336 Arctos 42 (2008) traffic jams were not heard. Van Tilburg introduces the idea of a circuit route circling the city following the pomerium borders ("a missed change: the pomerium as circular road", p. 160– 167) as a solution for many traffic jams but presents several reasons why such roads were not build and notes that "circular roads were still an exception in early modern times" (p. 166). All in all the book serves best as an introduction to traffic and congestion in the ancient world – evoking thoughts and inviting students to find out more. The summaries of chapters and their sections are valuable in presenting the main points. Several traffic-related terms are explained in chapter 1 and thus the book serves as a good handbook for concepts that are rarely explained elsewhere. In sum, the chapters work better alone as individual units; reading Traffic and Congestion in the Roman Empire from cover to cover, one observes that it contains a lot of repetition. Heini Ynnilä Art and Inscriptions in the Ancient World. Edited by ZAHRA NEWBY – RUTH LEADERNEWBY. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007. ISBN 0-521-86851-3. XVII, 303 pp. GBP 65. Images, things and text are common combinations in many ancient contexts such as buildings, burials, brick stamps, and pottery and many other material objects also feature writing as part of the whole. Traditionally, these two, the material and the text, are divided among different experts; the linguist studies the text and the archaeologist or the art historian the object or image. More rarely, the two are studied together, as integral parts of the same object, monument or building. The volume edited by Zahra Newby and Ruth Leader-Newby is an attempt to examine texts, images and objects together in order to see whether the whole is bigger than just the sum of its parts. The volume consists of three parts. The first deals with juxtapositions of texts and images on document reliefs, ash chests, wall paintings and as part of a sculptural collection in a building. The second part combines images and texts as labels on pottery, reliefs and mosaics. The third section discusses statues and associated texts. The authors of the ten chapters are archaeologists, art historians and historians. The case studies come from various periods ranging from archaic Greek pottery to Late Antique mosaics and covering the extent of the entire Roman Empire. In the first part, Alastair Blanshard discusses an Attic inscribed memorial relief erected in 403 BC to honor the loyalty of Samos towards Athens during the Peloponnesian war. The relief shows Athena (representing Athens, naturally) and Hera (representing Samos) shaking hands. It is noted that the image can be regarded as ambiguous – the deities, particularly Hera, could be interpreted in many ways, but the text clarifies the connections. The harmonious monument is in contradiction to the poor state Samos actually was in relation to Athens and it was perhaps more intended to be viewed by Athenians as a reminder of their past greatness and the possibilities of the new era. The content of the text is less harmonious, showing the Athenians' inability to fulfil the promises of friendship. Glenys Davies writes about Roman ash chests and the inscriptions on them, particularly about the identity of the deceased and others mentioned in the text. The connection between the two is often ambiguous and hard (if not impossible) to understand; e.g., why was a scene depicting De novis libris iudicia 337 a woman chosen for a deceased male? Bettina Bergmann's topic is the paintings with Greek poems written on them in the exedra of the House of the Epigrams (V.1.18) in Pompeii. She connects the texts to the literary culture of the first century BC Pompeian society visible in many ways in the city. Bergmann is interested in the viewing process and possibilities in a small space, but does not discuss how the paintings and texts would have been visible to the users of the exedra. The modern visitor walks around the room and is able to appreciate the paintings in full daylight, but is this how the space might have been used in the past? The central panel in the back wall was the main picture but how would it have been possible to place, e.g., couches for reclining in such a way that the visitors would have been able to see the paintings and also the garden at the same time? Michael Squire writes about the villa of Tiberius in Sperlonga, particularly of its famous grotto with statues and a poem describing the scene inscribed on its walls. The inscription is much later than the time the grotto was built and decorated. Squire argues that its intention was to offer a literary interpretation of the statue group, but also to function as an incentive for discussion among viewers. Robin Osborne and Alexandra Pappas examine writing on archaic Greek pottery with the intention of comparing Athenian and non-Athenian practices. The authors study the dates and types of inscribed pots in Athens, Corinth and Boeotia. Their findings indicate that the Corinthian pots were the ones mostly written on in the earliest periods and that most writings appear on sympotic vessels. The types of inscriptions also vary among the three towns: labels and tags are most common, but the