1 Theology may be on the rise again, however: R. Osborne and J. Kindt organised a conference at Cambridge on the topic in June 2012, to be published as The theologies of ancient Greek religion.

2 Momigliano, A., “The disadvantages of monotheism for a universal state,” CPh 81 (1986) 285–97Google Scholar; note also Fowden, G., Empire to commonwealth. Consequences of monotheism in late antiquity (Princeton, NJ 1993) 37–60 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Cf. Petersen, E., Der Monotheismus als politisches Problem: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der politischen Theologie im Imperium Romanum (Leipzig 1935; repr. Gütersloh 1978)Google Scholar.

4 Athanassiadi, P. and Frede, M. (edd.), Pagan monotheism in late antiquity (Oxford 1999)Google Scholar.

5 Iid., “Introduction,” p. 1. A significant impulse was provided by the citation in an inscription of Oenoanda of part of the Tübingen Theosophy frg. 13 Erbse. See Robert, L., “Un oracle gravé à Oenoanda,” CRAI 1971, 597–619 Google Scholar = Opera minora 5 (Amsterdam 1989) 617–39Google Scholar; Cline, R., Ancient angels: conceptualising angels in the Roman Empire (RGRW 172; Leiden 2011) 19–22 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 L’Année philologique on-line lists 14 reviews.

7 West, M. L., “Towards monotheism,” 21–40 Google Scholar; Frede, M., “Monotheism and pagan philosophy in later antiquity,” 41–68 Google Scholar; Dillon, J., “Monotheism in the Gnostic tradition,” 65–80 Google Scholar; Athanassiadi, P., “The Chaldaean Oracles: theology and theurgy,” 149–84Google Scholar. This leaves just two papers on non-philosophical topics, by Mitchell and J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz. Frede was, until his retirement in 2005, inter alia professor of the history of philosophy at Oxford; Athanassiadi has, ever since her D.Phil. thesis on Julian, specialised in late-antique thought; recent publications concern, e.g., theurgy, Damascius, and the rise of intolerance in late antiquity.

8 Summarised in the excellent volume edited by Algra, K., Barnes, J., Mansfeld, J. and Schofield, M., The Cambridge history of Hellenistic philosophy (1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; a parallel volume of the same standard for Middle and Neo-Platonism is a pressing desideratum, but in English see Dillon, J., The Middle Platonists (London 1977)Google Scholar; Wallis, R. T., Neoplatonism (2nd edn., London 1995)Google Scholar; Tarrant, H., From the Old Academy to later Neo-Platonism: studies in the history of Platonic thought (Farnham 2011)Google Scholar; cf. also Gregory, A., Ancient Greek cosmogony (London 2007)Google Scholar; and Sedley, D., Creationism and its critics in antiquity (Berkeley, CA 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Versnel, H. S., Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman religion, 1: Ter unus. Isis, Dionysus, Hermes. Three studies in henotheism (Leiden 1990)Google Scholar. The exception was M. L. West.

10 Brown, P. R. L., The making of late antiquity (Cambridge, MA 1978, still in print)Google Scholar. His later accounts of the process, however, increasingly stressed intellectual issues; cf. the group discussion, including Brown's own later reflections, “The world of late antiquity revisited,” SymbOsl 72 (1997) 5–90 Google Scholar.

11 Monotheismus und Kosmotheismus (Heidelberg 1993)Google Scholar; (with D. Bauer), Der eine Gott und die Götter (Stuttgart 1994) 77–124 Google Scholar; