This volume, the second in the Epigraphica Boeotica series initiated by F. in 1991, is a welcome addition to the dynamic field of Boeotian studies. Presented in four parts, seventeen chapters richly illustrated with 66 plates and 16 figures discuss as many as 87 inscriptions, of which at least 11 are new. Four chapters (1, 4, 6 and 8) are revised versions of published papers.

The book begins with a series of five contributions to the Boeotian proxenia. Chapter 4 provides an immensely useful catalogue of Boeotian proxeny decrees (federal decrees and city decrees) arranged chronologically and by city. The name of the proxenos, his ethnic as well as the name of the eponymous magistrate, are also registered when available. Boeotians as proxenoi of other cities and states, again with a very convenient exhaustive list of documents, are dealt with in the following chapter. In Chapter 7, a discussion of the cult of the horseman hero assigns the popularity of the motif in Boeotia to privileged links with Thrace crafted through Boeotian involvement in the colonisation of the Black Sea.

In Part 2, ‘Dedications, Religious and Civic’, a substantial Chapter 9 examines in detail a small altar from Chaeronea bearing a dedication and six manumission acts. Although this well-known monument has been recently republished by E. Meyer (SEG LVIII 436), F. and his co-author L. Darmezin have arrived at other readings. The reader would have benefited from an apparatus criticus allowing an appraisal of the variations between the two editions: instead one needs to go back and forth between the two versions of the texts spread over various commentaries. Some differences between the two editions are significant, for example in the dedication EBii 9: F. and Darmezin propose Ἡ[σχ]ρίων Κράτωνος Ἡ[ρακ]λιώτας Ἀσκλαπιῦ, while Meyer (SEG LVIII 436I) reads Ἀριστίων Κράτωνος δαμ̣άττας Ἀσκλαπιῦ.

Part 3, ‘Tombstones and Miscellaneous’, opens with a series of tombstones from the Museum of Thebes (Chapter 12), followed by considerations on some inscriptions from Orchomenus (Chapter 13). Spolia from various churches and buildings are discussed in the final chapters. The book closes with a concordance of inscriptions with a list of new texts, three indexes (geographic names, personal names, as well as cults, festival and sanctuaries), a list of notable Greek words and phrases, and ‘selected general subjects’.

The index of unpublished inscriptions numbers sixteen entries. Four of those presumed inedita are in fact already published: EBii 19 and 34,Footnote ¹ as well as EBii 49 and 52.Footnote ² Two, EBii 45 and 47, may also be already known.Footnote ³ On the other hand, an unpublished fragmentary epitaph, EBii 79, does not appear in this section of the index. The new texts consist of eight funerary inscriptions (EBii 22, 24, 25, 30, 48, 50, 51 and 79), one rupestral inscription (EBii 87) and two fragmentary Hellenistic military catalogues from Orchomenus in the Boeotian dialect (EBii 31 and 32). In EBii 31, the dialect Βοιωτῦς would be expected in the restored opening line instead of Βοιωτῶν. The restoration of the third line (ΑΜΝ[ΝΟΣ]) seems highly implausible. In EBii 32 – consisting exclusively of personal names – instead of ΕΥΑΝ.ΡΟΞΕΝ in the first line, the name Εὔαν[δ]ρος̣, followed by the first two letters of the patronymic, could perhaps be restored. In the commentary to EBii 51 (..Ρ.Μ.ΤΙΑ, plate 46), it is hinted that this epitaph might be the same as IThesp 719 (Βουκατία). A picture of IThesp 719 published in 1965 clearly disproves it, in which case EBii 51 is probably a new text.Footnote ⁴

It remains unclear why some recently well published inscriptions, such as EBii 21 and 23,Footnote ⁵ appear again in this book without new readings or additional scholarship, and why some are edited in capital letters when their readings are secure and the typography does not provide any clue as to the palaeography (EBii 20, 21 and 22). A further backward step appears in the discussion of an ornamented funerary inscription (EBii 49, plate 44), where previous identifications of the relief as a key are unjustly dismissed, since the epitaph clearly belongs to a well-known series of tombstones erected for priestesses that feature temple keys.Footnote ⁶ The book also suffers from other significant gaps in scholarship, particularly recent, which will not be listed here. For example, for the dedication from the theatre of Orchomenus EBii 28, the most recent bibliography provided is SEG XXX 455. This fragment has since been joined to IG VII 3209.Footnote ⁷ Significant restorations for EBii 27 have also been overlooked.Footnote ⁸

The main strengths of this book lie in the constant attention placed on prosopography and onomastics, in the exhaustive lists of proxeny decrees and Boeotian proxenoi, and in the 66 plates where many inscriptions are illustrated for the first time. On the other hand the 18 maps, usually of the whole Mediterranean region and routinely deprived of toponyms, are confusing for even experienced scholars, not to mention students. In summary, this book provides useful contributions to the field of Boeotian epigraphy, but it will need to be used with extreme caution.