Boeotians tended to sign their pots more often than the other two. Writing was used in varying ways in different communities from the beginning. Zahra Newby discusses the Archelaos relief, interpreted as depicting the apotheosis of Homer. The recognition of the figures in and interpretation of the content of the relief depends largely on inscriptions. Newby argues that the text was used to challenge the viewer to make an interpretation rather than to give a precise indication of what was depicted. In this way, the monument is in line with the Hellenistic cultural climate. Ruth Leader-Newby's topic is the inscribed mosaics from the late Roman Empire. The mosaic inscriptions appear in the third century AD and were used for various purposes. The most common of these are labels for motifs in the mosaics which vary in different regions of the Roman world. In the last part on statues and inscriptions, John Ma writes about Hellenistic honorific statues of which usually only the bases have been preserved – texts and images without images. Ma's arguments concern more the grammar of the formulas used in the texts and how these were used to create community. Julia L. Shear studies the reuse of statues and inscriptions in Roman Athens. The old Greek statues were reused to honour important Romans. They were depicted as Athenians emphasizing the interest of the Romans in being connected to Athens, that they were citizens, not merely patrons without integral connections to the community and culture of the city. In the last chapter, Verity Platt discusses the rhetorical texts of three authors (Dio Chrysostom, Favorinus and Themistius) who referred to the reuse of honorific statues and inscriptions and how this practice changed the reading of the monument. The power of Rome is clearly present in the monuments and the author's attitude depended upon his own position in Roman society. The individual chapters are interesting, but the variety is revealed both a blessing and a curse by the last section viewing similar subjects from different points of view. The mere scrape of the surface turns into a varied and detailed contemplation. Many of the topics are also related to relatively unique or rare objects and more common themes are perhaps not 338 Arctos 42 (2008) explored as much as could have been done. The effort to promote interdisciplinary approaches can only be applauded and one can hope it will be continued in further work. Eeva-Maria Viitanen DANIELA BALDONI: Vasi a matrice di età imperiale a Iasos. Missione archeologica italiana di Iasos III. Archaeologica 139. Giorgio Bretschneider Editore, Roma 2003. ISBN 88-7689196-X. IX, 102 pp. EUR 146. After an interval of several years this book resumes the publication of the results of the Italian fieldwork at Iasos, northeast of the Halikarnassos peninsula. This Carian city has a long history and some outstanding remains; it was uninterruptedly inhabited since the Early Bronze Age, and became much later, in 125 BC, a prosperous part of the Roman province of Asia. The two previous volumes of the Italian archaeological mission at Iasos concentrated on monumental remains, and may be seen as fruits of different methodology and aims of research, while the current volume casts light on the city's life in an era of minor creativity. The object of the study is more than three hundred fragments of the fine mould-made ware, from the late first century through the early fourth century. The material, sometimes with hazy chronological contexts, comes from the old excavations, and consequently forms a rather fortuitous choice of this material at Iasos. The catalogue entries are supported either by drawings or photos of most items, and the material is conventionally divided into closed or open shapes and those with plastic decoration, the first group being by far the most numerous. The reader would have appreciated a clarifying word on the principles and the general parallels in the catalogue, and especially on the (former?) typologies, which are now taken for granted in p. 39 ff and p. 49 ff; otherwise the entry texts are quite sufficient. In the introductory part of the book, the presentation of the Imperial mould-made ware in Asia Minor is very good indeed with all the technical details, different production centres and diffusion of the exports. On the concluding part, it appears that there circulated in Iasos both locally made moulded ware as well as Cnidian and Pergamene products. The very enlightening historical and economical review of fine wares in general in the eastern Mediterranean, pp. 85–90, should have been given at least a subtitle of its own; now it is inserted, somewhat unfortunately, under the general heading of conclusions. Putting it instead in the beginning, as a complementary part of the presentation of the moulded ware from Asia Minor, might have proved a better solution and given even more volume to the background of the Imperial fine wares in this part of the ancient world. Despite the vacillating organization of the text, the material has been analyzed with skill, the text in general makes nice reading, and the conclusions are a new opening in the ceramic studies of the area. This volume is also number 139 of the meritorious series Archaeologica. Leena Pietilä-Castrén