘the values of the ideal symposium’ (13), associating drinking with related sorts of inebriating images, ideas, and spaces – exotic journeys with Dionysus, for example, sea voyages, or the rotations of the heavens (not to mention choral dance). Franks is quick to speak of ‘experiential metaphor’ (9). But she also emphasizes the importance of different viewpoints – ‘the complicated problem of reading imagery in relation to an occupied physical space’ (4): ‘Movement within the andron, including patterns of circulation around rather than across the mosaic floors, was central to the phenomenal, synesthetic experience that was the sympotic event’ (4, emphasis in original). As the introduction puts it:

Claims like these are staked on a number of well-chosen case studies, drawn in particular from Eretria, Sikyon, Pella, Olynthos, and Athens. After a highly charged introduction, and a separate review of work on ‘The Symposium, the Andron, the Mosaics’, the book is arranged around four themes: first, the way in which mosaics figure the symposium as a voyage over open ocean (‘The Journey Out: Symposium at Sea’); second, how Dionysus is presented as fellow-traveller, accompanying symposiasts to exotic and unfamiliar lands (‘The Journey In: Dionysus the Traveler’); third, the proliferation of spinning wheel-motifs, which served as a figure for the inebriating turns of wine, conversation, the cosmic universe, and choral movement (‘The Journey Around: Turning and Turn-Taking’); fourth and finally, Franks homes in on flowers and vegetation (‘The Journey Back: Symposia of the Past’), arguing that ‘Imagery…often considered purely decorative or symbolic of Dionysus’ (13) should better be understood in terms of the imagined drinking parties of old. A concise conclusion restates the fundamental argument: ‘that the experiential metaphors produced in the andron were in fact a crucial way in which the symposium played its social role, bolstering the solidarity of the group and the shared identity of those present’ (180).

This is one of the most original and creative works on ancient mosaics to have been published in recent years. One major achievement lies in demonstrating the interconnections between the imagery of mosaics and red-figure pottery (e.g. 85–101). Another is the emphasis on spatial context – that is, how mosaics frame, and are in turn framed by, the activities which unfolded around them: those working on later mosaics, especially those of the later Hellenistic and Roman world, could learn much from the approach (witness, for example, Franks's brief analysis of the first-century bc Nile Mosaic from Praeneste, 171–2).

But not everything here will convince everyone. While many might welcome the rejection of traditional ‘decorative’ modes of interpretation, for example, Franks sometimes reduces visual motifs to single sorts of symbolic meanings (e.g. 178: ‘Like a narrative, the image of a centaur or of abundant vegetation introduces temporality, marking the andron as the kind of landscape that existed in the past or that could only exist in the present at geographical locales so extreme as to be inaccessible – a place at a spatiotemporal distance, in any case, from the drinker's here and now’). The author certainly demonstrates how previous scholars have failed to go far enough. Perhaps inevitably, though, certain arguments sometimes risk going too far. Consider the third chapter's analysis of mosaics depicting Scylla, with their purported ‘network of associations’ (119): ‘As a sea creature in the space of the andron, Skylla naturally evokes the experiential metaphor of the symposium as a sea journey’, we are told; but she also ‘complicates, or even confuses, the navigation of the symposium at sea’, and thereby ‘introduces associations around the themes of appetite and engulfment that are appropriate for the sympotic context, where the consumption of wine can lead (metaphorically) to dangerous waters’ (75–6).

Questions remain about chronology, too. Throughout the book, I was struck by the disparity between Franks's mosaics and the many ‘sympotic’ texts used to illuminate them. While much has been written in recent years about the social and cultural development of the symposium during the sixth and fifth centuries – between black- and red-figure painted pottery, and not least between the early and late fifth centuries – Franks is more interested in continuity than change. In short, an interest in the overarching cultural life of the Greek symposium – from Alcaeus to Plutarch – comes at the cost of any interest in its evolution over time, not least during the fourth and third centuries. Nowhere is the point clearer than in the recurrent talk of ‘polis life’ or ‘the polis context’ (15, 28, 85, 177, 182): can we really conflate the very different political, social, and cultural worlds of the late sixth and third centuries?

