Reviewed by: Lament. Studies in the Ancient Mediterranean and Beyond Christos Tsagalis Ann Suter (ed.). Lament. Studies in the Ancient Mediterranean and Beyond. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Pp. xi, 288. $74.00 (pb.). ISBN 978-0-19-533692-4. Lament constitutes one of the most universal aspects of ancient societies and as such enjoys an extremely prolific representation in various forms of art (literature, vase-painting, sculpture, etc.). Despite the fact that the study of lament (as well as mourning and death) in Ancient Greece has received considerable scholarly attention during the last thirty-five years, we are short of comparative studies examining lament within the wider perspective of cross-cultural material. Seen in this light, this collection of essays constitutes a timely contribution to the study of this complex phenomenon, which is now expanded to other literary genres, cultures, and periods of the ancient mediterranean world. In her introduction Suter gives a brief overview of the significant progress made in this field, mainly on the basis of the seminal book of Margaret Alexiou (The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition, Cambridge, Mass., 2002]), and summarizes the principal findings of up-to-date scholarship on lament: a female-gendered (but not exclusive) activity marking women as powerful figures who control a special social domain, pose a threat to male public sphere, and have consequently activated reactions, legal but also philosophical, aiming at restraining, downgrading, and even forbidding this perilous outburst of feminine authority. The book can be divided into three parts spanning time (more ancient to more recent) and space (from east to west) in the ancient Mediterranean: (a) Near-Eastern (Sumerian and Hittite) material; (b) Greek culture (Bronze Age iconography, Iliadic laments, classical iconography, tragedy, comedy, Hellenistic poetr); (c) Roman lament (Lucan and Roman funerary ritual). What follows is only a selection from this rich volume. The second and largest part is concentrated on Ancient Greece. B. Burke studies the Cycladic folded-arm figurines from the Early Bronze Age, the Tanagra larnakes from Boeotia, the painted sarcophagus from Ayia Triada in Crete, and the Warrior Vase from Mycenae. Burke's interpretations are thought-provoking and challenging, especially the last one which takes account of the place where the vase was found. C. Perkell's chapter is a welcoming contribution to a much discussed topic: she rightly emphasizes the importance of placing the formal laments for Hector in the Iliad at the epic's closure and argues that the content of the utterances is at odds with the kind of memorialization Hector himself had wanted. R. Martin embarks on a detailed analysis of Helen's diction that is replete with features and strategies mainly attested in the Iliadic gooi and argues that she emblematizes the subgenre of lament. K. Stears offers a very convincing presentation of the mourning role of women within their oikos and the polis. Suter tackles the highly interesting and rather neglected topic of male lament in Greek tragedy. Building on the foundations of solid metrical analyses and stylistic features of tragic lamentation, she argues that male lament had always been an integral part of Greek tragedy and that the negative [End Page 545] flagging of male expression of grief may have been a fifth-century construct, heavily influenced by the introduction of the institutionalized epitaphioi logoi. A. Karanika examines the use of lament as parody in fifth-century comedy and shows how lament is employed in the Thesmophoriazusae as a form of political commentary, fostering restoration and healing in a city wreacked by troubles. The Greek section of Lament ends with O. Levaniouk's stimulating study of the interrelation between wedding and lamentation features in a puzzling fourth-century b.c. hexameter poem, Erinna's Distaff. The third part of the collection is devoted to Roman culture. A. Keith explores how Lucan uses the theme of lament in his Bellum Civile. She convincingly argues that the poet deliberately blurs the boundaries between male and female, when both Cordus and Cornelia lament Pompey in a rather spontaneous manner, and proceeds with a full-scale exploitation of Cornelia's private pleas for public vengeance. Dutsch studies the function of the nenia, the female chant representing a kind...