The Oxford Handbook of Social Relations in the Roman World synthesizes what has been accomplished in this field and attempts to configure the examination of Roman social relations in some new ways, thereby indicating directions in which the discipline might now proceed. The book opens with a substantial general introduction that portrays the current state of the field, indicates some avenues for further study, and provides the background necessary for the following articles. It lays out what is known about the historical development of Roman society and the essential structures of that community. A second introductory article explains the chronological parameters of the handbook. The main body of the book is divided into the following six sections: mechanisms of socialization (primary education, rhetorical education, family, law); mechanisms of communication and interaction (literature, papyri, inscriptions, coins); communal contexts for social interaction (self-representation, public speaking, the Second Sophistic, courts of law, public entertainments, bathing); modes of interpersonal relations (friendship, patronage, hospitality, dining, funerals, benefactions, honor, violence); societies within the Roman community (collegia, cults, Judaism, Christianity, the army); and marginalized persons (slaves, women, children, prostitutes, actors and gladiators, magicians and astrologers, bandits, disabled people).