What is in a name? Quite a lot, it appears. To come straight to the point: Robert Parker has produced another of his fundamental studies of ancient religion, as learned and considered as its predecessors. With some 230 pages of text, over 50 of these in appendices, this is a modest book for its author. It arose out of three of the six Sather lectures delivered by Robert Parker in 2013, now enlarged and revised as chapters 2 and 3, and appendix H. Four more chapters and seven more appendices were added to constitute what the author calls “this hybrid product” (ix), which despite its hybridity was published as volume 72 in the Sather Classical Lecture Series. One can readily understand that the University of California Press was willing to do so: it is a very worthy addition to this renowned series.

As far as its contents is concerned one might call the book modest as well: its subject matter is very specific, dealt with in a lot of technical detail. On the other hand, it ranges far and wide in time and space, and in the end it seeks to answer, or at least to contribute towards answering, questions that go to the heart of the study of ancient religion. Thus, the scope of this book is both wider and narrower than its title implies. A title and subtitle that really cover the subject might read: “Naming gods at home and abroad. What do naming practices tell us about the nature and transformation of Greek and non-Greek gods?” The volume is not restricted to Greek gods, and, as the author himself states, naming rather than just names is its main subject, that is to say that forms of address and all kinds of epithets are included as well.