What makes a leader? Who has power in society, and how do they wield it? These questions have gained urgency in contemporary society, and, as so often, that resonates in historical research. Of course, it is hardly a new question. Roman expressions of power have regularly been placed against modern politics. But recently research on ancient Roman leadership has branched out beyond traditional subjects of analysis – most obviously emperors and political leaders in the (late) Roman Republic. The three books under review – all of them highly relevant in their own right – focus on figures whose role has not been so much analysed in terms of leadership up to now. In doing so, these volumes both help us understand the figures who are central to the books more clearly and show how leadership is a useful concept to explore beyond an analysis of powerful men (though powerful men still feature heavily). In different ways these books highlight the importance of placing ancient studies in a wider perspective; an essential step to take in times when the relevance of Graeco-Roman studies is no longer self-evident.

The book in which the concept of leadership is most explicitly explored is Cicero, Paul and Seneca as Transformational Leaders in their Letter Writing. Comparative Readings . Rather than a conventional commentary, the volume aims to ‘offer the reader a set of letters written by Cicero, Paul and Seneca, which have been selected against Transformational Leadership theory’ (p. 1). Fundamentally, it notices how important leadership studies have become in a range of disciplines (such as cultural and social studies, and the social sciences) and wants to bring Classics into the debate. It aims to do so not only by showing how ‘Transformational Leaders theory provides fresh lenses for reading and interpreting our source texts’ but also how ‘analysing Cicero, Paul and Seneca’s letter writing … adds new and productive sources to the (modern) leadership discourse and modern leadership studies’ (p. 17). The latter is an important goal and one that is worth making explicit more often. The awareness that the social sciences have much to gain from bringing antiquities into their focus of research is much less developed than the reverse. Yet finding how modern concepts function within a specifically situated socio-historical context is of great value for theory development in the social sciences too (L. Huitink and I. Sluiter, ‘Introduction: How to Do the Social Psychology of the Ancient World’, in: L. Huitink, V. Glaveanu and I. Sluiter [edd.], Social Psychology and the Ancient World [2025], pp. 13–15).

Cicero, Paul and Seneca focuses, as is clear from the title, on the works of three men whose leadership roles are evident, though somewhat underexplored. Cicero’s work is often discussed in the context of late-Republican politics, but rather as an informant or relatively minor participant, swept away by the violence of the dynasts. Likewise, Seneca is mostly discussed as an adviser or philosopher, and Paul in the context of the development of early Christianity. Yet all three also took on leadership roles and wrote extensively of their experience in their letters. In them they often presented themselves as leaders, but the letters were also a mode of wielding leadership, influencing their correspondents and the wider community. So it is not only the three men and their leadership styles – and the implications that analysis of these styles has for modern theory on leadership – that are central to the book, but also letter-writing as an instrument for transformational leadership.

To achieve this double, or even treble, goal, the book is divided into four chapters: an extensive ‘Introduction into Authors, Letters, Theory and Methodology’; ‘Texts and Translations’ of the three protagonists, presented clearly in parallel on facing pages; ‘Comparative Readings’ of the authors, which forms the heart of the volume; and an extensive final chapter presenting ‘Conclusion and Perspectives’. All these chapters appear as the result of exemplary multi-author collaboration, with Van der Blom responsible for Cicero, Becker and Mortensen for Paul, and Egelhaaf-Gaiser for Seneca, with further expertise brought in from other scholars whose contributions are clearly signposted. The comparative and methodological sections are co-written by all authors.

The letters selected focus on four categories of importance in the modern analysis of transformational leadership: (1) inspirational motivation, that is the extent to which someone manages to mobilise the emotions of the followers to achieve their visionary goals (p. 99); (2) idealised influence, which involves the role of transformational leaders to ‘function as charismatic role models for their followers’ (p. 80); (3) individualised consideration, which looks at personal leader–follower relationships (p. 82); and (4) intellectual stimulation, in which leaders try to involve their followers to cooperate in a joint project (p. 102). In the comparative readings selected texts are contextualised historically and stylistically, before a discussion of the specific category, for example inspirational motivation in Ad familiares 12.1 and 12.2 (pp. 202–10).

