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March 11, 2010
Rabun Taylor The Moral Mirror of Roman Art New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 300 pp.; 103 b/w ills. Cloth $90.00 (9780521866125)
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Rabun Taylor, although he does not claim as much, provides us with a sort of cultural poetics of mirrors and reflection in the Roman world. In other words, he does not offer us another typology or iconography of ancient mirrors (we have those already); nor does he dwell long on ancient thinking about the optics of reflection. Instead, he investigates the place of mirrors and reflection in the Roman imagination—especially their metaphorical use as agents...