This second, extended edition of H.'s dissertation comes almost a quarter of a century after its first publication. It presents an integral reprint of the 1987 edition (including bibliography and indexes), preceded by a new introduction (‘Die “klassische” Republik in der Forschung 1986–2011 – Themen und Tendenzen’) and followed by a series of addenda, mainly references to new publications (1986–2011) dealing with themes and topics discussed in the original Chapters 1–6 and a brief discussion of some of these. A bibliography lists the works cited more than once in the new introduction and the addenda.

Since the first edition, H. has been a major protagonist in the debate on political culture in the Roman (Middle) Republic, and he is well placed to sketch the key developments in this debate in the new introduction. His main claim is important: the ‘cultural turn’ has led a to paradigm shift in this field. Research no longer focusses only on the formal aspects of Roman Republican politics, but also on the way it is culturally constituted.

In illustrating this claim, he draws of course on his own work, in particular Rekonstruktionen einer Republik. Die politische Kultur des antiken Rom und die Forschung der letzten (2004). He criticises F. Millar's thesis that the Roman Republic was democratic, arguing that it is based on a formal and static understanding of the Roman constitution, and reconfirms the existence of an identifiable – though dynamic – aristocracy. In addition, he presents a theoretically informed discussion of new approaches to the interplay between ‘politics’ and ‘culture’ in premodern societies, thus drawing the Roman Republic into a broader historical debate. An important concept here is that of ‘Stadtstaatlichkeit’, which describes the personal, face-to-face context in which political interaction and communication in Republican Rome took place. This takes him further to the performative character of politics in Rome, and thus to the central importance of the people in constituting the system as a whole.

These last two points are a valuable addition to the original volume, the main strength of which was, and is, the meticulous description and analysis of the political and institutional context which caused the nobilitas to develop. While the original discussion of their collective identity and representation (Chapter 5) remained somewhat unconnected to the main thesis, and did not quite reach the same level of sophistication, the new introduction and the addenda (which are more elaborate for Chapter 5 than for the other chapters) show how these themes are an integral part of the argument. In this context, the problem of the identification of the nobilitas deserved more attention (the term is used conspicuously seldom in the new introduction): surely, this emphasis on the cultural construction of the elite affects the original claim that only the occupation of office is a defining criterion (p. 244; some remarks in this direction in the addendum to pp. 221ff. on p. 323).

The addenda give a wide-ranging overview of scholarship on political and cultural aspects of the Middle Republic over the last 25 years. However, their integration with the original text is not optimal. As direct references to the addenda in the original text are missing, it is not always clear where additional information on a theme can be found. An updated index could have solved this. In addition, more attention might have been given to the impact of some of this new body of scholarship on the original thesis. On the whole, however, this does not alter the fact that this new edition adds to the important, well-documented original book the fruits of 25 years of active engagement with the scholarly debate by an expert who has extended his interests and argument, but still shows the same profound scholarly knowledge.