This engaging and eclectic volume is the result of a collaborative effort to honour the breadth and depth of Professor John Polinni’s extensive body of work. The volume brings together an impressive 28 contributions by Polinni’s students, colleagues and friends, under the theme of how objects and materiality can improve our understanding of the ancient world. At times, the chapters can feel disconnected from one another, but many provide valuable contributions to their specific field of study, making the volume useful to scholars working on a variety of subjects, including ancient portraiture, architecture, material culture studies and classical reception.

The introduction provides an overview of Polinni’s most significant scholarship to date, which is appropriate for the dedication of the volume, although it would have been beneficial to situate the work more firmly within a theoretical framework. Whilst the introduction makes clear that the volume will celebrate ancient objects and their utility within historical scholarship, it is less clear how the various threads will be brought together into an overall argument and engage constructively with recent scholarly discussions surrounding materiality, iconography and interdisciplinarity. The preface is slightly more illuminating, explaining that the choice of title was motivated by Polinni’s ability to ‘tease out an object’s meanings and potential meanings for the people who made and first encountered those objects’ (p. ix). However, the methodological question of how these meanings can and should be teased out remains undefined.

The volume is divided into five sections to reflect the breadth of Polinni’s scholarship and presents a wide range of perspectives and methodologies. The quality of the individual contributions varies: some present original interpretations and previously unpublished material, whilst others have narrower perspectives with less cohesive arguments. That said, the editors have drawn together an impressive range of scholarship to create a diverse collection of expertise. Aside from a few minor typological errors, the volume is well edited and illustrated, although there are several inconsistencies around whether Greek and Latin passages are translated.

The volume opens with the section ‘Portraiture and Honorific Statuary’ and D. Favro’s chapter examining the Roman fornix. She succinctly brings together the challenging evidence for the fornix in the Republican period and argues convincingly that it developed as a space for displaying honorific statues before the arcus in the imperial period. F. Causey’s chapter discusses a lost amber portrait of Augustus, which includes an interesting analysis of the value and meaning of amber in the ancient world. As the statue is lost, the chapter inevitably relies on literary descriptions, and it might have been beneficial to include an explanation of how the relationship between the textual and the visual is conceptualised by the author.

LaGatta’s chapter on a finely carved marble bust of Tiberius at Emory University is a standout. After a comprehensive description of the statue, LaGatta argues that Tiberian portraiture shows a deliberate departure from earlier Augustan models because it emphasised the age and experience of the new princeps as he set out to distinguish himself from his predecessor. The chapter ends with a successful rallying call by LaGatta for the study of Tiberian artwork as its own phenomenon.

Both S. Walker’s and E. Varner’s contributions examine portraits of Roman cultural elites. Walker provides a dense commentary and collection history for a statue of an unknown man in the Ashmolean Museum, concluding that he was a senior civic official and/or priest. Varner brings the section to a close by examining the intellectualised portraits of the Second Sophistic. He puts Rome rather than Athens at the centre of the discussion and reiterates the well-known argument that ‘elegant intellectual inflexions’ were just one strand of the sophisticated self-fashioning strategies of the cosmopolitan elite (p. 93).

The second section, ‘Gods, Myths, and Ritual Practice’, begins with A. Shapiro’s chapter on the concept of envy in relation to presentations of Peleus in Greek and Roman art. The chapter makes an interesting argument for the presence of Phthonos on the Naples krater as a visual reference to the gods’ envy of Peleus’ good fortune. The next chapter, by P. Butz, provides an equally compelling interpretation of the so-called ‘slipper-slapper Aphrodite’ sculptural group, which, she argues, appears to be an amorous assault by Pan on Aphrodite from the front and a loving embrace from the back. Butz suggests convincingly that this iconography, and its accompanying inscription, echoes the cultural hybridity of Delos in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

In a similar vein to Shapiro, D. Williams examines the development of a single visual motif: the judgement of Orestes. The chapter offers a valuable survey of these scenes across various media during the Roman period, including a previously unpublished silver cup in a London private collection. Williams suggests some interesting connections between ‘new’ visual features and the development of ‘Roman fusions and re-imaginings’ of the scene on the stage (p. 147). C. Mattusch’s chapter focuses on two carved Amazon heads from Herculaneum. The chapter has a slightly strange structure, with an almost repeated introduction and a less cohesive overall line of questioning; however, there are some interesting suggestions for the possible classifications of the Herculaneum heads.

A particularly valuable contribution is Spinelli’s chapter on the mythological scenes found in Vesuvian tablina, which Spinelli argues were the result of ‘the increasing passion for contemporary theatrical entertainments’, especially pantomime, which essentially ‘democratised’ mythological narratives (p. 169). The argument is well structured and rightly suggests that contemporary theatrical performances made certain narratives quickly recognisable and appealing to a large audience, possibly influencing the selection of imagery for Vesuvian homes.

