B., Camden Professor of Ancient History at Oxford from 1970 to 1982, wrote (in addition to the rest of his extensive œuvre) a great deal about the relationship between the Roman political class and Stoicism. This volume, meticulously edited, is a collection of published and previously unpublished papers which reflect that interest. It includes a complete bibliography of B.'s scholarly work prepared by Crawford. Seven chapters (4, 6, 7, 9–12) are republications, most of them revised, and six (1–3, 5, 8, 13) are new. The editors present B.'s work with a detailed but economical account of the origins of the book and its components, especially the relationship of the unpublished material to a book on Stoicism at Rome, planned but never completed. The editors explain B.'s approach to Stoicism and Roman society and provide a scrupulous account of their editorial work. This is a beautifully documented collection which reflects the virtues of the historian's craft.

The chapters range chronologically from a study of early Stoic ethics, to Panaetius and Cicero's De officiis and other Ciceronian themes, ending with the imperial period and Marcus Aurelius. Panaetius is clearly a favourite, Posidonius under-represented, and even in the final chapter, ‘Late Stoic Moralists’, Seneca gets less attention than Musonius, Epictetus and Marcus. The rationale for this imbalance is never made entirely clear.

‘Chrysippus on Practical Morality’ (Chapter 1) emphasises the continuity of Stoicism's second founder with later thinkers and gives a good account of the limitations of von Arnim's methodology in Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta; one of B.'s aims is to redress those weaknesses, today widely recognised but only just becoming obvious to students of ancient philosophy when B. began work on the topic. B.'s methodology is admirably explicit, though sometimes questionable. A principle of reconstruction, employed by many, is set out on p. 14 [my emphasis]: ‘This [a point attested for Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus] must have been Chrysippus’ own view, though it is not (I think) attested elsewhere; for it is only on this basis that it would be rational to anticipate the inevitable, if it could be foreknown'. The dangers of this sort of reconstruction are clear. B. is particularly interested in the relationship between Chrysippus and Epictetus, which von Arnim clearly misunderstood; but more account could have been taken of Bonhöffer's contribution to this problem.

‘The Political Attitudes of the Old Stoa’ (Chapter 2) surveys the topic, frequently taking issue with A. Erskine's The Hellenistic Stoa. B.'s handling of Stoic doctrine here is characteristic, with greater emphasis on the positions adopted and little attention to the arguments which determined those views. B. works as a historian of ideas, and this will sometimes frustrate the philosophical reader. Still, the general synthesis is useful and introduces two of B.'s more insistent themes, that Stoic doctrine properly understood tends to leave established social institutions untouched – it is not revolutionary; and that Stoics frequently disagreed with each other in the application of general principles – it is not a monolithic system. (This chapter has added value in its inclusion of Cynic thought and of Xenophon's Cyropedia in the appendices.)

‘Morality and Social Convention in Stoic Thought’ (Chapter 3) brings out another strength of B.'s work, the firm grasp of social history which forms a context for philosophical theory, too often slighted in more philosophical treatments. Given the time over which B. wrote these papers, there are inevitably signs of the changes in his views. Here, for example, B. both retains the category of ‘middle Stoicism’ which he challenges elsewhere in the book and frequently deploys the obsolete language of ‘creed’ and ‘heresy’ when discussing variations in doctrine, terminology which is hardly compatible with his emphasis on the legitimate variability of the school's teachings.

‘The Social Thought of Dio Chrysostom’ (Chapter 4) admirably integrates Dio into a narrative of the school's history and argues for the significance of his Roman social context and the realities of social class; it advances many of the themes of Chapter 1 and adumbrates the main theme of Chapter 5, ‘Panaetius in De Officiis’. There B. consistently defends the now widely rejected view that Cicero's work reflects Panaetius so closely that we may use it as a proxy for his philosophy; at the extreme, B. can be found referring to Cicero interpolating things into his own treatise (p. 203). He is perhaps over-reacting to those who minimise what we can learn about Panaetius from the De officiis, though his opponents (other than M. Griffin herself, see n. 2 on p. 180) are hard to identify. An editorial note on p. 180 puts the retrograde character of this argument into context, arguing that although ‘B.'s view is generally unfashionable now, when scholars are laying more emphasis on Cicero's independence’ anyone would still need to take account of ‘the subtlety and comprehensiveness of [B.'s] argumentation’ in order to make one's own case. I cannot share this charitable view; too much of the argument is, to put it bluntly, question-begging and even circular, relying at important points on rhetorical questions (‘Who can doubt that …?’, p. 198) and merely permissive suggestions (‘We are not compelled, despite the latter illustration, to suppose …’, p. 199). To be sure, B.'s thoroughness is valuable and he identifies many clear cases of Panaetian content, but he does not here live up to his own best standards of argumentative rigour.

‘Cicero's Officium in the Civil War’ (Chapter 6) is, by contrast, pioneering in its use of Cicero's letters to assess important features of his life and thought. This is one of the strongest chapters, and illustrates how much is to be gained from more critical and systematic use of the letters. ‘Stoicism and the Principate’ (Chapter 7) is a well-known article, and I merely observe how nicely it prepares for Chapter 8, previously unpublished. ‘High-ranking Roman Stoics under the Principate’ is, as the editors concede, out of date in its understanding of Stoic philosophy, but merits close attention because ‘the critical method displayed in deciding the philosophical credentials of the people discussed … has not been superseded’ (editorial note, p. 310). Here the critical historian eclipsed in Chapter 5 is on full display and has much to teach us. Similarly sophisticated is B.'s study ‘From Epictetus to Arrian’ (Chapter 9), which gives us a well-argued analysis of Epictetus' school, marred slightly by a needlessly unsympathetic assessment of Arrian.

I move quickly over three well-known essays on Marcus Aurelius (Chapters 10–12): ‘Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations’ argues persuasively that the book is a personal intellectual diary; ‘Marcus Aurelius and Slavery’ and ‘Marcus Aurelius and the Christians’ complete the triptych. The final chapter, ‘Late Stoic Moralists’, aims primarily to correct and complement von Arnim, focusing on Epictetus and Marcus, showing how easily their work can be integrated into the ethical theory of the early school. It is a lengthy, descriptive survey and its grasp of Stoic philosophy is inevitably somewhat out of date. This is not the fundamental rethinking of later Stoicism that we need, but it is a constructive beginning and brings together a great deal of useful observation, thus indicating where more is still to be done in understanding later Stoic thought and its complex relationship, a balance between continuity and change, with the origins of the school.

The collection as a whole is uneven, Chapter 5 being the weakest of the new material and the first and last chapters most promising, though not fully refined. It was clearly the right decision to make the unpublished work available in the company of familiar published papers on similar themes. Both as a tool for those who continue to work on this important topic and as a tribute to B.'s dedication to Roman social and intellectual history, this is a welcome collection. The editors have done a splendid service and we are all in their debt.