The first chapter is devoted to the topography of Rome. After a statement of the principal geographical causes for the growth of Roman dominion (pp. 4-8), there follows (pp. 12-23) a description of the main points of interest within the walls in Cicero’s day, the account being noteworthy alike for its clearness and for its omission of details. A good map at the end of the book enables the reader to fix each feature of the city accurately. The second chapter, on the lower population, is perhaps the most interesting in the book, as it deals with a topic seldom discussed and on which our information is very meager. The subject is discussed under three heads--how this population was housed, how it was fed and clothed and how it was employed. Notwithstanding the contempt felt by the writers of the period for the lower classes, Mr. Fowler makes it evident that an understanding of their environment will explain many an obscure point in the history of the period. Why, for instance, had the old Roman religion fallen into such decay at the close of the Republic? We naturally look for scepticism among the cultured, where the old traditions had been undermined by the sudden influx of wealth and Greek culture, but not among the poor and ignorant, who could have been little touched by such influences. But when we consider the tenement houses in which the poor lived, with whole families occupying but one or two rooms (pp. 28-32), it can be seen that there was no place here for the Penates or the family hearth, that the old domestic rites, which constituted the Roman religion so far as it affected the individual, were of necessity driven out and that the poorer classes were forced to satisfy their religious cravings by substituting the gregarious, non-family oriental cults, with their common temples and services. Here the worshippers could enter into personal relations with a deity as they could not in the indigenous Roman temple, which had to do solely with the State’s worship. The only other point around which the personal religious feeling of the old Roman clung--the family tomb--likewise no longer existed for the poor Roman of the city, who could not afford this luxury, but must see the members of his family cast into a common burying place with many others (p. 320). As to the employment of the lower classes, it is pointed out that in spite of the contempt for retail trade and the crafts--a feeling similar to that of the higher classes in England and due to the same causes--there were many callings at which free Romans must have worked at this time, including milling and baking, market gardening, shoemaking, the making and washing of woolen clothing, etc. (pp. 42-55). But the inadequacy of legal protection for the poor and the uncertainty of employment made a regular income precarious.