Questions like these in no way diminish the importance of the whole. A more practical gripe has to do with the black and white images (which are often themselves poorly printed): such illustrations perpetuate a tendency to underplay the significance of colour, sheen, and radiance. The material of these mosaics may be ‘pebbles’, as we call them. But just when many were being laid out, poets like Posidippus were waxing lyrical about the distinct material properties of different stones (in the lithika section of the papyrus). Of all ancient media, mosaics pose particular problems for photographic reproduction. At the very least, the publisher might have been more generous in offering colour plates…

The archaic and classical Greek symposium also looms large in Sara Chiarini's new study of ‘the so-called nonsense inscriptions on ancient Greek vases’ (‘the symposium provided an ideal setting to explore the potential nonsense writing as a means for riddling games’, 157).Footnote ⁷ Over half of Chiarini's book – some 292 pages – is dedicated to a new inventory of these inscriptions, with the aim to supplement and correct previous catalogues (5–6 n. 13; cf. 9–18).^{Footnote 8} With around 1,400 entries, arranged according to location (including vases sold on the open market, e.g. 376), this painstaking corpus has one significant shortcoming: the absence of any classification numbers.

The catalogue's lack of internal reference system will make it a rather unwieldy resource for future scholars. While Chiarini does cross-refer to two other key works (‘LMC’ and ‘AVI’Footnote ⁹), drawing materials from a wide chronological span (‘from the beginning of the 6th century bc to the beginning of the 4th’, 6), not all her inscriptions have previously been analysed, and some have not been recorded at all. The problem is exacerbated by others. On the one hand, the catalogue does not contain references to the earlier discussions of Chiarini's chapters. On the other, the short ‘index generalis’ (535–43) offers little help in finding specific vases: take, for example, the 128 undifferentiated references gathered together under the entry for ‘warrior(s)’. Then there is the dearth of images or drawings. Only thirty-eight of the vases discussed – most of them better-known examples – are illustrated. While some of these consist of two or more details, and a number are reproduced in colour, the author has been let down by the size, quality, and quantity of pictures (e.g. fig. 14, discussed on 69–72). One wonders whether Chiarini's catalogue might have been better served by a different press – or, dare one say it, by a (searchable, hyperlinked, and updatable) online database.

So much for the final part of the book. But what of the earlier chapters? Chiarini is at her best when it comes to the thematic discussions, which show how the ‘phenomenon of nonsense inscriptions is…to be set in the context of intensive experimentation with writing’ (3). As the second chapter explores, nonsensical writing cannot be understood in terms of aesthetics or cultural prestige alone, nor is it purely ‘ornamental’ (19–31). Instead, it is possible to trace a purported ‘taxonomy of (il)literacies’, predicated on ‘varying degrees of literary skills’ (124): if vase inscriptions contributed ‘to the spread of literacies’ (123), certain examples can even be understood in terms of schoolboy exercises and ‘scholastic training’ (122). The strongest analyses, in my view, come in the fourth and fifth chapters, exploring ‘riddlesome’ play on the one hand, and, on the other, the potential of ‘nonsensical’ writing to connote additional sorts of semantic meaning (as a means for signalling musical notation, for example, foreign sounds, or the realm of ‘magic and the supernatural’, 203). A short conclusion summarizes the main findings (216–24), stressing the overall ‘complexity and variety of nonsense inscriptions’ (217), and returning full circle to the two key words of the book's subtitle (‘alphabetical education [παιδεία] and play [παιδιά]’, 217). Ultimately, the ‘polysemy of nonsense inscriptions’ wins the day (218): ‘it is abundance – if not excess – of sense that marks out nonsense inscriptions, rather than the absence of it’ (219).

Of course, Greek vases were not seen by ‘Greek’ viewers alone. As the ‘provenance’ column in Chiarini's catalogue makes clear, the vast majority of vases recorded here in fact ended up in northern Italy: they were exported to Etruria. This Etruscan viewership gets short shrift in Chiarini's book (see 11, 32–3, 196–7). In Sheramy D. Bundrick's analysis of ‘the many lives of Greek figured pottery’, however, it receives a significant new treatment, and one that seeks to look ‘beyond Athens to other places where vases actually traveled’ (9).Footnote ¹⁰

