Juan Francisco Rodríguez Neila's work aims at providing a detailed and fully documented picture of the electoral procedures which were adopted in the local communities of Roman Spain. The epigraphic evidence, which is mainly supplied by the charter of the Roman colony of Urso and by various fragments of the so-called Lex Flavia municipalis, provides the main documentary material of R.'s investigation and also defines its chronological limits, which extend from the Caesarian age to the Flavian period.

The book opens with two introductory chapters, which provide the reader with a useful overview of the institutions and magistracies of Roman and Latin centres of Roman Spain. A brief but exhaustive and detailed discussion of the relevant epigraphic terminology is also offered. In this regard, the author also includes concepts that are not strictly connected with electoral issues, such as terms related both to the local sacra and to the activity of the populus, which could also appear in the voting process. This thorough picture introduces the analysis of the local electoral mechanisms, which occupies most of the following chapters (chs 4–10).

The study closely follows and reconstructs the electoral process throughout its several and mutually connected steps, starting from its beginning, the official announcement of the local elections, through to the final renuntiatio (proclamation) of the elected candidates. The author goes far beyond a merely descriptive approach and explores a series of intertwined issues which concern the social, juridical and political background of the local vote, such as the number of candidates who supposedly run for local magistracies or the possible cases of shortage of candidates (255–70). The author pinpoints several specific, but controversial, aspects of the local electoral legislation which apparently imposed obligatory candidatures in case of absence of voluntary candidates, perhaps because undertaking a magistracy also implied considerable expenditures for the benefit of the community. Starting from the consideration that it is not possible to give a generic and comprehensive answer to these questions, the author hypothesises that in some cities the local charters could be implemented with norms that established specific rules in the case that the candidates were fewer than the available positions: on such occasions, the local decurions might have imposed candidatures on eligible citizens. The definition of the problem also permits further articulation of scholarly debate as to both the attractiveness of magistracies for local élites and the vitality of political debate at the local level.

The intensity of local political competition also arises from the analysis of the phenomenon of electoral corruption (ch. 6). R., after underlining the multiformity of the concept of ambitus in the Roman judicial system, shows how ambitus also affected the local vote and was therefore treated — at least in some of its expressions — by the local charters from Roman Iberia. In this respect, the author also offers an interesting and original interpretation of electoral disorders, which he places within the wider problem of the political struggles that frequently affected the public life of Rome.

The analysis proceeds by describing the different phases of the electoral procedure until its final moment and the official designation of the elected candidates (chs 8–9). The author devotes specific attention to possible diversions that could affect the final stages of the electoral procedure, namely scrutiny of the votes and the designation of the appointed candidates. Starting from the reading of some excerpts from the municipal charter of Troesmis (in Moesia Inferior), which similarly regulate the local electoral procedure, the author reaffirms some of the key points of his whole analysis, in this case with specific focus on the problem of the redaction of the local constitutions: they appear to reproduce analogous rules and measures, independently from their chronological as well as geographical collocation, as the issues that affected the electoral mechanisms of Rome could also concern the elections at a local level.

The book, which delves into a number of further issues concerning local electoral institutions, closes with a chapter that investigates the public image of the local magistrates (ch. 11). The author shows how members of the local political élites tend to take for granted the system of values as well as the forms of social conduct which were typical for the Roman ruling class. In this respect, the electoral competition played a fundamental role, as the magistracies were perceived as one of the most immediate means to obtain a significant position of prestige within the local social context, which also explains why political clashes must have been frequent.

In general, R.'s book represents a detailed and well-documented work which contributes significantly not only to modern scholarly research on the political institutions of the local centres of the Roman Empire, but also, and from a wider perspective, to the debate on the problem of the cultural homogenisation of the local elites of the Empire. R. brilliantly reads and interprets the available epigraphic evidence to provide us with a multifaceted and complex picture of the vivacity of public life in the centres of the Roman Empire.