This collective volume, edited by A. Kolb, the new director of the EDCS, and M. A. Speidel, was published to mark the fortieth anniversary of the Epigraphic Database Clauss/Slaby. It opens with two contributions of considerable significance, both historiographically and on a more personal level: M. Clauss's last essay, devoted to the origins of the database (1-6), and W. Eck's tribute, written following Clauss's death in January 2025 (7-14).

The anniversary provides an opportunity to take stock not only of one of the most important digital platforms for epigraphic research, but also of the development of the discipline as a whole over recent decades. In addition to paying tribute to Clauss (16.8.1945-20.1.2025) and W. A. Slaby (who died in January 2024), two scholars who reshaped research methods in this field, the volume offers tangible evidence of the scientific and methodological impact brought about by the digitisation of inscriptions.

Clauss's autobiographical contribution has the character of a scientific testament. The author retraces the origins of the EDCS by recalling his own experience in the 1970s, when gathering documentary material required the preliminary consultation of an enormous number of volumes. With characteristic irony, Clauss describes this preparatory phase as a Wissenschaft des Hinterns, to be overcome in favour of a productive Wissenschaft des Kopfes (1). It was precisely the imbalance between the time required to accumulate material and that available for historical analysis that prompted the development of the project. The essay clearly reconstructs the technical and heuristic stages in the creation of the database: from the initial adoption of ORACLE and the development of the EPIGRAPH software to the decision to standardise orthographic variants - an operation intended not to alter the texts, but to make them searchable online - and to make the entire corpus freely available. Quantitative data confirm the platform's growth: following its recent technical renewal and relocation to the University of Zurich (edcs.hist.uzh.ch), it now hosts more than 540,000 inscriptions and over 170,000 images, including drawings and photographs. The EDCS thus goes well beyond the function of a mere archive, emerging instead as a major hub within an international network of digital resources.

Eck, in turn, offers a balanced intellectual portrait of M. Clauss, emphasising the structural significance of his achievement. The founder's scientific contribution lies not simply in the accumulation of data, but in having created a tool capable of transforming the everyday practice of research. The example of military diplomas is particularly apt in this respect: an investigation that once would have required weeks of bibliographical searching can now be carried out in a matter of seconds. Taken together, these first two contributions provide a substantial introduction to the history of digital epigraphy.

The central section of the volume, preceded by the bibliography and a biographical profile of Clauss (15-42), contains thirty-six contributions by some of the leading scholars in the field. The volume is divided into two thematic sections.

Part I: New Interpretations of Roman Inscriptions brings together essays devoted to the reinterpretation and historical analysis of previously known inscriptions.

F. Bérard (46-52) re-examines three funerary monuments from Lyon in order to reconstruct the social rise and career of a local family, whose trajectory led from the father's seviratus augustalis to the son's municipal magistracy. C. Bruun (53-63) revisits the epigraphic evidence relating to the schola of the Ulpii at Ostia and to the context of associations (professional or religious) at the Roman harbour. L. Chioffi (65-77) examines the use of the term gradus in Republican-period texts from Capua and ager Formianus, highlighting its spatial, architectural, and socio-hierarchical implications. M. Christol (79-87) sheds light on the family background, prosopography, and cursus honorum of C. Atticius Norbanus Strabo, governor of Galatia, hypothesizing a Gaulish, rather than an Italic, origin. D. Dana (89-105) analyses two bronze military diplomas (2nd cent. AD), bearing traces of erasure and rewriting, providing valuable evidence for the drafting practices involved in the production of legal documents. D. Demicheli (107-116) examines an inscription from Salona (Dalmatia) mentioning a ducenarius (perhaps a military commander of a unit with around two hundred soldiers) of a numerus sagittariorum, thereby enriching our understanding of the Late Roman army. W. Eck (117-133) investigates the principles governing the order of names in pairs of consules suffecti attested in military diplomas and municipal fasti, identifying the hierarchical rules underlying their arrangement. A. Kolb (135-141) reflects on the propagandistic value, function, and development of milestones and systems of road measurement in the Roman Empire. C. Laes (143-154) analyses the language of kinship in Latin inscriptions, focusing in particular on the social significance of the term patrueles (male or female cousins by paternal uncles). M. Mayer and S. Braito (155-166) re-examine CIL XI, 5672 from Attidium (Umbria) and the brick stamp of Cocceia M.f. Plautilla, in order to reconstruct the prosopography of the senatorial family of the Cocceii in the post-Neronian and Trajanic periods. M. H. Sayar (167-169) edits and discusses an epigraphic document relating to a veteran of the Legio VIII Augusta, a native of Cremona, who settled in the colony of Apri in Thrace. H. Solin (171-177) examines, from linguistic and social perspectives, the terminology associated with brick production, with particular attention to tegularius and related nouns. M. A. Speidel (179-189) situates the officer Titurnius Quartio, attested in a votive inscription from North Africa as eques Legionis III Gallicae, within the context of Septimius Severus's Parthian campaigns and the military propaganda of the period. G. E. Thüry (191-200) discusses literacy and the culture of writing in the Roman world, taking the province of Noricum as a methodological case study. C. Witschel (201-213) investigates the presence of divine statues and personifications in Late Antique urban spaces through the lens of the epigraphic evidence.

Part II: New Readings and New Roman Inscriptions is devoted to the publication of unpublished texts and to the autoptic re-examination of complex documents.

J. Abascal (217-225) re-examines three votive inscriptions set up by soldiers in Gallaecia, which contribute to our understanding of military religious practices in the northern Iberian Peninsula.