The section ends with another strong contribution, by Livingston, which examines a sacrificial relief from Anatolia. Livingston argues that the bulls used for sacrifices were likely bred specifically to suit the region’s environmental conditions. This chapter is one of the best exemplifications of the volume’s title, as it demonstrates how objects can reveal information that cannot be gleaned from other sources.

The third section, ‘The Rhetoric of Empire’, begins with a contribution by the late A. Stewart, which provides a summary of Rome’s dominance over Samothrace and its religious policies. It is wide-ranging in its source material, which is handled somewhat indiscriminately. P. Holliday’s chapter looks at the Mausoleum of Augustus, arguing that it purposefully deployed ‘influential Etruscan elements to serve specifically Roman ideological objectives’ (p. 240), including emphasising the link between Etruscan ideas of cyclical time and Augustan ideas of renewal. This idea links smoothly with the preceding chapter by B. Frischer, who examines the Meridian of Augustus. The chapter is densely written, making it challenging for non-specialist readers, but it includes a useful appendix for aficionados.

T. Nogales-Basarrate continues the Augustan theme, discussing a group of sculptures of Aeneas and Romulus from Augusta Emerita in Spain. The chapter lacks a fully defined conclusion, but it argues credibly that depictions of Rome’s founding myths were appropriate for a newly founded colony. Both Schertz’s and S. Wood’s chapters explore the depiction of mythological creatures. Schertz examines the Forum Marsyas, arguing that the appearance of the image was indicative of expanding Roman influence, while Wood, on the other hand, assesses the representation of griffins and phoenixes on specific monuments, characterising their appearance as expressions of allegiance to the Roman Emperor.

The fourth section, ‘Craft, Practice, and Production’, is perhaps the most eclectic. It begins with a stimulating chapter by O. Doonan on a cup by the Attic painter Brygos, which Doonan argues is an excellent example of affirmative images of women becoming popular in Italy earlier than in Greece. The section is concluded by a particularly interesting chapter by Yeomans on a much-overlooked cache of 32 surgical and pharmacological objects found in the Bulgarian town of Devyna (ancient Odessos). Despite the limited contextual information available, Yeomans provides an absorbing discussion of the tools and sensibly concludes that they belonged to a reasonably successful surgeon who treated a wide variety of medical situations.

Between these two chapters are contributions by B. Barr-Sharrar and A. Giumlia-Mair. The former explores the influence of Greek plunder on Roman fine dining vessels, including a discussion of the frescoes at Oplontis, which Barr-Sharrar rightly suggests might include representations of looted goods. It is slightly odd, however, that there is no mention of the body of scholarship that suggests that these frescoes depicted stage sets. Giumlia-Mair’s chapter takes a detailed look at Augustan metallurgical innovations, asserting boldly that they can be compared in significance to the revolutionary introduction of bronze in the Middle Bronze Age.

The final section, ‘After Antiquity: Restoration, Forgery, Reception’, begins with C. Lyons’s contribution examining the Capitoline Museums’ ‘Lion Attacking a Horse’ statue and its cultural resonance both in pre-Roman and post-Roman times. K. Lapatin’s chapter separates the modern from the ancient in the exploration of the widely imitated gem carver, Gnaios, making several insightful new identifications and well-reasoned disagreements with current identifications.

L. Nolan’s following chapter explores black stones in Roman churches, often thought to be Roman weights, but in fact associated with Christian martyred saints. She looks at the intriguing representation of these stones in early modern visual culture and discusses them as torture devices. An equally thought-provoking contribution is made by D. Boschung, exploring early modern guides to ancient portraiture and questioning the intellectual underpinnings of their early identifications. H.R. Goette’s chapter, somewhat less impactfully, examines the restoration of a specific ancient limestone statue, which he argues has been restored with a head from another work.

The section concludes with two chapters discussing imitation Roman sarcophagi. R. von Dippe describes the process of discerning fakes and defends the evident importance of studying fraudulent works to improve our knowledge of authentic antiquities. R. Cohon rounds off the volume by investigating a sarcophagus long thought to be a forgery, but which Cohon astutely identifies as an ancient chest with a modern relief carving.

Overall, the contributions are individually thought-provoking but largely self-contained, partly because the interpretative framework and recurring themes of the volume, such as the relationship between text and image, the difficulties surrounding provenance and the complexities of object biographies, are not addressed in a concluding chapter. Concluding remarks could have drawn together the diverse case studies presented and defined the volume’s position within the current scholarly discussions surrounding the value and limitations of interdisciplinary studies.

By drawing attention to the variety and complexity of ancient archaeological material, Why Ancient Objects Matter is an appreciated contribution to the study of materiality in the ancient world, and it includes many chapters that will be enriching to scholars working in fields such as ancient portraiture, gem carving, mythological iconography and ancient architecture.