Balsdon John P.V. Romans and Aliens

Duckworth, 1979. — 319 p.First off, this is not science fiction along the lines of last summer's movie "Cowboys and Aliens." It is a study -- though that may be too strong a word -- it's a collection of chapters on various cultural interfaces between Romans and other peoples: Greeks mostly, also North Africans, Egyptians, Persians, Syrians and peoples of Asia Minor, sometimes bits from Iberia and Gaul. ("Romans" mainly meaning citizens of the city and the upper classes who share the same culture, not any and all subjects of the empire.) Mostly covers the middle to late Republic and the early to middle Empire, although there are occasionally snippets from as far back as legends of the kings and as late as Ammianus Marcellinus. Not covered, somewhat to my surprise, is anything on the Germanic tribes of the Migration Period: I was expecting to hear Sidonius' description of the Burgundians again, and hoping to hear Balsdon's take on hospitals, but we never even get close. What we do get are chapters on Roman citizenship, language and literature, slavery, naming practices, and hosts of cultural factors: clothing, food and drink, religious cults, sexuality (not enough to be really interesting), and a section on art titled "The Romans and their ghastly bad taste." Generally how the Romans were different from other peoples, and especially how they *saw themselves* as different and how the others saw them. Definitely not an introductory book: Balsdon assumes a reader already pretty familiar with mainstream Roman history and culture, he tosses out references without giving dates or context because you're supposed to know them already. Also, he doesn't try for any synthesis or any general conclusion, he's just collecting anecdotes and data points. Well documented (40 pages of endnotes), but cursory index and the bibliography is a) short, b) broken up by chapter instead of collected in one place, and c) old (which Balsdon doesn't see any problem with). Given the lack of context or of thesis, all that's left is one well-read scholar's unorganized "oh, that reminds me of another bit" ramblings -- interesting, but hard to follow because it's not really going anywhere in particular.