This allows the authors to create ‘leadership profiles’ of the three men, which they explore in Chapter 4. They note how the letter-writers present themselves as ‘mouthpieces for a greater cause or group’, who were ‘highly focused on building a community of like-minded through the epistolary address’ (p. 622). They emerge as leaders within specific contexts and particular public spaces: Cicero in front of the Roman people, Paul towards the congregation of Christ-followers and Seneca in philosophical teaching spaces (p. 626). When looking at individualised consideration, the specifics of letter-writing can be brought to the fore. Much more than with daily face-to-face interaction, which tends to be the subject of modern transformational leadership theory, letter-writing almost forces the addressee to think of a well-considered response, since ‘the immediate and spontaneous face-to-face response cannot be instantiated’ (pp. 624–5). All three ancient authors seem to handle the discourse ‘through intellectual stimulation and rational argumentation’ (p. 629). Letter-writing allows them to position themselves as leaders through epistolary self-fashioning, which in turn gives modern researchers possibilities to seek differences and resemblances to transformational leadership. Noticeably, it turns out that in both ancient and modern times transformational leadership leads to risks for the leaders in question: Cicero, Paul and Seneca ‘ultimately paid for their claim to leadership with their lives’, which also applies to some eminent twentieth-century transformational leaders. This aspect of leadership, however, has not really been recognised in modern leadership theory, since it tends to focus on shorter historical processes (p. 633) – taking a much longer view allows for a wider discussion of successful leadership. Analysing these letters through modern leadership studies forces readers to take a fresh look at them – signposting, for instance, the importance of friendship and community in the letters of all three authors. Taking a more long-term view to transformational leadership also highlights dimensions that modern management studies tend to ignore, such as the importance for leaders not just to recognise and pay attention to the needs of followers, but also to their own needs, strengths and weaknesses – and to do so publicly.

A different kind of discussion about leaders and leadership comes to the fore in Shaping the “Divine Man”. Holiness, Charisma and Leadership in the Graeco-Roman World . In many ways this volume is still in conversation with P. Brown’s seminal article ‘The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity’ (JRS 61 [1971]), with late-antique charismatic figures at the centre of attention. A brief introduction signposts this, as it notes that the volume finds its origin in a conference ‘Charisma and Leadership in Late Antique Schools’. In this volume, then, ‘leadership’ is explicitly linked to other notions, most specifically charisma, and modern leadership theory does not play a role. Indeed, the volume is conceptually somewhat underdeveloped. Instead, as the editors make clear, the notions of ‘charisma’, ‘holiness’ and ‘(spiritual) leadership’ were chosen to engage with the discussions that P. Brown and his followers put forward from the 1970s onwards. Many contributions by Brown can be found in the notes and bibliography. Yet R. MacMullen’s recent challenge to the idea that holy men became alternatives to rural powerholders is not cited. MacMullen claimed that holy men ‘were above all miracle workers, not social workers’ (R. MacMullen, ‘The Place of the Holy Man in the Later Roman Empire’, The Harvard Theological Review 112 [2019], 1–32, at 21). In fact, many of the contributors to the volume highlight the holy men’s ‘mastery of a series of supernatural qualities (theiai technai) …’ (p. 13) more than their social function, moving somewhat away from Brown’s ideas. An insightful contribution on Symeon the Stylite by R. Serrano Madroñal emphasises the mystical side and miraculous acts of the pillar saint and explicitly challenges ‘the true capacity for political influence’ (p. 257), though still allowing for an important social role.

The volume is divided into three parts. The first part brings together eight articles discussing ‘Concepts and Cases of Holiness in the Graeco-Roman World’. The second part focuses on ‘Charisma and Leadership’, again through eight articles. Seven more articles deal with ‘Transmission and Reception: from Holiness to Leadership’ in a third part. Additionally, the book seems to be organised chronologically (although this is not stated), with the first section including case studies up to the fourth century ce, and the second section focusing on the ‘holy’ or ‘divine’ men in the fifth- and sixth-century Neoplatonic philosophical schools. The third section moves towards Arabic and Byzantine receptions of (Neo)Platonism and the notion of the theios aner.

Consequently, although leadership as a concept remains underexplored, relevant case studies for thinking about leadership abound in all three parts of the volume. In the first, for instance, I. Pajón Leyra’s essay ‘The Sage as a Leader and as a Holy Man in the Cynicism of the Imperial Era’ is clear about the way in which cynic appearance functions as a ‘parody of the power and the powerful’ and how cynic sages demonstrated ‘applied knowledge that represents power over others instead of over oneself’ (p. 95). Consequently, polemics about Cynic sages being taken as quasi-divine beings are as much (if not more) about power relationships than they are about holiness.

