Ernst Badian's Foreign Clientelae (FC) was published in 1958 and irreversibly changed the way in which the making of the Roman Empire and its impact on Roman politics are studied. The eighteen essays gathered in this volume stem from a 2013 conference: some contributions are closely focused on FC and its author, while others use the work as a springboard for the discussion of specific historical problems.

Let us start with the first group (partly reshuffling the sequence in which the papers appear in the book). In the opening chapter, Francisco Pina Polo finds much to criticize in Badian's approach and conclusions. Many of his objections will not surprise those familiar with the work on clientela and patronage by P. A. Brunt and Jean-Louis Ferrary; his critique of Badian's reliance on onomastic criteria is in places overstated (cf. 29 on Balbus’ gentilician Cornelius), and risks misleading some into thinking that FC predominantly deals with citizenship grants and onomastics. In the process, the ground-breaking work of Anton von Premerstein is labelled as ‘schematic and slightly simplistic’ (21; for a more sensitive discussion of that contribution cf. A. Marcone in J.-L. Ferrary and J. Scheid (eds), Il princeps romano: autocrate o magistrato? (2015), 55–77). In a similarly iconoclastic mood, Angela Ganter critiques Brunt's reading of urban clientelae, and proposes to elicit ‘specifically Roman traits of patronage’ (54) from Dionysius’ account of the Romulean settlement. Fernando Wulff-Alonso provides a detailed reading of FC, and makes the worthwhile point that the discussion of Italian matters in that book is more Mommsenian than other sections. Cristina Rosillo-López criticizes Badian's argument on the rôle of foreign clientelae in enhancing the status of a political leader. She lists a number of instances in which associations with foreign clients prompted hostile reactions from the people. That such connections could play a part in establishing one's standing within the senatorial order, however, receives no discussion. Moreover, the whole project of the Verrines suggests that the connection with the Sicilians was valued by Cicero as a major political asset.

Hans Beck draws a thought-provoking connection between the foreign clientelae model and the pattern of intermarriage between Roman and Italian élites that Friedrich Münzer placed at the centre of his account of the Roman nobility. He then makes an attractive case for testing the enduring value of these models by stressing the significance of the human factor in the dealings between Rome and Italy, not least in the crisis of the Hannibalic War. Moving further from Badian's work, Wolfgang Blösel discusses a clientela arrangement that was altogether overlooked in FC, notably the Italic clientelae of Scipio in 205 b.c.: the whole story in Livy 28.45 is viewed as a fabrication, possibly modelled on the example of Caesar in the 50s (that point would have warranted closer discussion). The central section of the book is taken up by specific discussions on the Western provinces: on Spain (Estela García Fernández on onomastics and Latin status, Enrique García Riaza on the need for an institutional reading of the Roman conquest of Iberia, and Francisco Beltrán Lloris on Balbus and Gades), Gaul (Michel Christol on the integration of provincial élites, with valuable comments on Badian and Syme at 155–7), and North Africa (Frédéric Hurlet, with important insights at 173 on the risk of the ‘hypercritique’ that rules out any links between the spread of gentilicia in a province and clientela ties, and Arnaud Suspène on Juba II of Mauretania and his coinage).

The papers on the Eastern provinces tend to focus on instructive case studies. Michael Snowdon discusses amicitia in the Greek East, with a rewarding treatment of the Sullan S.C. on Stratonicea; Paul Burton looks at the ties between Rome and Sparta in the age of Nabis, while Claudia Tiersch has a perceptive piece on the annexation of Cyprus, in which wider issues, such as the link between the influence of prominent individuals and provincialization, and the definition of client kingdoms, are effectively discussed (especially 246 on Badian's contribution to the latter debate).

Jonathan Prag discusses auxilia externa, and rightly urges setting both that issue and the relevance of clientelae against the wider background of élite relationships, which could so often acquire more ‘shadowy’ forms than usually recognized (290). Martin Jehne deals with political patronage between the late Republic and early Principate. Octavian's letter to the Samians (Aphrodisias and Rome, no. 13) is identified as a document of central significance, not least because it shows that there were clear limits to the remit of the patronage that the emperor could exercise. In the concluding paper, Claude Eilers reasserts his view of a decline of civic patronage during the Empire, against the opposite case recently made by John Nicols; a useful prosopographical annex is appended.

This is a worthy collection, which offers thoughtful contributions to some of the most significant debates (old and new) in the study of the Roman Republic. The book is well produced: occasional errors (‘tribunes of the people’, 277; ‘Bovillae Undecumanorum’, 308) and infelicities (‘hundreds or even tens of Hispanians’, 34; ‘abusive use’, 77; ‘alleged physicality of the alliances’, 130) never stand in the way of the argument, and the indexes are helpful (no index locorum, alas). It deserves wide attention, and should serve, first and foremost, as a valuable prompt to keep engaging with the great book to which it reacts, more than fifty years on.