As an approach to the visual, iconography has tended to be used in a rather isolated manner, in large part due to scholarship failing to embed the study of images and their meaning in an evaluation of their social, political, cultural and historical context. By narrowing down Panofsky's much broader theory of iconology and focusing on attempts to pinpoint supposedly lost originals and the analysis of isolated media and genres, scholarship has often neglected both the historical context and the overarching communicative system of images. The methodology of iconography can, however, be exceptionally illuminating, for it reveals a complex cognitive process across all ancient media. Immobile media like friezes, life-size sculpture and even media of everyday use like coins or tableware all required a great deal of visual literacy among contemporary viewers, who were, of course, not homogenous but embedded in diverse communities of knowledge, experience and lifestyle. There is therefore a pressing need to re-establish iconography as an approach to ancient images that must, as Panofsky enjoined, be utilised in close connection with the study of images’ production and reception.

Edited by Lea K. Cline and Nathan T. Elkins, The Oxford Handbook of Roman Imagery and Iconography addresses this desideratum, uniting twenty-two high-quality contributions by leading and emerging scholars of Roman imagery in a volume of almost 600 pages. It combines essays with a methodological and theoretical focus and case-studies addressing a wide range of media, arranging them in a balanced and stimulating way which offers the reader a smooth transition from theory to practice. This handbook will have great value for scholars, instructors and students alike, for its articles not only illuminate the methodology of iconography, but first and foremost demonstrate how Roman imagery can be approached from an interdisciplinary perspective in order to grasp the communicative value that images had in their various historical contexts and still have for our modern understanding of Roman culture.

The handbook is divided into four thematically organised sections that consider the evolving scholarly traditions of iconographic analysis and visual semiotics up to the latest research and issues in the field of Roman imagery as well as current scholarly trends. Part I provides a broad perspective on methods and theoretical approaches to Roman imagery and iconography, bringing together six contributions by outstanding experts in the field of image studies. The individual chapters scrutinise the intentions and authority involved in the creation of images (S. Faust), address their anthropological dimensions and discuss their social life (A. Haug and C. Rowan), interrogate the correlation and interrelation of images and texts on different formal, semantic and aesthetic levels (M. Squire), expound the common problem of lack of archaeological context (E. Marlowe) and discuss the visual impact and the significative potential of the non-iconic (A. Anguissola). While focusing on the theoretical dimensions of image studies, all of the contributions in Part I make use of poignant case studies to explicate their findings.

In Part II, special attention is dedicated to the creation and mediation of meaning through form. Scholars contribute essays on the concept of style (D. Maschek and S. McFadden), shed light on how the form of expression can help us identify different concepts of perception and deal with the semantic aspects of images in the public and private spheres in Rome and the provinces (S. Lepinski and V. Rousseau), spanning the periods from the Middle Republic to the start of Late Antiquity.

Part III, which can be considered to be the volume's centrepiece, investigates images in their various contexts of social practice, thus giving the reader a better understanding of how images functioned in Roman antiquity. This section takes up a substantial part of the handbook and helps to ground the theoretical considerations of Part I by applying them to an even wider array of materials and contexts. The contributions exhibit variety in terms of media, chronology and context, discussing images from coins, cameos, pottery and glass (B. E. Woytek, F. Kemmers, J. Lang and M. Flecker) to mosaics, wall-painting and sculpture (S. Costa, R. Di Cesare and E. Wolfram Thill), the public and the domestic space, changes in pictorial practice (S. V. Leatherbury) brought about by changes in politics, culture and religion and the contexts of images either produced by or conceived of marginal(ised) communities (S. Trentin and S. W. Bell).

Finally, Part IV deepens the approach by concentrating on images in ritual use, discussing imagery and iconography in pagan religious and funerary contexts (K. A. Rask and R. Gee) as well as in Jewish and Christian ritual settings (M. Grey and M. D. Ellison). They concentrate on the tensions between images as representation of ritual and as a token of ritual itself and the underlying fluidity of this status in the image's social context, study the problems faced by iconoclastic tendencies in Jewish and Early Christian communities within a broader society imbued with images of the divine and look at funerary art as a multifaceted prompt for a contemporary Roman viewer to interact with the sphere of the dead and their own mortality.

All the contributions provide deep insights into Roman imagery and iconography, both presenting seminal approaches and also offering inspiration for further research. The contributions are generally accompanied by images of good quality and citations of Greek and Latin materials are translated for the benefit of a wide readership. Special interest is dedicated to the inclusion of perspectives that stress the material, spatial and performative dimensions of images in their individual contexts.

The handbook's greatest virtue is the broad perspective on iconography across media, genres, periods and contexts, which also characterises individual contributions. It might therefore have been useful to have a thematically organised bibliography or short notes on select reading accompanying the individual contributions. In terms of the chronological scope, the volume's attention to the later Roman period up to the fourth century is especially laudable, considering the significant developments in the production and use of images that found new centres especially in the provinces, e.g. North Africa. Extending the view towards the fifth and sixth centuries, a period that saw the establishment of a largely independent Christian iconography and the continuation of Roman imagery by the Byzantine Romaioi would have made a minor but interesting addition to this already excellent and monumental overview.

The discussion of Roman imagery and iconography on such a broad level, the interdisciplinary attempt to place Roman imagery and iconography into its larger social context and the wide variety of media taken into consideration, including the minor arts, makes this a handbook that any scholar and student of Roman art should have on their shelves. Its extensive coverage of Roman imagery across chronological, geographic and social contexts makes it an essential resource for any scholar of antiquity.