Bundrick has little to say about Greek ‘nonsense’ inscriptions (e.g. 76, 136), as opposed to Etruscan letters etched onto Attic wares (e.g. 12, 14, 69–73, 197–8). Throughout, though, the book is keen to champion what is sometimes labelled an ‘interpretatio etrusca’ [sic] (60, 86–90, 145n, 206, 214), attempting to ‘capture an Etruscan point of view’, even ‘in the absence of written sources’ (13). Taking a lead from ‘object biography’,Footnote ¹¹ Bundrick shows how, transported to northern Italy, Athenian ‘figured vases…attained value for the ways in which they could fulfil a consumer's needs and could be integrated, even transformed, to suit local practices and belief systems’ (220–1). By extension, different sorts of Etruscan contexts – whether in the home or in the grave – could furnish objects with different sorts of cultural significance. ‘By that time, Attic figured vases were no longer Athenian or even Greek. They had become fully Etruscan, until their modern discovery made them Athenian once again’ (221).

A compelling example of the book's argument comes in its fourth chapter, dedicated to ‘Eye Cups Abroad’. Where ‘Athenocentric’ scholars have conventionally analysed this material in relation to the Greek symposium (‘emphasizing such themes as masking, Dionysian transformation, and play’, 95), the chapter draws on both qualitative and quantitative evidence to champion the importance of the Italian export market: eye cups were ‘prized not only for their quality and innovation,’ Bundrill concludes, ‘but for their ability to function actively within the tomb context and express an Etruscan…worldview’ (125).

Time for some news in brief, with five books received shortly before this issue's deadline. First are the archaeological reports of excavations carried out between 2002 and 2007 on the Vrina Plain – near the ancient port city of Butrint in modern-day Albania: by way of sample, I received one volume from this sixth series, featuring an in-depth typology of Roman and late antique pottery.Footnote ¹² Next comes a timely companion to ‘Classics and early anthropology’ (between the eighteenth and mid-twentieth centuries), exploring the ‘role the classics had in this great enterprise…through which humanity's present and future were to be understood’ (1).Footnote ¹³ Chapters explain that ‘The classics may no longer be a standard part of the ethnographic storehouse or social scientists’ toolkit, but the ancients are still part of the sociological and anthropological imagination’ (25). Despite an engaging introduction, the main frustration here is the lack of cross-reference between contributions: as so often, the whole consequently adds up to less than the sum of the book's parts. Another recent edited collection honours one of the stalwarts of classical art and archaeology in Britain: R. R. R. Smith.Footnote ¹⁴ In both their number and range, the forty chapters of this Festschrift make for a fitting way to commemorate their dedicatee's sixty-fifth birthday – as at once a ‘record of the impact of his historical approach to classical art history/visual ancient culture as it now stands’, and a spur ‘to encourage further reflection and growth in the field for the future’ (xxxiv). The same Brepols ‘Studies in Classical Archaeology’ series furnishes us with a monograph dedicated to funerary portraits of Palmyrene women: the catalogue of 905 examples, from between the first century bc and the third century ad, the majority illustrated with excellent photographs (161–409), will make this an essential reference work for specialist libraries.Footnote ¹⁵ Fifth and finally, let me mention The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Childhood. While classicists will be interested in the seven chapters surveying Greek and Roman materials, what really stands out is the global comparative aspect – the argument ‘that the relationship between childhood, material culture, and the archaeological record cannot be ignored by any archaeologist…and…is fundamental to enhancing our knowledge of the past’ (32).Footnote ¹⁶

To Greek sanctuaries now, and a revised edition of a handbook first published in 2007.Footnote ¹⁷ Truth be told, this is a volume governed by the second part of its title: it has much more to say about ‘temple architecture’ than about ‘Greek sanctuaries’. But as a basic guide to Greek temples the book serves its purpose well. Mary Emerson sets out ‘to describe those buildings in a clear and detailed way’, so as to ‘enable the reader to gain a good general understanding of their design and construction’ (viii). The layout of the book – structured around subheadings, chapter summaries, and not infrequent bullet points – makes for easily digestible reading. Most attractive of all is the price tag, which alone makes the book a go-to guide for British and North American undergraduates. Emerson understands that audience well (‘the aim of this book is not to be exhaustive, but to equip readers new to the field with a working knowledge for further reading, or for site visits’, ix). Writing for ‘the reader who knows little or nothing, but would like to gain reasonably in-depth knowledge quickly’ (viii), she illustrates the volume with photos, diagrams, and reconstructions, adding a helpful glossary of technical terms (263–6). There is a short bibliography (257–62), but regrettably no notes: given the shortage of in-text citations, a bibliographic essay might have been a more useful addition.

