O. and S. have brought together 38 essays by 39 authors. The arrangement is austere: a two-page editorial foreword assigns the papers to thematic strands, which are then obscured by the arrangement of the papers in alphabetical order of contributor. The themes overlap significantly, so that one could envisage some reshuffling. Even the preliminary listing of papers within each theme follows an order that is at times opaque. There is no further editorial comment, and the papers are diverse. As a result, the collection has the character of a miscellany. This impression is reinforced by the fact that the papers – which average a little under fifteen pages, bibliographies included – vary individually between five pages and thirty-three. There is plenty of good and useful scholarship in the book, but it is very much up to the reader how best to read it. Faced with such a volume, the reviewer's first task is simply to give a sense of what lies within. But I shall conclude with some further brief comment.
The first thematic strand is the reflection of mobility in literary sources – a capacious net that the editors further subdivide. For literary portrayals that involve a tension between reality and topos, we have T. Bekker-Nielsen on the wandering years of Dio of Prusa (pp. 25–34); J. Dressler on Diogenes Laertius (pp. 125–36); and J. Engels on Posidonius, Diodorus, Nicolaus of Damascus and Strabo (pp. 159–70). On women, we have N. Zwingmann, examining pilgrim women in late-antique discourse (pp. 531–52). For a military dimension, we have P. Emberger on the shipment by sea of Roman military personnel and material (pp. 149–58); and H. Roelens-Flouneau on the military crossing of watercourses (pp. 425–54). Turning to mythological topics, we have V. Bucciantini on the circulation of the myth of Aeaea, Circe's island (pp. 71–80); and G. Mariotta on the tenth labour of Heracles (pp. 381–8). The remaining four papers in this strand are A. Hartmann's examination of hero cults in relation to the notion of wandering of heroes (pp. 275–92); M. Angelucci's discussion of the Hellenistic Periegesis as a form of travel literature (pp. 11–24); C. Fron on the influence of Egypt on Aelius Aristides (pp. 205–24); and H. Warnecke on geography and speed in the Odyssey (pp. 517–30).
The second main theme concerns what is loosely bracketed as the conditions and effects (‘den Bedingungen und den Nachwirkungen’, p. 9) of mobility. This includes S. Tausend on the motivations behind spatial mobility in archaic Greece (pp. 479–88); J. Fischer on the temple of Artemis at Ephesus as a pilgrim destination in literature and epigraphy (pp. 171–204); K. Geus on mobility in the Red Sea region, with special reference to the Periplus Maris Erythraei and Ptolemy's Geography (pp. 225–40); and M. Rathmann on ancient travel guidance in the form of words and pictures (pp. 411–24). The relationship between mobility and cultural and technical exchange are explored by J. Scherr with reference to the Three Gauls (pp. 455–68); and I. von Bredow on wandering craftsmen between East and West in the period 1,000 to 700 b.c. (pp. 55–70). Other approaches address language, identity and social circumstances in the context of migration. We have A. Ginestí Rosell on the funerary inscriptions of foreigners in Athens (pp. 241–60); L.-M. Günther on the social mobility of resident aliens in Hellenistic cities (pp. 267–74); A. Klingenberg on the ‘Iranian Diaspora’ in Asia Minor (pp. 309–24); and A. Pabst on mobility and stability in the Greek world under Roman rule (pp. 401–10).
The third main theme is the relation between mobility and rulership, or politics. This takes in M. Heil, addressing Roman senators on foreign missions (pp. 293–308); F. Daubner on the alleged restriction of mobility in Macedonia as a tool of Roman rule (pp. 113–24); and I.A. Ladynin on deportation as a tool of Achaemenid rule (pp. 343–54). In this connection, with at least partly political dimensions running through their discussions, we also have F. Cantarelli on mobility between Greece and the northeastern Sporades, with reference to the Philoctetes of Sophocles (pp. 81–98); M.R. Cataudella on the traces of Greek itineraries in the eastern Mediterranean from the late Bronze Age to the Archaic period (pp. 99–112); and S. Bianchetti on the movement of knowledge and skilled persons, with reference to early Ptolemaic Alexandria (pp. 35–48). We also have a close study of a basalt stele from Edessa, by E. Lafli and E. Christof, throwing light on the question of Roman influence (pp. 355–66); and M. Linder's chapter on artistic mobility across lines of conflict in classical Greece (pp. 367–80).
Some of the foregoing papers, as will be obvious already, focus on individual authors (for example Dio of Prusa) or specific groups (for example artists) in their approaches to literary or historical problems. But the treatment of defined groups, and in one case an individual, as focal points in themselves, serves to scoop up the remaining papers as a fourth group. We have J. Bintliff on the rise of long-distance, aristocratic estate-ownership in the early period of Roman dominance in the Mediterranean (pp. 49–54); K. Dross-Krüpe on the regional mobility involved in the circulation of goods in Roman Egypt (pp. 137–48); K. Tausend on the mobility of occupational groups in the Mycenaean world (pp. 469–78); H. Grassl on labour migration in Roman frontier provinces (pp. 261–6); I. Tsigarida on salt traders in the Roman Empire (pp. 505–16); M. Theotikou on the protection of the ekecheiria for pilgrims from the archaic to the Hellenistic period (pp. 489–504); E. Olshausen on Cicero's movements (pp. 389–400); and P. Kritzinger on the final movement of the Cimbri and Teutones (pp. 325–42).
Some brief observations are in order. The overlap between themes makes one wonder about the clarity of thought behind the project. The discussion of military topics by Emberger and Roelens-Flouneau, for example, could be allocated no less credibly to rulership and politics, rather than literary presentations; while Fischer's discussion of the Artemision in epigraphy and literature could be assigned to literary representations at least as euphoniously as to the conditions and effects of mobility. Examples could be multiplied.
Such fluidity reflects an inherent weakness in the choice of themes. Literary sources form a category of evidence. By contrast, the conditions and effects of mobility, and the relation of mobility to rulership and politics, are structural topics of historical interpretation. A focus on individuals is again different in kind. Greater consistency about the underlying rationale would allow for a more effective delineation of contents, and hence a more analytically useful shape to the collection. What rationale might one apply? Even when spatial mobility is involved, it tends to be linked to some other structural question. My own inclination would be to delineate between political, economic, social and cultural emphases. Such an approach, which the contents would permit, would support a much more coherent discussion about the many different forms that ‘mobility’ could take.
There is, however, one timely lesson that does emerge from the volume as it stands. Migration, an important form of spatial mobility, is very ancient and was often positive. It is a welcome antidote to the ubiquitous xenophobia of modern times.
