Steven J. Green’s volume constitutes a milestone in Classical scholarship, particularly within the Anglophone academic tradition, as it is the first complete English-language edition published by a major press to provide an introduction, critical text, translation, and detailed commentary of the Ilias Latina. The book bears witness to a renewed scholarly interest in this work, which in recent years has attracted considerable critical attention, alongside several new editions and translations, both published and forthcoming. A particularly significant stimulus to research was provided by the 2022 Brill volume Ilias Latina. Text, Interpretation, Reception (ed. Maria Jennifer Falcone and Christoph. Schubert, Leiden-Boston 2022). A new critical edition by Amandine Chlad is currently in preparation for publication in the Budé series by Belles Lettres, while Stefano Costa’s Iliade latina (Milano 2025), intended for a broader readership, offers an introduction, an Italian translation, and concise explanatory notes.
Although methodologically rigorous, Green’s volume is not addressed exclusively to specialists. Both the introduction and the commentary are written with notable clarity and accessibility, while the translation is fluent and highly readable. In this respect, the volume contributes to restoring something of the poem’s medieval fortune, when the Ilias Latina functioned in the Latin West, largely disconnected from the Greek original, as the authoritative “Homer.”
Following the preface, the volume opens with a relatively concise introduction, divided into two principal sections. The first situates the work within the broader phenomenon of artistic translation and emphasises its distinctive characteristics; the second addresses a range of issues, including the poem’s dating, the problem of authorship, the presence of acrostics, the question of literary genre, the principal literary influences—most notably the relationship with Homer—, and the manuscript tradition. In general, although the brevity of the introduction undoubtedly contributes to the readability of the volume, it occasionally comes at the expense of clarity of exposition; among these, the emphasis placed on the eroticisation of epic material appears somewhat less than convincing.
Green emphasises that translation should not be conceived as the mere reproduction of a source text, but rather as a fundamentally creative process involving the active reworking of the Greek model. Translation, in this perspective, becomes a form of literary work, through which the translator reshapes the original material in order to produce an autonomous text capable of reflecting the aesthetic values and cultural sensibilities of imperial Rome. Within this otherwise stimulating discussion, however, the absence of certain essential bibliographical references is noticeable: one should mention above all Alfonso Traina’s fundamental study Vortit barbare: le traduzioni poetiche da Livio Andronico a Cicerone (Rome 1970).
In the second section, more specifically devoted to the Ilias Latina, all the major scholarly questions are treated succinctly but with precise reference to the most up-to-date bibliography. One of the strengths of this part lies in its discussion of the poem’s anonymity. Green observes that the absence of a securely identifiable authorial name enabled the work to transcend historical boundaries and paradoxically contributed to its success as the Homerus Latinus. Concerning the date of composition, Green argues—on the basis of verbal parallels with Seneca and the Laus Pisonis, as well as internal references such as the Augustum genus (v. 901) and the image of Apollo Citharoedus, evocative of Nero—that the poem was composed between AD 60 and 65.
The important question of the acrostics embedded within the text is treated briefly but with due methodological caution, and Green wisely avoids imposing definitive solutions upon problems that may ultimately remain irresolvable. He observes, in particular, that although the acrostic formation of the name ITALICUS at the opening of the poem and of the word SCRIPSIT at its conclusion is statistically compelling and now widely accepted, its precise significance remains ambiguous. The acrostic may function as an authorial signature, identifying the poet, but it may equally be understood as a self-referential or programmatic statement concerning the literary status of the work itself. Likewise, in his discussion of the metapoetic significance of the ending, Green foregrounds above all its deliberately cryptic character. Such an emphasis on ambiguity and semantic openness is methodologically convincing, since it brings into focus one of the poem’s most intriguing and distinctive features. Indeed, it is precisely through a close reading of the concluding verses that Green arrives at his favourable assessment of the work’s literary sophistication, an evaluation with which the present reviewer is entirely in agreement.
With regard to the notoriously difficult problem of genre, Green interprets the Ilias Latina as a remarkably sophisticated example of epitome, that is, a condensed rewriting which nonetheless preserves the elevated stylistic and poetic register characteristic of epic. Particularly innovative, and highly convincing, is the intermedial comparison with the Tabulae Iliacae, the small Roman marble tablets that combine inscriptions with miniature visual representations of episodes from the Trojan cycle. According to Green, the poem shares with these artefacts similar strategies of miniaturisation and Romanisation: both privilege highly recognisable and visually charged scenes, such as the supplication of Chryses or the description of Achilles’ shield, which encourage the reader to engage in a refined process of comparison with the Homeric original.
Another topic treated briefly and effectively in the introduction is the poem’s relationship with Virgil, to whom the Ilias Latina is presented as deeply indebted. Green endorses the suggestion that the epitome may be read as a genuine “prequel to the Aeneid”, thus positioning the poem within a distinctly Roman literary and ideological framework.
