This book is a valuable contribution to the growing body of literature on the role of dogs in the ancient world, such as I. Fiore and F. Lugli’s Dogs, Past and Present: An Interdisciplinary Study (2023) and H. Autengruber-Thüry’s Hunde in der römischen Antike: Rassen/Typen – Zucht – Haltung und Verwendung (2021). Focusing on Roman Britain specifically, not only does this book collect together an impressive amount of data, which is of great value in its own right, but its post-humanist approach provides fresh perspectives to be explored and serves as a good demonstration of the application of focused material studies to wider theoretical discussions.

As the title of the book indicates, the focus of the work is a case study of dogs within Roman Britain. F. organises the discussion into two principal sections: ‘Real Dogs and Metaphors’, which discusses how dogs were perceived in life and cultural traditions within Roman society, and ‘Dogs as a Material of Religion’, which engages directly with their role as agents in ritual behaviour. The flexibility and diversity of ritual practice are well attested in the book; a closing discussion of the application of J. Webster’s ‘creolisation’ approach to Roman provincial culture proves especially useful in contextualising how dogs were adapted into a plurality of ritual behaviours (pp. 171–4). This is then followed by appendices of the data utilised in the study, which will prove useful for researchers collecting data on sites in Roman Britain, ritual behaviour, ancient dogs and zooarchaeology more broadly. As the discussion’s focus is on dogs found in ritual deposits, there is also a wealth of information on the finds assemblages of structured deposits, which will prove of value to anyone studying small finds and ritual behaviour in the Iron Age and Roman periods. The work is well researched, though some existing literature on the topic is surprisingly omitted, perhaps most notably K. Smith’s Guides, Guards and Gifts to the Gods: Domesticated Dogs in the Art and Archaeology of Iron Age and Roman Britain (2006).

While the material is useful for anyone interested in Roman Britain, ritual practice and the experience of animals in the ancient world, what makes this book stand out is its post-humanist approach, which brings a new depth to the material under discussion and makes it relevant to a much broader audience. Removing humans from the centre of the axis upon which the material under investigation is judged allows for a more comprehensive view of how the diverse agents engaged and what it truly meant for the individual beings involved. F. encapsulates this in the closing sentence of the work: ‘Culture, after all, is not so much a conservative tradition as it is a creative project, and in Roman Britain all sorts of people and all sorts of dogs had a hand in its making’ (p. 181).

Perhaps one of the most meaningful aspects of the book is the emphasis throughout on developing a sense of empathy with the subject and appreciating the material as representing living things with their own agency and personal experience; as F. reminds us, ‘they (dogs) are living things with wills, emotions, and intentions all their own, making them actors in their own right’ (p. 32). All too often in our discipline, we can take too detached and ‘clinical’ a view of what we are studying and, in so doing, can underappreciate the true value and meaning of the study being undertaken; that is, its potential to illuminate the lived experience of fellow beings and to provide a better understanding of the lived condition of the past in hopes of contributing to a better lived experience in the future. F. makes very good use of the concept of ‘personhood’ in this respect, discussing how some dogs in the past (as in the present) are granted the identity of being a ‘person’ (respected as an individual with agency and value) and many are denied ‘personhood’; their discussion throughout of ‘collared’ vs ‘un-collared’ dogs and the treatment each receives is quite illuminating in this regard.

This concept is then extended to the discussion of humans and how some are granted ‘personhood’, whilst many are denied this through the negation of their right to physical autonomy or personal value. Roman Britain makes an especially good environment for this case study, as it was a highly militarised environment throughout the Roman period, contributing to a heightened awareness of those in power and those subject to said power, and as the province is well researched and offers ample material with which to explore the colonial dynamics at work. As such, the post-humanist approach to exploring the role of dogs in Roman Britain illuminates the world which dog and human mutually occupied, with their own motivations and experiences, whilst showing clear parallels between those of both species who were denied personhood as ‘both were victims of systems of subjugation and subordination that suppressed agency and threatened violence’ (p. 79).

While this book is a valuable contribution to the study of dogs in the ancient world and particularly their role in ritual sacrifice during the Roman period, its broader appeal and likely most far-reaching impact is its methodological approach and the insistence on encouraging readers to look at all the agents, both human and non-human, as autonomous beings in their own right who must be approached and understood as persons in themselves, even if they were denied that distinction by those around them during their lifetimes. It is through this approach that we can grow to understand the complexity of interactions between agents and their roles in ancient societies. Also, it encourages readers to reflect on who is granted personhood and who is labelled as ‘other’ within their own society and, as such, makes a timely contribution by reminding us of the need for empathy both in historical academic studies and in how this research applies to our understanding of and engagement with our contemporary world.