The Roman Citizenship.

Oxford University Press, 1996. 2nd edition. 496p. Black gilt titled hard bound. Sandpiper edition. ?Sherwin-White?s first edition became the basic book on Roman citizenship when it was published in 1939. With admirable lucidity, he sketched the development of his subject, seen as a part of constitutional law, in a historical framework from the sixth century before Christ to the Constitutio Antoniniana of A.D. 212. He then appended a section on the attitude of provincials towards Roman citizenship from republican times down to the panegyrists of the fourth century after christ.Throughout the book, the synthesis of evidence was masterly, from Livy and the elder Pliny to the panegyrists with constant reference to inscriptions, papyri, and the Justinian ?Digest?. It was the author?s policy, foresighted in 1939 and wisely continued in the second edition, to translate most of the passages cited into English. (?) The book is definitive because of its clear and concise analysis of a long historical period and because of the judicious choice of evidence pertaining not just to a part of the Roman land-empire but to its entirety. Now we have a second edition, and the author has added throughout the book several section, which take into account significant scholarship of the intervening years. (?) The added parts include a discussion, of the Social War (pp.134-149), incorporating the research of E. Badian, P.A. Brunt, E. Gabba, and E.T. Salmon. (?) In an appendix (pp.190-200), the work on early Latium by L.R. Taylor and A. Alfoeldy is discussed (?). In Part III, ?Technical Problems of Roman Status? (pp.291-394), all of which is new, I find a number of interesting discussions [dual Roman citizenship - viritane grants - ND]. The book?s index is good, and an excellent bibliography of work since 1939 is added (?). The up-to-date version of Sherwin-White?s definitive historical survey belongs on the shelves of every historian of Rome today.? (MICHAEL WOLOCH in The Classical World, 1975/76,pp.280-282).