Among the most original aspects of Green’s interpretation is the argument that the representation of warfare undergoes a process of “eroticisation” under the influence of Roman elegiac poetry, and especially of Ovidian poetics. Although this interpretative tendency may, in my opinion, at times be somewhat overemphasised, it is nonetheless clearly perceptible in certain episodes and characterisations, most notably in the depiction of Achilles both as Briseis’ lover and as the lyre-playing hero.
Green provides a new synoptic table of the correspondence between the verses of the Ilias Latina and those of the Iliad (p. 24), independently compiled and only partially coinciding with those recently proposed by scholars such as Giuseppe Aricò (in Falcone-Schubert 2022). The statistics immediately demonstrate that approximately half of the poem is devoted to the opening books of the Iliad, whereas the latter part undergoes a much more drastic compression. At the same time, Green rightly acknowledges (p. 25) that quantitative data alone are insufficient, and may even prove misleading, since they cannot adequately convey the qualitative complexity of the poet’s engagement with the Homeric model, which involves not only omissions and abridgements, but also substantial additions, reconfigurations, and the transposition of entire scenes.
For this reason, the subsequent pages turn to the identification of specifically non-Homeric features within the poem. Among the most significant tendencies Green identifies are the reduced role of the divine sphere; the opposition between elemental forces, especially fire and water (though this aspect may perhaps be somewhat overemphasised); the presence of anachronistic and metapoetic elements; and an almost obsessive fascination with numerical structures, particularly evident in the catalogue of ships, which is presented almost as a mathematical exercise for the reader. Green further includes among these features a number of stylistic and formal tendencies, such as alliteration, metrical peculiarities, and etymological wordplay. These elements, however, appear to me less distinctive, insofar as they are characteristic of Latin poetic translations and adaptations of Greek texts more generally.
The final section of the introduction is devoted to the textual tradition. Green presents a critically revised text based primarily on the editions of Vollmer and Scaffai, from which he departs in ten specific cases listed on p. 31. His editorial approach is generally conservative, privileging the manuscript tradition wherever possible and resorting, where necessary, to minimal emendation. Most of these corrections had already been proposed by earlier scholars, but Green reconsiders and justifies them in the commentary, at times with additional arguments of his own. Throughout, his editorial decisions reflect a consistent effort to defend the poetic sophistication of an author too often dismissed as stylistically or technically inadequate.
The text and translation occupy pp. 34-93. As a non-native speaker of English, I shall confine myself to noting that the prose translation is formally accomplished and stylistically fluent.
The largest and most substantial part of the volume is, as expected, the commentary (pp. 97-388). It is worth reiterating that this constitutes the first detailed scholarly commentary on the Ilias Latina in English that is also accessible to a broader readership. The work is conceived as a sustained line-by-line, or sometimes section-by-section analysis, with careful attention to philological, literary, and textual issues alike. The overall balance achieved is particularly commendable: the commentary is concise without ever becoming superficial, and it avoids being encumbered by excessive recourse to previous scholarship. While the comparison with Homer is consistently illuminating, the significance of certain Latin intertextual parallels might at times have benefited from fuller discussion. The Roman literary dimension of the poem, in particular, deserves more sustained attention, whereas parallels are occasionally adduced primarily for lexical or stylistic illustration.
Each section of the commentary is introduced by a comparison between the Latin verses and the corresponding Homeric passages, as exemplified by the analysis of the two prologues (Ilias Latina 1–8 and Il. 1.1–7). Green carefully identifies those points at which the poet adheres closely to his Greek model and those in which he diverges through omission, abbreviation, expansion, or structural reorganisation. Among the Latin authors most frequently invoked are, unsurprisingly, Virgil (not only as a source of epic diction, but also as the poet with whom this Romanised Iliad enters into sustained dialogue) and Ovid (particularly with regard to elegiac influence and the broader relationship with the Metamorphoses). In discussion of language and style, the commentary draws attention to archaisms, rare lexical items, and neologisms, while also analysing etymological wordplay, alliteration, and metrical irregularities. In line with Green’s wider interpretative framework, considerable emphasis is placed on the transformation of Homeric heroes into more “elegiac” figures, governed by emotion and affective intensity; here too Ovid remains the principal point of reference. Overall, Green’s commentary, through its meticulous engagement with the text, successfully vindicates the poetic dignity of an author long regarded as technically inept, demonstrating instead his considerable literary sophistication.
The bibliography is clearly organised: abbreviated reference works are listed separately, as are editions and translations of the Ilias Latina cited in the commentary solely by editor’s name, together with commentaries on Homer’s Iliad; studies and editions of other works then follow in alphabetical order. The Index locorum (pp. 405-409) includes Latin authors, excluding the Ilias Latina itself. The volume concludes with a brief Index verborum and a general index, both of which might usefully have been more extensive. The volume is nonetheless produced with considerable editorial care, and no significant errors are to be reported.