Chapters are for the most part arranged topographically, drawing on case studies from the later sixth and fifth centuries (the purported ‘“classics”’ of Greek architecture’, 1). Predictably, perhaps, Athens rules the roost: of the twelve chapters, no fewer than seven deal with Athenian materials – six with Acropolis buildings, one with the Hephaistion; other Attic sanctuaries hardly get a look-in (Brauron, Eleusis, Sounion, etc.). Not everyone will approve of this selective focus. And many, I am sure, would want their students to take issue with Emerson's all-encompassing categories (‘Sanctuaries were either local or Panhellenic’, 7). Suffice it to say that the book is better at description than analysis or critique.

In terms of revisions, this second edition boasts a ‘greatly expanded bibliography’, as well as two new chapters – on Paestum (Chapter 15) and the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Akragas (Chapter 16); it also sports a short new introduction to ‘architectural sculpture’ (Chapter 4). The turn to Magna Graecia is a welcome addition. What is really missing, however, is any discussion of the Greek East, or the influence of colossal Ionic temples like those at Ephesus, Didyma, and Samos (reference is essentially limited to 22–3 and 242–3). Understandably enough, ‘A choice has had to be made from a very wide variety of possible examples’ (1). But a wider range of examples might have made for a more varied introduction.

Another recent student handbook – this time, directed to undergraduates in Germany – comes in Ralf von den Hoff's introduction to classical archaeology.Footnote ¹⁸ Like Emerson's introduction, this book is billed as a second edition, at least of sorts: it explicitly sets out to replace a work with the same title by Ulrich Sinn, also published by C.H. Beck (in 2000).Footnote ¹⁹ Where Sinn had proceeded thematically, von den Hoff takes the idea of Einführung at its word, aiming to spur students towards ‘a critical approach and further reading’ (8, translated). After a relatively short overview of methodology, materials, and historiography (9–43), the second section is structured around twelve case studies (44–255): in each case, the author guides readers around a single find, site, object, or theme, analysing it from a variety of ‘cultural historical’ perspectives. References to further literature are grouped together at the end of each discussion (with a strong Germanophone bent, and without additional guidance). Von den Hoff then ends with a general overview of tools and online resources.

This book will undoubtedly extend the disciplinary range of the subject in German universities, and in a number of exciting ways. True, the first part of the volume is fast-paced: I can imagine many an undergraduate looking bleary-eyed at von den Hoff's sea of italicized terms. Where the book really comes into its own, though, is with its case studies, which range in date from the ninth century bc to the third century ad. These examples were evidently chosen to expand a traditional methodological toolbox: alongside the predictable recourse to ‘Bildsprache’ (‘the language of images’), for example, there are refreshing forays into gender studies, issues of reception, and anthropology. For better or worse, von den Hoff offers little in the way of ‘dirt archaeology’, still less about the potential contribution of written sources (the disciplinary tendency to segregate between ‘Klassiche Archäologie’ and ‘Klassische Philologie’ remains particularly rife in Germany: see 10–11, 121). Particular kinds of visual media are a little underplayed, too. While sculpture dominates, mosaics, wall-painting, intaglios, and coins barely get a look-in (19–2). Likewise, there is remarkably little coverage of Hellenistic materials (149–63). But a volume like this must always be selective. Ultimately, it is the mix of old and new that makes this so scintillating a read – the ‘wissenschaftliche Dynamik’, as von den Hoff puts it, that comes from combining traditional Germanophone approaches with ‘modern criticism’ (12).

Those interested in Hellenistic art and archaeology might find consolation in another volume – an edited collection on The Art of the Hellenistic Kingdoms, derived from a symposium at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2016.Footnote ²⁰ The conference accompanied a landmark exhibition (‘Pergamon and the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Ancient World’), and the ensuing volume brings together twenty-five internationally acclaimed experts. Between them, the twenty contributions cover an array of artistic forms – wall paintings, mosaics, and gems, certainly, but also coins, vessels, terracotta, faience, and glass. The colour images are also stunning: Paul Zanker's lucid essay on the frescoes of the P. Fannius Synistor villa at Boscoreale, for example, is brilliantly brought to life with large-scale reconstructions.

