One can only admire Karl Galinsky’s courage and self-confidence in attempting a one-volume synoptic study of what is perhaps the single subject that has exerted most dominance within Roman studies for over a century (and particularly in recent years). In the 1990s, in the relatively narrow field of Augustan art alone (narrow by the very broad standards of Augustan Culture, where “art and architecture” receive one chapter out of eight), in the English language alone, we have seen at least four monographs devoted exclusively to the arts under Augustus—not to speak of innumerable articles (among which the present reviewer is responsible for two!).[1] Perhaps this was all part of the Augustan plan: the very last word of the appendix to his autobiography, the Res Gestae (which was inscribed in sanctuaries and city centers in Asia Minor as well as in Rome), was “innumerabilis”—used to describe the infinite and uncountable expenditures and benefactions, both public and private, bestowed by the first and greatest of the Roman emperors. In part, the overwhelming deluge of secondary material on Augustus is a testament to the sheer excellence of the cultural productions of his time. Not only is Augustan “history” the defining period of the...