Despite forming an essential strand in the fabric of ancient political life, facilitating a crucial part of Roman civic life and representing both cultural exchange and imperial dominion, priests can be difficult to see in the Roman provinces. They are highly visible in and around the city of Rome, but the situation is rather different for the provinces. We know that they were there, there are sporadic written references to them (particularly in epigraphic remains), but this allows only for a muted and incomplete sense of who and what they were. Alessandra Esposito's study of priests in Britain is, then, a necessary and important endeavour. The book recognises the many issues impeding a study of priests in the provinces and shines a useful light on what we can know from archaeological remains. While there is an awareness of the limitations to this field of research, Esposito should be commended for engaging so well with the many different types of evidence and providing a coherent organisation of each.
The book is divided into seven chapters, with two appendices and an extensive bibliography. The first chapter provides a good introduction to the topic, working through a variety of different approaches and scholarly perspectives regarding priests in the Roman Empire and the provinces. Although rather more could have been made of classical ethnography and its role in shaping Roman historical writings, Esposito summarises the historiography very well. This is an impressive opening, and one that demonstrates a deep understanding of the shifts in scholarly readings of priests, empire and Roman religion. While its biggest strength is Esposito's consideration of epigraphy, iconography and the methods of discovery, each literary source would have benefited from being contextualised more firmly in the intellectual milieu of Roman politics and society, in particular Cassius Dio. The research questions structure the book well, and address important issues, in particular “What information do the different depositional contexts offer about priestly activities?” (p. 17). The second chapter seems rather superfluous, perhaps because of its brevity. Although the methodology is important, it could perhaps have been more effectively incorporated into the opening chapter.
The next two chapters are best read together, looking first at the material evidence for priestly regalia, and then considering the context and distribution of these artefacts. These are the strongest chapters in the volume, and although there seems to be a lack of a sustained argument, the items are well discussed and analysed. Esposito begins by looking at headdresses, chain headdresses, crowns and diadems. While this section is descriptive in tone, it highlights the diversity of finds and the difficulties involved in fully interpreting them. The discussion of sceptres is more nuanced, and here the sceptre heads are analysed with great care and precision, drawing upon aspects of Roman religion, as well as zoomorphic imagery, imperial iconography and the bindings and component parts of the sceptres. The discussion of evidence in this chapter provides several useful observations, but I would have liked to see a more rigorous argument. Esposito's points are compelling but needed to be developed more fully. The fourth chapter considers how these artefacts were discovered and provides a persuasive and eloquent summary of the finds and how they may have been deposited originally. This is a comprehensive and often persuasive discussion, particularly in relation to the geographic distribution.
The two penultimate chapters examine iconography and epigraphy. Both are useful but could have engaged more with other types of evidence, and how these can complement one another. There are some excellent points in Esposito's analysis of the inscriptions. These isolated engravings can be rather difficult to interpret, in particular when thinking about how they reflect religious activities across Britain. The theories about the potential haruspex (officials trained in divination) are particularly enlightening, suggesting a number of interesting possibilities, and the exploration of the seviri (overseers of the cult of Rome and Augustus) in York is convincing. The conclusion summarises the preceding chapters and provides answers to the questions posed in the introduction. The two appendices are very useful, especially for students of this period, with a collection of primary sources and a database.
There are some issues, the first is somewhat minor but became increasingly distracting and that is the need for more thorough editing. Esposito is a fluent writer and a careful interpreter of the historical past, but the book would have benefited from a judicious edit to make it more concise, and to remove unclear phrasing and typographical errors. The second concern is that although useful research questions are being asked of the evidence, there is a lack of consistent and effective argument. An overarching theme or hypothesis that could unite the various strands of evidence and provide coherence would have improved the work.
To conclude, this volume asks pertinent questions of the evidence we have for priestly activity in Roman Britain. While more cross-comparison of evidence would have helped to support some of the arguments, Esposito provides careful and thorough analysis of the archaeological finds, and this is the volume's main strength. This book reflects excellent scholarship and close scrutiny of the evidence, and will be useful for anyone studying the practice of Roman religion in the provinces.