As is to be expected of this sort of endeavour, the quality of the whole is mixed. Some chapters combine expert overviews with new insights on particular artefacts, as with Jeffrey Spier's contribution on ‘Precious Gems and Poetry in the Hellenistic Royal Courts’. There are also some engaging discussions of museology and display: Andreas Scholl's chapter on ‘Hellenistic Art and Architecture in the Restored Pergamon Museum’ stands out in particular. Still, the image of the ‘Hellenistic’ that emerges might be deemed rather old-school – not to mention Eurocentric, with little attempt to explore relationships with non-‘Greek’ visual cultural languages.

Particularly disappointing is the lack of engaged discussion about the relationship with Hellenistic literary culture. Once again, Spier's chapter is an exception, discussing how ‘the epigrams of Poseidippos show a keen awareness of rare materials in current use’ (32). Less successful is Christine Kondoleon's contribution on ‘Visual Riddles and Wordplay in Hellenistic Art’. Despite its talk of a ‘very fluid exchange among artists and writers’ (45), the chapter in fact perpetuates a one-way approach to the ‘interplay of images and words’, premised on the ‘the influence of poetry on image making and its reception’, and above all the ‘primacy of the recited word’ (38). In terms of materials and conception, Kondoleon sometimes skates on thin ice. Typical is a quotation directly attributed to Callimachus – namely, that ‘poetry should aim at small-scale perfection’ (38): in the endnote we find that the quotation actually comes from the Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, which ‘reports that Callimachus of Cyrene reputedly stated this’ (45 n. 4).

Re-use, recycling, and restoration are also recurrent themes among the books received in recent months. The topics feature in no fewer than three titles – one concerned with Greek materials and two with the Roman imperial world. ‘Upcycling’ is the buzzword in Sarah A. Rous's study of ‘memory and reuse in ancient Athens:Footnote ²¹ four thematically arranged chapters, framed with introduction and epilogue, seek to show not only the ancient pedigree of a modern phenomenon (see 17–26), but also how ‘a monument or object containing upcycled material often impacts the social memory of a community’ (3). ‘Upcycling may prove just the concept we need for robust interdisciplinary investigation of the dynamics of social memory’, the author contends: ‘what the study of reuse needs is memory, and what the study of memory needs is reuse’ (17). Two virtues stand out in particular. First is the way in which Rous traces common patterns of re-use across diverse media – from recut inscriptions to statues, renovated buildings, column drums, and recycled fortification walls (with frequent reference, too, to literary materials). Second, and no less impressive, is the chronological range of the book, which moves from the archaic to the imperial Greek world, with not infrequent nods to contemporary Athens (e.g. 213–18). The result will be essential reading for anyone interested in ‘upcycling as a vital practice’ – and ‘one through which Athenians shaped social memory in the physical realm, literally building their history into their city’ (212).

The two Roman volumes are more uneven. In the first – a single-author monograph – Christopher Siwicki examines the restoration of public monuments in Rome between the first century bc and second century ad.Footnote ²² The book works through six thematic chapters, with particular archaeological emphasis on the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus (esp. 82–140, 187–97) and the so-called ‘House of Romulus’ on the Palatine (141–67). What emerges from this ‘investigation into architecture as a cultural phenomenon’ (4) is a particular – and particularly consistent – ‘Roman’ cultural historical attitude towards architectural heritage, predicated on the ‘dispassionate separation of the idea of a historic building from its physical form’ (5). It is an outlook, Siwicki contends, that ‘differs radically from many modern ideas…, especially in regard to their emphasis on the preservation of the original aesthetic and material of a building’ (239). Perhaps most stimulating of all is the ‘tentative idea’ reserved for the final pages of the book: what might ultimately explain this discrepancy between ancient and modern ideas of architectural heritage, we are told, is a corresponding difference in conceptualizing the ‘architect’ (239–43).