R. Ardevan (227-234) edits a Roman funerary text from Smirë, Kosovo (Moesia Superior). G. Camodeca (235-241) presents an important unpublished inscription from Puteoli, dated to AD 46, attesting to the organisation of ludi publici in honour of Claudius and the Genius coloniae from 13 to 16 February, organised by seven freedmen. A. E. Cooley (243-250) re-reads and contextualises a Roman cinerary urn preserved in an English country house, and offers a new edition of the funerary text. J. Edmondson (251-265) analyses some examples of the "double-panel" funerary slabs widespread in the colony of Augusta Emerita, with remarks on epigraphic workshops. R. Haensch and E. Shehi (267-278) publish unpublished texts and re-examine already known inscriptions from Dyrrachium (Durrës): remains of an imperial titulature, an honorary inscription of a magistrate, and several funerary inscriptions. M. Horster (279-288) reflects on the terminology and onomastic formulas associated with servi publici in the Spanish provinces, drawing on two inscriptions (CIL II, 3181; II2/13, 987). P. Kovács (289-298) enriches the Greek epigraphic corpus of Pannonia through the publication of six new funerary tituli and a lead seal, discovered at Sirmium. W. Kumpitsch, V. Reiter, and W. Spickermann (299-314) present a project for the digital edition of Celtic theonyms attested in inscriptions from Germania and Raetia, exemplified by the case study of Mercurius Tourenus. A. Mastino (315-324) edits two unpublished documents from Ain Zaghouan, Tunisia: an epitaph and a carmen perhaps for the cult of spring waters. F. Matei-Popescu and M. Simion (325-339) discuss a funerary stele in Latin but using Greek characters, from Alburnus Maior recording a mining accident (oppressit ruina), offering a glimpse into life and arduous labours in Dacia. K. Matijević (341-356) highlights the value of epigraphic squeezes of artefacts lost during wartime conflicts and originating from Castellum Mattiacorum (Mainz-Kastel): CIL XIII, 7292=11941; 7315=11942; 11942a; 11943; 11940. S. Orlandi (357-360) critically re-examines the entry for CIL VI, 40572 (from the archaeological complex of San Sebastiano fuori le mura in Rome), leading to the removal of a duplicate from the urban corpus (ICVR V, 12898).

I. Piso (361-371) reconsiders the two statue bases erected at Sarmizegetusa in honour of the praetorian prefect of Hadrian Q. Marcius Turbo (CIL III, 1462; 1551). M.-T. Raepsaet-Charlier (373-383) proposes revised readings and transcriptions of three inscriptions from Gallia Narbonensis, originating from Mouriès (an epitaph) and Glanum (two altars dedicated to Silvanus).

O. Salomies (385-396) offers philological and onomastic notes on the celebrated tabula patronatus from Amiternum of AD 335 (CIL IX, 8223). B. Salway (397-413) offers onomastic reflections on two military funerary stelae from Anatolia (AE 2010, 1672; AE 2021, 1317). R. S. O. Tomlin (415-424) interprets a curse tablet in Latin from the temple of Mercury in Gloucestershire, mentioning a substantial monetary donation of 100,000 denarii to Mercurius Aruerius (Tab. Uley 78 a-b). E. Weber (425-428) analyses, from a philological perspective, an enigmatic inscription from Carnuntum, mentioning an imperial freedman. F. Wiblé (429-436) attempts to decipher a singular epitaph from Massongex, Switzerland, broken into some twenty fragments. R. Wiegels (437-456) brings the volume to a close with a contribution devoted to ten various inscriptions from Biesheim-Oedenburg (Argentovaria, Germania Superior).

Taken as a whole, the contributions demonstrate that scientific innovation lies not only in the discovery of the previously unknown, but also, and above all, in the continual critical re-examination of the already known corpus. From this perspective, the title chosen for the volume - A New Era of Epigraphy - proves entirely appropriate. The "new era" does not consist merely in the digitisation of epigraphic records, but rather in a transformation of research methodology: the ability to search across datasets, the immediate comparison of distinct epigraphic corpora, and the systematic integration of texts, metadata, visual documentation, and bibliography.

The index reflects the geographical and methodological breadth of the volume: from the Italian regions to the western provinces, from the Danubian context to Asia Minor and Roman Africa, the work maintains a productive balance between autoptic fieldwork and historical interpretation. The miscellany format of the volume and the alphabetical ordering of the contributions inevitably preclude a single unifying thread. Nevertheless, while specialists will appreciate the detailed studies devoted to individual provincial contexts, readers less familiar with the discipline will find the introductions and the contributions of a theoretical and methodological nature particularly useful.

Ultimately, this volume does not seek to present itself as an abstract manifesto for the Digital Humanities, but rather as tangible testimony to forty years of everyday scholarly practice. The message that emerges is clear: the digital revolution in epigraphy does not arise from algorithms, but from the patient accumulation and systematic integration of rigorous, verified, and continually updated data. Technology is a tool and cannot replace the critical scrutiny and philological analysis that remain indispensable foundations of historical inquiry.

As this milestone in the history of the EDCS is celebrated - a resource without which much of today's research in Latin epigraphy would be scarcely conceivable - the field is already turning its attention towards new frontiers. The possibilities opened up by artificial intelligence, natural language processing (NLP), and computer-vision techniques applied to the recognition of inscriptions point towards rapidly evolving scenarios that, in the near future, are likely to redefine the boundaries of digital epigraphy still further.

Gian Luca Gregori