January - 2025

Female Agency in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Liverpool University Press, 2024, 238 pages, £115) is a volume edited by Gilles, Frank, Plastic and Webb, which brings together studies on female agency in various spatial contexts and sociocultural themes in the Mediterranean world, from the 7th century BCE to the 6th century CE. Using inscriptions, material vestiges, and diverse literary sources, the authors seek ways to understand the forms of individual and collective agency of women within their relationships of power and oppression. However, despite the recognition of both the multidimensional character of identity and domination relations and the theoretical potential for understanding the agency of subordinated women, the majority of the chapters focus on those belonging to the elites. Notable exceptions include Frank's studies on the strategies for resolving everyday problems through oracles in Dodona, and Longfellow's research on acquisitions and tomb constructions by women in Pompeii.

In Music, Politics and Society in Ancient Rome (Cambridge University Press, 2023, 284 pages, £75), Harry Morgan investigates how musical practices and experiences were embedded in social relations and political actions in the Roman world between the 2nd century BCE and the 1st century CE. Drawing on a diverse range of sources, from philosophical treatises on music to funerary inscriptions of professional musicians, Morgan seeks to demonstrate the social diversity in the ways music was experienced and performed. In doing so, he explores the musical experience of various social actors in different contexts, such as performances, religious festivals, lavish banquets, public squares, streets, and tabernae. His study highlights how the musical phenomenon structured and legitimized a range of identity distinctions, including those related to labor, socioeconomic status, age, and gender. When Morgan turns to the musical tastes and practices of subordinated groups, he seeks to understand them in their dialogical relations, particularly in contrast to the preferences expressed in public performances by the political elites.