Most relevant case studies for thinking about Roman leadership can be found in the second section, although ‘charisma’ or even ‘holiness’ is central to many of them too. It starts with Aviz Fernández’s ‘The Charismatic Community as a Key Element to Understand Late Antique Higher Education’. This splendid piece combines a Weberian reading of ‘charisma’ with focus on how ‘followers’ see their leaders and bestow charisma on them, with questions arising from the history of education. This latter perspective brings added value, moving the discussion away from leaders as such and placing them firmly within ‘a social construct of a communal nature’ (p. 146). Leadership here is firmly and by necessity grounded in a ‘koinos bios’. This notion of togetherness is also central to E. Watts’s ‘Roman, Pagan, Philosophers in a Christian Empire’, which discusses the struggle of a Christian Roman empire to incorporate pagan philosophy – noting the importance of various leaders in this process, especially the emperors Julian and Justinian, who, in different ways, both tried to redefine Romanness. Leadership may be grounded in ‘common life’, but leaders can shape the form that this common life takes to a large extent. C. Martínez Maza’s ‘The Construction of Legitimate Models of Female Auctoritas in Neoplatonism’ supplies a rare and welcome example of looking at female leadership. Martínez Maza rightly emphasises the inherent biases in descriptions of Neoplatonic women philosophers, and how the biographies of these women, written by men, served to construct ‘a conceptual framework’ that legitimised the inequality in a society ‘based on the pre-eminence of men’ (p. 164). The narrative structures through which these female ‘leaders’ have been transmitted serves to emphasise traditional female roles: wives and mothers with their teaching ‘always confined to the domestic sphere’ (p. 166). In the rare cases that women gained wider influence, as in the case of Hypatia, portrayals became negative. Women were allowed to be charismatic leaders, but only ‘within the limits set by social mores’ (p. 176); female leaders faced serious constraints in their actions.

Female leadership and its constraints are also very much in play in F. López-Santos Kornberger’s article on Psellos’ description of the empress Zoe Pophyrogennete (1028–1050). Narrative structures are again crucial, in this case to explain why Psellos chose to position Zoe as a secondary figure in his historical account, notwithstanding her undoubted historical prominence. Psellos, it seems, describes the emperors in an attempt to ‘transmit lessons of on philosophy and history, hinting at defects in character that led to major events for the empire’ (p. 317). So, the inadequacies of Michael V are central to the story, with Zoe a useful figure in waiting, presented in relation to the various powerful men in her surroundings. Again, social mores delineated female leadership, at least the way in which it was remembered.

Throughout the volume descriptions and actions of a series of charismatic figures are analysed, mostly brought together under the umbrella term of theios aner. Often, relations between leaders/teachers and followers/pupils are discussed, and the constraints that these figures of authority encountered in going against contemporary norms. In terms of transformational leadership theory, the notions of ‘idealised influence’ (functioning as charismatic role model) and ‘individualised consideration’ (leader–follower relation) seem more prominent than attempts to mobilise followers for a visionary goal or joint project. This may tell us something about the type of leaders these ‘divine men’ were. It might, alternatively, be worthwhile to think of the construction of a ‘common life’ as a joint project and consider the extent to which divine men had visionary goals. Divine men continue to form a fascinating lens into late antique society.

The third book under review, Empresses-in-Waiting , aims to ‘assess the power and agency that imperial and near-imperial women could exert in a constrained setting’ (p. 2). As the editors are first to recognise, much work has been done on imperial women, especially for the late antique period, and this book is meant to be ‘part of a rising chorus’ (p. 5). Specifically, they want to add to current research by focusing on imperial women as part of an institutionalised court, moving away from individual biography towards an analysis of ‘underlying mechanisms of female involvement in imperial politics and court procedure’ (p. 13). It is unfortunate that major volumes on the Roman court apparently appeared too late to be incorporated (B. Kelly and A. Hug [edd.], The Roman Emperor and his Court c. 30 BC–c. AD 300, 2 vols [2022] and C. Davenport and M. McEvoy [edd.], The Roman Imperial Court in the Principate and Late Antiquity [2023], both only mentioned once, p. 7 n. 24). Throughout the volume ‘the court’ remains much less explored than the role of imperial women within this rather fuzzy context. Also, most of the assembled case studies still look at individual women, although admittedly often in a much wider context.

A second introduction, by A. Wieber, very much takes the wider view, analysing trends in scholarship on late antique imperial women, noting, for instance, the perceived importance of a private–public dichotomy, limiting female leadership to the domestic sphere. She also introduces the concepts of ‘matronage’, to define female political influence, that should be read in the context of the anthropological context of heterarchy (as opposed to hierarchy, since there are various loci of power). The concept more explicitly recognises that women ‘could act as brokers, forming their own power base, as donors, and as beneficiaries at the same time’ (p. 38).

