Andrew Mason’s Ancient Aesthetics begins with a recognition of such concerns when, on the opening page, he explains how “the ancients had no term corresponding to our ‘aesthetics’ or to our ‘art’. Can we therefore think of them as discussing the same subject as us, or is there too great a gap between ancient and modern thought for this to be possible?” (1). The inquiry Mason undertakes is able for the most part to avoid the pitfalls that attend the analysis such an inquiry involves. For while Ancient Aesthetics is a relatively concise work, its method of division not only identifies the finer sinews by which “the arts, especially poetry” as well as “visual art and music” (1) were held together, but also sketches their actual role in the lives of classical Greeks and Romans. In this way, it is as if the butcher from the Phaedrus has been replaced by an anatomist, or perhaps even a physiologist, as the requisite (or at least expected) classifications that are to be ‘carved out’ in a standard introduction to the topic are here animated through nuanced observations which organise our reading.