A second book on ‘reuse and renovation in Roman material culture’ – this time, another edited collection – is derived from a panel at the 2014 College Art Association (‘Afterwards: Art and Architecture as Iterative Practice in the Roman World’).Footnote ²³ ‘The abundant evidence for reuse, renovation, and other kinds of secondary intervention in the Roman period remains largely undiscussed and little understood’, the editors declare. ‘Yet as the contributors to this volume show, taking careful stock of the diachronic history of monuments in antiquity enhances our understanding of them in many ways’ (3). There can be no denying the hype (‘Reuse and Renovation in Roman Material Culture is the first book to plumb the rich evidence for architectural and sculptural reuse from the Roman empire, both at its height and as new cultural groups occupied its former domain’, 4). But the chapters themselves – mostly oriented towards small-scale case studies, and with little attempt to speak across contributions – do not quite live up to the billing. A particular frustration lies in range: the ‘material culture’ of the title is soon collapsed to architecture and free-standing sculpture alone (what about mosaics, sarcophagi, or painting, and in what ways can we trace both similarities and differences across media?). In a book that purports ‘to expand the boundaries of what can and should be considered as related to the study of reuse’ (13), the failure to reflect on parallels with Roman literary culture is also surprising. Themes of ‘re-use and renovation’ have spurred particularly stimulating work when it comes to Latin poetry and proseFootnote ²⁴ – but one wouldn't know it from this book.

Themes of archaeological heritage, appropriation and re-use lead to our final title for this issue: Stephen L. Dyson's impressive overview of Archaeology, Ideology, and Urbanism in Rome from the Grand Tour to Berlusconi.Footnote ²⁵ Dyson is well known for both his cultural histories of classical archaeology and his highly readable introduction to Roman archaeology (among other books).Footnote ²⁶ The present volume combines these two topics: on the one hand, it explores developing modern attitudes towards Rome's archaeological past; on the other, it situates that history against wider cultural, social, and political developments, in eleven chronologically arranged chapters that stretch from the eighteenth century to the early twenty-first. In the thirteen chapters that follow, the author's lifelong passion for the city shines through (‘I first visited Rome in 1959’, xiii). ‘Rome is not a museum,’ Dyson argues, ‘but a living, dynamic city, shaped, informed, and constrained by its past, but never subservient to it’ (1).

This is a book that wears its learning lightly. Throughout, Dyson couples historical narrative with sharp-sighted critique: consider the take on J. J. Winckelmann (‘His associations of liberty and artistic genius had a certain irony, for Winckelmann was a functionary of the absolutist papal state’, 16), or what is concluded about the Grand Tour (‘More commonly it left a legacy of venereal disease and weakened livers’, 17). The book has no qualms in naming its heroes, or for that matter in shaming its villains; indeed, it is expressly dedicated ‘To those who have fought long and hard to save the heritage of Rome’ (v). Most gloomy of all is the ‘deliberate ambiguity’ (xiv) with which Dyson closes, with his ‘general sense of uncertainty’ (6) about the archaeology of the twenty-first-century city (287–93). ‘The curation of archaeological heritage in Italy has always been in crisis’ (293), we are told. But, in the wake of Berlusconi, budget cuts run rife: public investment has given way to new sorts of capitalist enterprise (see 6–7). A nice example comes in Diego della Valle's sponsorship of the Colosseum: in exchange for financing much-needed architectural repairs, della Valle gained exclusive corporate rights for the building, using it as a backdrop to market designer Tod's shoes (292).Footnote ²⁷ It is a pattern of upmarket branding that is now familiar across the city: the restored Trevi Fountain, brought to you by Fendi fashion, for instance, or the Spanish Steps sponsored by Bulgari watches, jewellery, and ‘luxury goods’…

Dyson shrinks from closing his study ‘on a too pessimistic and negative note’, even when ‘the economy is weak and unemployment, especially among the young, very high’ (293). When it comes to preserving Rome's archaeological heritage, ‘Resources will always be inadequate’ (293). So it is that, in the future, just as in the past, we should expect both the good guys and the bad: ‘There were the Mũnozs [sic], but also the Cadernas and the La Reginas’ (293).

Truth be told, however, the picture in 2020 looks bleaker than the author could ever have imagined. In the past, the ‘research and advocacy of dedicated savants, public servants, and scholars’ might have been enough (xv). But in the wake of the current health crisis, one has to wonder: will these alone suffice?