This collection of studies is the result of several lines of research that coincided or intersected within the European research project ʻMapping Ancient Polytheisms: Cult Epithets as an Interface between Religious Systems and Human Agency’ (MAP), directed by Bonnet, who also co-wrote the methodological introduction to the volume. Its 52 chapters reflect some of the main characteristics that have marked the activities of the research project: the presence of renowned scholars alongside young researchers; the collaboration of philologists, archaeologists, historians, anthropologists and linguists; the delimitation of a truly vast area of investigation that is open to comparison and embraces the many civilisations that have arisen around the Mediterranean in a broad definition of antiquity that goes from the civilisations of the Ancient Near East and Egypt to late antiquity. The plurality of approaches and fields of interest is the most notable feature of the book, although there are some clear themes and concepts shared by many of the chapters.
The main line of research promoted within the MAP project, namely the study of divine onomastics, is here combined with attention to spatial, toponymic and topographical data. The adherence to the ‘spatial turn’, which has characterised the last few decades of social studies, arises directly from the subject of study, since working on the names of gods inevitably leads to an interest in designations of a spatial type or of a type strongly connected to a precise local geographical context. This combined focus characterises above all the first of the book's three sections, ‘Naming and Locating the Gods: Space as a Divine Onomastic Attribute’. The division into three sections should not be regarded as a rigorous separation into three clear-cut units, and it is not uncommon to find chapters that elaborate on the relationship between space and divine onomastics in the other two parts as well.
The large number of chapters prevents an examination of individual case studies investigated in each, although in many cases they represent a significant advance in the study of a particular subject. Perhaps the book's greatest contribution is the convergence of different approaches to and perspectives on certain concepts and themes that surface and resurface in various chapters, as it offers multiple research directions for the study of polytheism and religious practices in ancient Mediterranean civilisations. Consequently, this review will focus on a few selected chapters that exemplify the main lines of research presented in the book.
Exemplary in this respect is the chapter by Bonnet, ‘Naming and Mapping the Gods in Cyprus: a Matter of Scales?’, which closes the first section of the book and embraces the various questions posed therein, while also offering a guide to how to use the data from the MAP project database (https://base-map-polytheisms.huma-num.fr/). Bonnet examines the different spatial categories reflected by divine onomastics in the Greek and the Semitic spheres, focusing on the evidence offered by Cyprus. While acknowledging the coexistence of possible different scales encompassing both the large natural elements and the individual components of a precise and limited landscape, Bonnet highlights how the horizon of Cyprus is mostly local and regional and often corresponds to the ʻcity scale’. The divine onomastics of Cyprus indicate how cults are not embedded in a broad network, but often appear isolated. Although other chapters reveal the existence of more dynamic contexts than Cyprus, these findings lead one to heed Bonnet's warning not to fall into anachronistic visions of every local context as an international hub inserted in the Mediterranean network.
The idea of a plurality of scales is reflected, albeit less precisely, in the division between topographical epithets and toponymic epithets found throughout the first section. The general dominance of topographic epithets often indicates a prevalence of the local scale in contexts other than Cyprus too. J.M. Macedo and M. Canopoli come to this conclusion in their studies devoted respectively to the divine epiclesis in Pausanias (‘Place Names as Divine Epithets in Pausanias’) and the epithets of Artemis in Attica (‘Artemis and Her Territory: Toponymic and Topographical Cult-Epithets of Artemis in Attica’). In general, it can be inferred that the insistence on toponymic epithets had the function of recalling the presence of the god in a specific local context. It is, therefore, a pragmatic function that can also be detected in the oldest literary evidence of Greek literature. M.R. Bachvarova, in ‘Regional Loyalties in the Iliad: the Cases of Zeus, Apollo, and Athena’, recognises in the use of divine epithets in the Iliad an authentic contest between Achaeans and Trojans to win divine support for and against the city of Troy, according to practices common to the Graeco-Anatolian and Mesopotamian spheres.
Toponymic epithets could also have different functions, not limited to the local dimension. Macedo's study already shows how such epithets may refer to cults brought from elsewhere or the diffusion of a cult. The distinction between toponymic and topographical epithets does not exhaust the complexity of the relationship between divine epiclesis and space. Lebreton, in ‘Zeus “qui-règne-sur Dodone (Hom., Il. 16.233–234)” et ses épigones’, points out how onomastic associations other than the simple toponymic adjective can often indicate specific modes of divine action on the space. His study of the syntagma combining μεδέων and -ουσα reveals how the reference to a specific location does not mean a spatial delimitation of the deity's power; on the contrary, the literary and epigraphic examples indicate a distance between the place over which the god reigns and the area within which he is called to act. Moreover, several chapters in the book invite us to consider the value of divine epithets not as a fixed element. A topographical epithet could be interpreted in a functional sense, as demonstrated by M. Giuseppetti's study of Artemis ἀγροτέρα (‘Agrotera: Situating Artemis in Her Landscapes’), and even in the erudite sphere interpretations other than geographical are possible (A. Filoni, ‘ΚΥΠΡΙΣ. Ovvero l'interpretazione degli epiteti divini nel Περὶ θεῶν di Apollodoro di Atene’).
