Why do Epic poets say θάρσος ‘courage’, Athenians θάρρος ‘courage’ and θράσος ‘audacity’, while Alcaeus sings θέρσος? How and when did the four main dialects of alphabetic Greek originate? How and when did the hexametrical Kunstsprache arise? These questions and many more van Beek mulls over in his encyclopedic treatment of syllabic liquids in Greek, a work whose main aim is to establish the regular reflexes primarily of Proto-Indo-European *r̥ and secondarily *l̥ in all dialects of Ancient Greek (Mycenaean included). His coverage far exceeds that stated aim. This wide-ranging and ambitious work, thoroughly revising the author’s Leiden dissertation of 2013, serves as a window onto knotty questions of linguistic chronology. Burgeoning with new ideas, scores of etymological proposals, and discussions of sound laws and literary prehistory, this monograph deserves to be read by anyone interested in the Ancient Greek dialects and the formation of Epic language. Van Beek’s writing, dense in star-spangled forms, is intended for the heavy-duty Indo-Europeanist, as befits a volume published in the series “Leiden studies in Indo-European”; however, it would be a pity if his research proved overly forbidding for Classicists, who would then miss his significant studies of Greek words and texts. Indeed, a joy of reading and a major strength of the book is the author’s “fresh examination of philological data” (498). His study offers plenty of rewarding readings of ancient texts and I will highlight some of his most insightful discussions below; however, I also have serious reservations. I will outline the structure of the book, discussing in detail what seems to me its most problematic idea, namely, a special outcome of “Epic *r̥” (ch.6).