After this two-fold introduction, the book is divided into three sections. The first outlines ‘Political Power and Brokerage’. It includes five articles focusing on women involved in political brokerage. S. Holm shows how Eusebia’s promotion of Julian to continue the Constantinian line was necessary for her own position – the political motivation to ‘maintain a strong dynasty that would secure her status and position in turn’ (p. 64). It shows her as a major player in court life with an awareness of how politics were played. There is less direct agency for imperial women in B. Washington’s article, in which she looks at the position of fourth-century imperial women at moments of regime change through Chrysostom’s Letter to a Young Widow; it shows substantial involvement of many imperial women (and a high survival rate for them), but their role as active political brokers in the fourth century is still limited. Two articles on the empress Sophie (S. Roggo and L. Dagnall) show how complicated it is to read through the literary evidence to assess female political agency: whereas Roggo finds that her role as ‘regent’ is overstated (through overdependence on John of Ephesus’ account), Dagnall, through an analysis of payments to Persia, argues that Sophie ‘personally engaged in diplomatic relations to … bring about a truce with Persia’ (pp. 135–6). An excellent article by Viermann shows how, in the seventh century, the empress Martina ‘tried to break out of her ascribed role as wife and mother and assert her position in Constantinople’s political landscape’ (p. 154). Her ultimate failure in the struggle for power with Valentinus does not take away from the leadership that she managed to show – and the negative assessment in male historiography may well suggest how close to success she came.

The second part of the book discusses ‘Performance and Representation’. Two articles, by M.O. Lindholmer and P.G. Drápelová, demonstrate how empresses could be shown as leaders, but inevitably alongside their husbands. Lindholmer outlines how Theodora made use of ‘“soft power” obtained through public self-presentation’ (p. 175), whereas Drápelová meticulously shows the appearance of Augustae on coins, setting out how they say much more about imperial power than about the individual position of these empresses. Part 3 returns more directly to notions of brokerage and female leadership, focusing on ‘Non- and Near-Imperial Women at the Imperial Court’. Three articles focus on figures outside the imperial dynasty who were still able to gain considerable political influence. G. Nathan puts forward Anicia Juliana as a ‘control subject’ for this category of women, showing ‘the normative limits of imperial womanhood’ by an analysis of her actions (p. 206) and suggesting much scope for independent action, possibly more than empresses had (although one should not forget that she was daughter, grand-daughter and great-granddaughter of emperors, and so very near-imperial). Similar strong agency is assigned to Belisarius’ wife Antonina by C. Lillington-Martin. He suggests that she functioned as Theodora’s ‘fixer’ and was perceived as a ‘very powerful woman’, though much depends on Procopius ‘characterizing her as a troublemaker in many episodes’ (pp. 240–1). In antiquity female political agency leads to invective – but not all invective needs to show female political agency. The sixth-century Gothic queen Matasuintha, who became wife to Justinian’s cousin Germanus, is the focus of a last case study by M. Cristini. This figure seems exceptional in the openness with which she wielded power: she held the title of ‘partner in the realm’, and Jordanes writes that Germanus made her patricia ordinaria upon marrying her (Jord. Getica 81). Possibly her role as a relative outsider allowed her more leeway to public leadership than other women had.

An important final chapter ‘Imperial Women after Curtains’ by J. Hillner functions as a conclusion. She notes three important sets of themes across the volume: the first has to do with the role of empresses as ‘partner in reign’ and the difficulty of assessing to what extent ‘the concept of power-sharing translated into actual rulership of imperial women’ (p. 263). A second set of themes is linked to ‘the perception of imperial women as vessels of dynastic legitimacy’ (p. 265), which may well go further than symbolic associations with the past and might, for instance, have to do with these women’s ‘precious knowledge of and networks within palace environments’ (p. 267). Ancient authors’ emphasis on imperial women’s roles as wife and mother should not blind us to their personal influence at the heart of the political landscape. This position is closely tied to the third set of themes identified by Hillner: ‘the spectre of violence surrounding imperial women’, almost inevitably turned against them and near-endemic in late antiquity. It seems likely that the heightened influence and visibility of imperial women ‘made them more vulnerable to be killed, or have their agency otherwise shut down’ (p. 268).

For understanding the leadership roles and possibilities of these imperial women, notions from transformational leadership theory seem less applicable (though the category of ‘individualised consideration’ might form a useful lens through which to view the actions of various empresses and near-imperial women). It may, in fact, be worth looking at theories surrounding different leadership styles (e.g. adaptive or affiliative leadership) and see how helpful they are for an analysis of the agency of imperial women. More worryingly, the limits of female power and the heightened risk for women who (seemed to) wield power, noted again and again throughout the volume, are all too recognisable to modern readers. Analysing such invectives against ancient female leaders may help laying bare some of the structural inequalities. It is exactly this critical distance, and the possibilities which this distance creates for reflection, that keeps studying the remote past relevant to the present.