BOOKREVIEWS 371 The “counterfactual” approachthatgoverns muchof Champion’s discussion is not a method to be imitated for a professional scholarly audience, though I did finditauseful teaching tool for myundergraduate Roman religion class in spring, 2018. We began with the stark black-and-white elite-instrumentalist model and then examined how Champion nuances it. The class found Champion’s prose frustrating, with the author repeating himself and poorly signposting intricate arguments. All told, this is an eccentric but provocative treatment of a fascinating topic. JOSHUA LANGSETH TheUniversityof Iowa,joshua-langseth@uiowa.edu * * * * * Communication, Love, and Death in Homer and Virgil: An Introduction. By STEPHEN RIDD. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2017. Pp. x + 258. Paperback,$29.95.ISBN 978-0-8061-5729-0. This book examines the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Aeneid along three loosely defined thematic axes. Despite the subtitle, it is difficult to know exactly what it is introducing, or to whom. Communication, love and death do not naturally cohere as a single category, nor is the book limited to the intersection of the three; it is perhaps best taken as eight independent essays on related topics, occasionally overlapping. The target readership is similarly undefined. For the undergraduate, the book may be somewhat too preoccupied with diffuse particulars; for the scholar, its utility is compromised by a handful of production decisions. The first is its organization. Each chapter deals with some aspect of communication, love or death, or some combination thereof (“Singing with the Aid of the Muses,” “Singing and Celebration,” “Supernatural Singing,” “Sons and Mothers,” “Helen and the Men in Her Life,” “Parting,” “Communicating with the Dead,” and “Deaths and Endings”). Each, without exception, is divided into three parts. Some chapters take up the three works in turn; in those that do not, however,the rationale for the lockstep trisection is unclear. The secondis the lackof Latin andGreek.Ridd’s observations are basedon his translations—solid, nuanced and idiomatic, but translations nevertheless. Any medium of exchange entails a certain reductionism; this is no exception. At 372 BOOKREVIEWS Aeneid 12.908–11, for example, Ridd offers: “And as in our sleep, when the languid quiet of the night lies heavy / on our eyes, we seem to be trying in vain to run forwardeagerly,/ andin the middle of our attempts we fall exhausted” (218). He concludes his discussion with the observation that this passage “describes a wider range of frustratedactivityandembraces bothnarrator and reader in its use of the word ‘we.’” Certainly Vergil is engaging us through our experiences; what he wrote, though, was “ac velut in somnis, oculos ubi languida pressit / nocte quies, nequiquam avidos extendere cursus / velle videmur et in mediis conatibus aegri / succidimus.” I do not think it is mere pedantry to observe that he uses no word “we” here—neither the English nor any corresponding Latin pronoun. Elevating a derivative text over the original distances us from what we are trying to understand. This would certainly be more problematic if Ridd’s translations were not as good as they are. Still, I found myself constantly setting the book aside to track down text that could easily have been provided. Whether an undergraduate reader wouldhave the same reaction is hardtosay.Perhaps what I see as alimitation here would,for another,be an advantage. Finally, because the book is not so much a single extended argument as a looselyconnectedsetof reflections on three differentworks,differentreaders will approach it from a number of different angles. This fairly cries out for an index locorum, but none is provided. A well-made index only partly makes good the deficiency. Ridd’s critical approach is reasonable and accessible, and he avoids excessive jargon and abstractions. He nevertheless takes as postulates a few claims that are far from universally acknowledged. He argues that the Aeneid is distinguished by “a grand narrative,” and that its central thesis is that Imperial Rome is effectively Troy reincarnated. One can hardly deny that there is some kind of grand narrative at work, but its import has been substantially questioned by scholars Ridd himself cites, and the jury is still out. Similarly, to create a level playing field for his comparisons, he summarily announces that he will treat...