The focus on divine onomastics is the main, but certainly not the only way to express the relationship of a god to a place studied in the book. The second section, ‘Mapping the Divine: Presenting Gods in Space’, more miscellaneous and less thematically focused than the first, examines a plurality of strategies that collective or individual agents adopted to map the presence or absence of a god. An example of the successful integration of different approaches is offered by M. Briand, in ‘Spatialité, performance, choralité divines et humaines’, who, in order to examine the Charites in the odes of Pindar and Bacchylides, combines philology, linguistics, anthropology and cognitive-sensorial studies, introducing concepts such as lived space, corporeality and agency.
Within this second section, some studies with a marked theoretical character are worthy of special mention, such as E.M. Trinka's ‘A New Mobilities Approach to Naming and Mapping Deities’. This study adopts an original methodology, which seems to complement harmoniously the research lines of the MAP project, introducing mobility as a further factor in thinking about the relationship between deities and space and the experience of the presence or absence of both human beings and gods. The toponymic epithets associated with Yahweh in the caravan centre Kuntillet ‘Ajrud are interpreted as intended, in part, to recreate in the place of transit the space left behind by those on the road, but also as a means of accessing the presence of the god during the journey. Divine onomastics thus emerges as a means of connecting distant areas. Moreover, mobility often characterises deities, and O. Cesca, in ‘Déplacements, mobilité, communication’, studies one of the possible modes of divine mobility in an investigation of Iris in archaic Greek literature. The goddess also makes vertical communication possible, rendering places such as Olympus or Tartarus permeable. Verticality is a spatial concept also emerging in other chapters, such as that dedicated by F. Prescendi to the plebs deorum (‘La plebs des dieux. Réflexions sur la hiérarchie et la spatialité des dieux romains’), in which this concept is recognised as a way of expressing the hierarchical relations between divinities in Latin poetry, on the model of Roman society. The relationship between social and religious space evoked in this chapter is investigated in the last section (‘Gods and Cities: Urban Religion, Sanctuaries and the Emergence of Towns’), which occupies the entire second volume.
This last section is strongly marked by the concept of urban religion, for years the subject of study by the DFG-funded research group ʻReligion and Urbanity’, led by Rüpke and based in Erfurt. Rüpke defines the fundamental terms and the object of study of this line of research in the chapter ʻGods in the City’. Urbanity (i.e. the perception of urban space as a social product) and religion, understood as communication with entities ‘beyond the immediate situation’, are studied as two mutually influencing phenomena. Rüpke focuses the investigation on the material offered by Roman civilisation, but explicitly recognises the need for constant comparison with case studies from different civilisations. An example of such comparison is offered by R. Da Riva, in ‘Urban Religion in First Millennium bce Babylonia’, who applies a similar perspective to evidence from the Neo-Babylonian period. The reciprocal influence described by Rüpke appears here with perfect clarity: religion is an impetus for the expansion of the urban perimeter and the construction of new buildings and communication routes, and at the same time the new urban spaces that arise condition and transform the development of religious cults and the organisation of religious festivals.
In this last section we can appreciate one of the greatest merits of the work, namely that of gathering different theoretical and methodological approaches around the lines of study developed by Bonnet's and Rüpke's projects. This is the case with: L. Valletta's ‘Un réseau de rapports symboliques. Santuari, territorio e pratiche collettive nella Sparta arcaica’, inspired by the French Historical Anthropology of the Ancient World (sometimes called the ʻParis School’) and, especially, by J.-P. Vernant's concept of ʻpuissance divine’; S. Neumann's ‘Spatializing “Divine Newcomers” in Athens’, which applies to the study of religious space in the city, and in particular to the sanctuaries of the new deities, the concept of ʻsocial imagery’ elaborated by C. Castoradis; and Lätzer-Lasar's ‘Religious Ancient Placemaking’, which presents a theoretical model developed in order to study phenomena of a local, but not microscopic, dimension from an archaeological point of view.
The theoretical richness and solidity of the studies presented make this two-volume collection an invaluable point of reference for all those interested in the study of ancient Mediterranean religions.
