While the Romans could not have laid claim to having been the first among ancient peoples to produce a disquisition on the moral imperatives of waging ‘rightful’ wars (the composers of the Mahabharata, to the best of my knowledge, garner that distinction), they were preoccupied to an extraordinary degree with the proper conduct of the ‘just war’, as evidenced by the ancient institution of the college of twenty fetial priests, religious experts on correct and pious ritual declarations of war, who were supposedly created in the time of king Numa, or perhaps Tullus Hostilius. Among our literary sources, Cicero, in particular, elaborated upon the theory of the bellum iustum, or ‘just war’. In expounding upon the requisite conditions for conducting warfare rightfully, he writes that a state (ciuitas) ought not to conduct war without good cause or on account of anger (propter iram). He avers that as long as it is possible to defend the property and lives of the citizenry by any other means, war is to be avoided. Whenever war is absolutely necessary, he believed, all due circumspection and observance of high principle (magnum officium in bello) must prevail; and the Romans as victors must exercise clemency in regards to those conquered by Roman arms (Off. 1.11.34–6; Resp. 3.23.34–5). Virgil, of course, put the latter mandate most famously (Aen. 6.847–53), agreeing with Cicero that it was by these qualities in the conduct of warfare that the gods had granted universal dominion to the Romans. And the theory of the just war has commanded the attention of western thinkers ever since, from Augustine to Michael Walzer and beyond; unsurprisingly so, since warfare has been as endemic in our world as it was in that of the Romans.

R.’s slim volume, therefore, takes its place among a vast literature, and its purview is for the most part contained within fairly narrow bounds: Roman intellectuals’ perspectives on warfare during the republican period. Indeed, Cicero and Livy comprise the great bulk of citations in the index locorum. The first chapter wades through the semantic registers of the matrix of the Latin words ius, iustus, iustitium and iustitia; the second deals with the formal mechanisms for beginning war: iustitium indicere, bellum indicere and iustae causae. In the notes to these chapters we have a fairly extensive catalogue of ancient sources, but one feels that some of this ground was already well covered in the classic 1963 study of J. Hellegouarc'h, Le Vocabulaire latin des relations et des partis politiques sous la République (oddly, this book does not appear in the notes or bibliography). In the third chapter R. considers how the idea of pax, constant and romanticised (p. 45, ‘un ideale costantemente – mi verrebbe da dire “romanticamente”’), enables Roman discourses on war. ‘Peace’ turns out to be in most cases a constitutive act following military victory, whereby the conqueror unilaterally determines the post-war settlement, ostensibly of course to the benefit of all, thus legitimising the only valid exercise of military force (Rome's) and the establishment of Roman sovereignty. The fourth chapter briefly considers the three essential components of Roman war declarations: (1) just cause; (2) the lex de bello indicendo; and (3) the actual indictio belli according to fetial procedure. The lengthy fifth chapter delves more deeply into the declarative procedures upon which Roman wars must be conducted. A brief final chapter somewhat superficially deals with the ‘ideological wake’ of the conception of the bellum iustum, ranging from Aristotle to Tertullian to Grotius to Pufendorf to the charter for the United Nations.

In short, R.’s approach is formalistic. The volume will supplement more wide-ranging and ambitious works on the question of the ‘just war’ in the Roman world. R.’s careful attention to some of the nuances of political terminology in the Latin language and sensitivity to ideological valences of Roman writers of the late Republic and early Principate is commendable, though the book does not really engage with larger political, military and philosophical issues, which are addressed, to some extent, in other recent treatments of the subject, as for example in M. Kostial's Kriegerisches Rom? Zur Frage von Unvermeidbarkeit und Normalität militärischer Konflikte in der römischer Politik (1995), or F. Pina Polo's Contra Arma Verbis: Der Redner vor dem Volk in der später römischen Republik (1996). I shall close by mentioning four such issues. First, I should have liked greater analysis of how the language of the ‘just war’ actually played out on the ground, as it were, on the floor of the curia, as well as in the field of military operations. A fine example of the former problem posed by this question is the confused and indecisive argument in the Senate in 264 b.c.e., when the senators found themselves in a moral quandary as to whether to send aid to the ‘Mamertine’ usurpers in Sicilian Messana (Polyb. 1.10.1–11.3); as for events militiae, the individual Roman commander exercised enormous independent decision-making powers when on campaign, and he frequently engaged in what we might call rogue behaviour in the field. In this regard, what should we think about the atrocities committed in Greece by the consul P. Licinius Crassus and the unscrupulous praetor C. Lucretius Gallus in 171 b.c.e. (Liv. 42.63.3–12; 43.4.5–12; 43.7.5–8.10)? Roman ideology of the bellum iustum is tempered by such considerations of actual Roman behaviours (on which, see Rich's Declaring War [1976] and Eckstein's Senate and General [1987]). Second, one might now expect scholarship on this topic to engage more fully with the work of political scientists and international relations theorists, especially since the publication of A.M. Eckstein's ground-breaking studies on Roman expansion from a Neo-Realist perspective; or P.J. Burton's contrasting ‘Constructivist’ reading of Roman interstate relations (2010; see also P. Low's 2007 ‘Constructivist’ interpretation of ancient Greek international diplomacy). Third, there is much more to say here about the seismic shift in the nature of international diplomacy, war declarations and individuals’ (both elites and non-elites) military opportunities as a result of the transition from Republic to Principate. Although the Romans tralaticiously adhered to the ritual fetial spear-throw into ground around the temple of Bellona at Rome (the fetials are last attested in 359 c.e.: Amm. Marc. 19.2.6) – as late as 178 c.e. the emperor Marcus Aurelius declared war by hurling a bloodied, ritual spear into the designated enemy territory (Dio 72.33.3) – the realities of just about all aspects of Roman war-making, including the formal initiation of hostilities, changed dramatically under the emperors. Finally, the significance of religion and ritual practices throughout the history of the Republic in beginning and conducting wars goes far beyond formal procedures, technical protocols and juridical legitimation. The painstaking attention to the minutest details of ritual injunctions by Roman aristocrats, even as generals on campaign in the most harrowing of circumstances, demands that we reconsider that old, somewhat out of fashion, can of worms: the question of elite belief. R.’s book will be of little help on issues such as these, but within its set parameters, it is a well-crafted and solidly executed study.