The World of Ancient Rome: A Daily Life Encyclopedia. By James W. Ermatinger. Daily Life Encyclopedias. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2015. 2 vols. Acid free $189 (ISBN 978-1-4408-2907-9). Ebook available (978-1-4408-2908-6) available, call for pricing.

Greenwood’s latest entry in their Daily Life Encyclopedia series is James Ermatinger’s The World of Ancient Rome. Ermatinger, a late Roman specialist and Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois Springfield, is the sole author of this two-volume resource, which covers ten main areas of daily life, including art, fashion, family and gender, recreation and social customs, and food and drink, as well as the usual politics and warfare. Sections are divided into alphabetical entries, and there are cross-references and an index to help locate topics. Entries have individual bibliographies and there is a comprehensive list of resources at the end of volume 2. A nice addition are translations into English of primary sources giving a contemporary view of Roman life. There are occasional black and white illustrations to enliven the text.

While many of the previous volumes in the Daily Life series have been edited, with contributions from numerous authors and experts, later volumes, such as this one, have been authored by one expert in the particular field being discussed. While Ermatinger does an excellent job of illustrating Roman life in the Republican period (509–31 BCE) with occasional forays into the Monarchy and Early Empire periods, the writing is a bit dry and would have been improved by more variety in expression and viewpoint. There are also a number of excellent resources on this topic, such as Florence Dupont’s classic Daily Life in Ancient Rome (Blackwell 1994) and David Matz’ lively Daily Life of the Ancient Romans (Hackett 2008) all at a much lower cost, so this may not be the best choice for libraries on a budget. However, it is a very good overview of life in the Roman Republic and would be useful for secondary and undergraduate students researching the topic or for general interest.—Amanda K. Sprochi, Health Sciences Cataloger, J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri