Book Review—"Roman Spain"

brought to theirs. Queen's delighted us with cathedral blend of tone and Rise were unlucky to have to follow them. Grove and Temple demonstrated that both timing and feeling were essential to a satisfactory result and each demonstrated one without the other. In his summary Mr. Dakers reminded us of the necessity of listening while singing; without this, good chording is impossible.

The Unison Song choice eventually rested between "Sir Eglamore" and the "Erl King", and of these two dignitaries the "Erl King" seemed to have the greater sway. However, he was ousted from the privilege of first performance for Manor presented us with a slightly rheumaticky "Sir Eglamore". Next a trio of "Erl Kings" from Rise, School House, and Queen's, but here surely the palm goes to the accompanist who tripled his way through these in quick succession. Mr. Waine must here have been relieved that Grove's choice was "Sir Eglamore", and so were many of us on hearing their exciting and well thought out performance. Temple's "Erl King" was a vigorous ending to the singing.

Summing up, the adjudicator gave good advice when he said that the competent performance of an easier song was often artistically preferable to the partially successful attempt at the more profound work. He urged the importance of putting something into the whole song, not just the parts where one actually sang—start before you sing he advised us.

In the two events, Queen's obtained highest points and the Cup remains with them. K.R.P.

BOOK REVIEW

"ROMAN SPAIN" by F. J. WISEMAN (G. BELL & SONS, 18/6)

It is, of course, a familiar contention of the dust-jacket "blurbs" that the particular volume which it clothes fills "a long-felt want"; but the claim of the publishers for Mr. Wiseman's "Roman Spain" that it is the only English book of its kind is, we believe, substantially justified. There are, of course, other books devoted to the Roman conquest and occupation of the Iberian peninsular, but they are essentially histories, based mainly on the literary evidence. Nothing comparable with Mr. Wiseman's extensive survey of the major Roman remains still to be seen in Spain and Portugal has yet appeared in English, and it may justly be said that the book is unique.

From this aspect "Roman Spain" has a great deal to offer to the specialist and general reader alike. The accidents of history have brought it about that our own country, despite the fact that Britain was a Roman province for three and a half centuries—a period as long as from James I to the present day—has little to offer in the way of Roman remains which is impressive to the eye. On the continent of Europe, on the other hand, much Roman building has

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survived above ground which makes an immediate impact on the imagination. In France the magnificent aquaduct known today as the Pont du Gard, towering to a height of some 160 feet as it spans the valley of the Gardon, and the impressive Roman theatre at Orange are well-known instances. Spain has comparable treasures. The remains of the theatre, amphitheatre, and circus at Merida, the astonishing aqueduct of Segovia, carried on its double row of 128 arches, the theatre at Saguntum, the bridge at •.Alcantara, the beautiful "temple of Diana" at Evora, to name but a few of the survivals of Roman Spain, evoke a truer conception of the "grandeur that was Rome" than can anything in our own land.

Mr. Wiseman, beginning at Amprias, whose lovely bay on the Costa Brava some 30 kilometers from the eastern end of the Pyrenees was for the Romans (as for the Greeks) their first introduction to Spain, conducts the reader on an exhaustive tour of the principal Roman sites in the three provinces of Tarraconensis, Lusitania, and Baetica. It is an ambitious undertaking, since there is the obvious risk of boredom with detailed descriptions of structures which the reader can only visualise with the eye of the mind. But Mr. Wiseman avoids the danger by the variety and astuteness of his commentary and by infecting us with something of his own enthusiasm for "sermons in stones", and, of course, we are helped enormously by the excellent photographs with which the book is lavishly illustrated. Mr. Wiseman on his choice and the publishers on the excellence of the reproduction are to be congratulated.

A chapter of the book which the reviewer, at any rate, found of particular interest and value was that which described the structure and function of Roman public buildings. Temples, theatres, baths, aqueducts (and how right the Romans were to concentrate on these in lands where the rivers are torrents in winter but dry beds in the summer and prolonged droughts are the rule), circuses, amphitheatres (in Spain the lineal ancestors of the modern bull-ring), and public halls were, of course, built in profusion throughout the Roman Empire. But an appreciation of the remains which have survived is immensely enhanced by Mr. Wiseman's lucid account of their precise functions and architectural design. This particularly useful and interesting part of the book enables us to visualise the lay-out of the average Roman amphitheatre or circus, for example, as clearly as we can the Wembley Stadium.

An essential concomitant of a work of this kind is, of course, the historical background, and this is supplied by the opening chapters of the book, which are devoted to an account of the Roman conquest and occupation from the 2nd Punic War to the year 409 A.D. when the Goths and Vandals poured over the Pyrenees to bring the long Roman rule to an end. In some respects this historical survey is the least satisfactory part of Mr. Wiseman's book. The weakness arises, not from any short-comings in the author's equipment of scholarship, but from the nature of the limitations he has set himself. To "pot" 41

more than six centuries of Roman history, even in its bearing on a particular province, in 78 pages is, of course, beyond human powers. Mr. Wiseman was faced with the dilemma which must beset all who set out to write history for the layman and the professional at the same time. It is a dilemma, we believe, to which there is no answer. Such "history" must fail with both sets of readers; to the scholar it is superficial and sketchy, and unsatisfying to the general reader in that it must presuppose a knowledge of the general course of Roman history which he has not got. But it would be ungracious, and probably unfair, to press the point. If Mr. Wiseman's history seems inadequate, it is because he has attempted the impossible—as have many before him; and his attempt is as good as many similar ones.

The book concludes with an excellent chapter on the many Spaniards, from the Serecas to Prudentias, who have made important contributions to Roman life and letters. The names (Mr. Wiseman gives us an excellent thumb-nail sketch of each author) in the aggregate make an impressive list which amply proves the contention that a large proportion of the Latin literature of the Silver Age is the work of Spanish-born provincials. "Roman Spain" is a work of painstaking and enthusiastic thoroughness. There can be few references to Spain in ancient authorities which have escaped the author's eagle eye; and Mr. Wiseman's researches have produced some fascinating tit-bits of information, such, for example, as Strabo's mention of the plague of rabbits in Spain and the Balearic Isles which assumed such proportions that ferrets were imported from Libya to deal with the menace. The book is written in a simple, direct style which is eminently readable and often enlivened with shafts of humour and penetrating epigram. Verdicts such as "a city council was proving a poor instrument for the government of an empire", "Ovid's ability to dash off either a hymn or an advertisement in elegies", and "Martial's facility to coin a telling phrase raised the epigram almost to the level of an art" hit the nail on the head with Tacitean brevity.

There are occasionally the inevitable errors. For instance, the statement that "by a law of 76 B.C. the first fifteen rows of a theatre were reserved for the business community" is, of course, inaccurate. The Lex Roscia was passed in 67 B.C. and gave to the Ondo Equester the privilege of the first fourteen rows. The error in the date is probably a printer's inversion uncorrected in proof, but the mistake about the quite celebrated "quattuordecim ordines" is odd. We would also dispute the interpretation of the word "amphitheatre" as a "double-theatre". The more likely derivation, we (and, it appears, the O.E.D.) think, is from the conception of the spectators completely encircling the arena.

These, however, are minor matters. We congratulate Mr. Wiseman on writing an admirable and most valuable book which it has been a pleasure to read. We hope that it will meet with the success it deserves, with a public far wider than the readers of "The Peterite".