Robert Parker - Greek Gods Abroad: Names, Natures, and Transformations

By the third century B.C. , gods bearing Greek names were worshipped from Spain to Afghanistan. This book is about aspects of that divine diaspora. Its particular emphasis is on names and naming, one of the two principal aspects (iconography is the other) under which that diffusion is revealed to us. Later chapters will enquire how ways of addressing and referring to gods in Greek developed outside old Greece and over time, two processes that can scarcely be kept separate. But first some account of those naming practices in the period when they were relatively isolated from such external contact is needed. The isolation was only relative because contacts always existed, but a real change occurred when use of the Greek language spread and non-Greek gods had to be named in Greek. This chapter will attempt an outline of the status quo ante.

The obvious starting point is the names of the gods themselves, but first the concept of naming the gods must be complicated a little. In studying divine names, one needs, at a minimum, to distinguish ways of referring to the gods from ways of addressing them. and certain gods of mysteries are never referred to except by titles.

Another distinction is that between prose and verse. Many epithets are given to gods in poetry but not in cult; there are also cases such as that of Agesilas/Agesilaos (Leader of the People), an alternative name, probably euphemistic, for Hades which had a long life in poetry but is unattested in prose. The distinction is not between literature and real belief, because, for instance, the periphrastic impulse present in Agesilaos is certainly an expression of religious feeling. It is a difference rather of register, between language that an ordinary Greek would recognise and respond to and that which he would actually use.

As a rule, gods had one name each. Though it was a title of honour for a god to be many-named, what was meant by this was in fact many-epitheted; the multiple variant names of Akkadian gods lack a Greek equivalent. Phoibos and Pallas are not so much alternative as additional names for Apollo and Athena, regularly used in conjunction with the main name. Kore is not a second name for Persephone of equivalent standing, but, as just noted, a euphemistic alternative. The same is probably true of Plouton (deriving from , wealth) as an alternative name for Hades.

In contrast to some ancient polytheisms where gods are named from their functions,

At a lower level in the divine hierarchy, speaking names do appear. The Nymphs as a group are a collectivity of brides, nymphai, and many female figures of that level of power have transparent names: the Praxidikai, Justice-Exacters, for instance, or Kourotrophos, Child-Nurturer, sometimes a minor independent goddess, sometimes an epithet of some larger figure. A minority of cult heroes too have names indicating a function: Matton, Kneader, and Keraon, Mixer, culinary heroes in Sparta; the Attic Sosineos, Save Ship; the Thessalian Poliphylax, City Guard (honoured by human city guards); and others.