Most women in Livy's well-known work Ab urbe condita (AUC) are usually seen as literary representations. These women appear sporadically as relevant actors in some of the most critical events in Rome's history. However, they are used as gendered instruments with a narrative purpose: instructing on issues that concern a male-driven society suffering its worst state crisis by the end of the first century bce.

Using a multidisciplinary method focused mainly on elements from linguistics and sociology, K. covers characteristic attributes of the construction of identity and otherness while discussing Livy's literary representation of women. Although these are helpful elements for understanding gender conception throughout history, this work is not an approach to the historicity of these women but to how Livy used them to build a gender narrative within his ‘AUC project’ (K.'s term). The title Livy's Women. Crisis, Resolution, and the Female in Rome's Foundation History could imply that K.'s work might focus on studying Roman women. Instead, it is a solid hermeneutical work sharpened by the episodes in which Livy included and elaborated on some of the most iconic female characters in Roman history.

In Chapter 1, ‘AUC History. Women and the Art of Exemplary Storytelling’, K. reveals that his research will not focus on women as historical entities but on why Livy decided to include them in his work when history was supposed to focus on an exclusive all-male cast. K. shows Livy portraying women, imitations of fictional and actual female characters who serve as exemplae and fulfill a convenient purpose.

In Chapter 2, ‘Gendered Collectives in Livy. The agmen mulierum and Independent Female Demonstrations in AUC History’, K. illustrates how women are described as an active collective. This section begins by alluding to the account of Hortensia's rebellion recorded in Appian (BC 4.33) and Valerius Maximus (8.8.3). By discussing this renowned episode K. gives context to non-normative interactions (p. 64) between Roman men and women, which occasionally conclude in female collective unrestricted interventions (p. 93). Following this line of thought, K. exposes similar literary AUC passages that show women engage in the public arena: the Sabine women; Coriolanus and Veturia; Cato and the lex Oppia (pp. 71ff.). K.'s elucidation returns to focus on AUC's configuration to reveal consistent similarities between these narratives and the events experienced by Livy and his contemporaries.

K. dedicates Chapter 3, ‘The Rhetoric of the Unfamiliar. Non-Roman Women in AUC History’, to delving into Livy's discursive system, presenting female speeches compiled by Livy. K. applies selected techniques of sociology to propose a contrasting view in AUC's events where women take to the streets and engage in challenging situations. According to K. each character performs a specific role in AUC: on the one hand this role was assigned to them by their gender as it was understood in Livy's age. On the other hand they were also pictured as expected actors providing a performance within the story. Thanks to K.'s careful study, readers are able to observe a new exemplum abundant in characters who are stereotypical female representations. One can spot this in K.'s meticulous examination of the suppression of the Bacchanalian cult activities in 186 bce (pp. 109ff.). Clearly, this is one of the most puzzling stories in gender studies in antiquity, yet K. focuses on the construction of the discourse rather than on women as entities and reveals uncertainties concerning the outlook of the female collective in this episode.

Premises presented in the previous chapter lead K. to conclude that some women, individually and collectively, overstepped on the all-male public sphere, inferring that there are distinct spaces assigned to the two genders mentioned throughout this work. This concept leads to Chapter 4, ‘Topoi, Tropes, and the Female. The Rhetorical Memory of the Annalist Tradition’, where K. clarifies that Livy employs women with an exemplary purpose in such a changing political and social setting as Rome. Exposing a pattern of Livian literary discourse, K. exemplifies it with several female characters in AUC. K. shows how Livy promotes the traditional Roman moral virtues through actors, language and a precise narrative structure. Hence, women might have been part of this strategy all along, as they were employed to illuminate his contemporaries about their own present matters (p. 181).

The ‘Afterword’ is a unique final chapter that does not summarise the preceding material with some conclusions. Drawing on the previously shown approach, K. tries to shed light on some of the most thoughtful questions of ancient history and gender studies, such as how Graeco-Roman society understood gender, the originality of Livy to include women in his work as a literary ‘gendered component’ (p. 216) or the traditional dichotomy of gender in public and private spaces. However, this is a fundamental topic and much discussed among scholars, which perhaps would have been worth elaborating in more depth.

K.'s analysis is thorough and introduces specific data on the number of references to women throughout the preserved documentation. By means of the tables included (pp. 12, 14, 72, 111, 115, 134, 148, 201), readers can visualise the collected data. Throughout his study K.'s approach echoes with varied purposes: from the exposition of names and events alluding to women to narrative elements that unveil Livy's characteristic process. Moreover, K.'s method belongs to hermeneutics, in terms of its exhaustive analysis of AUC, and to sociology, since it regularly alludes to aspects of identity, otherness (p. 107) and other attributes of this field. Another of K.'s efficient approaches is a linguistic analysis based on the use of terms carefully chosen by Livy in order to meet his instructive purposes (p. 208). Similarly, K. discerns and discloses how fictional and real women alike are always shown from a male perspective embodying Livy's period and society.

Livy and his depiction of women in AUC have been a matter of several research papers on gender and women in antiquity (among the most significant see S.E. Smethurst, G&R 19 [1950]; E.E. Best, CJ 65 [1970]; J.-M. Claassen, Acta Classica 41 [1998]); we should re-emphasise that this is not the focus of K.'s volume. Instead, it is a narrative and linguistic examination of AUC, aiming at Livy's interaction with and description of the women included. Although the title chosen by K. may evoke it, Livy's Women is not a work focused on women as historical beings but rather as tools handled for achieving an objective.

Thanks to the information collected in such an exquisite and detailed way, K.'s book is essential for students and scholars interested in the study and narrative composition of the end of the Republic. It is an exhaustive and rigorous work on Livy's literary expertise and his practical incorporation of women as relevant actors at crucial moments in the history of Rome.