Comparisons between ancient Roman civilization and our own have become so frequent that there is much food for thought in Professor Frank’s chapters. As he points out, Cicero might enter any twentieth-century home without finding himself an alien. The book defines how the patriarchal family actually worked in practice, how agrarian economics influenced thought and behavior, how the constant shift of population in a world empire affected religious practice, how changes in political forms influenced social planning, and finally, how republican law responded to social and economic needs.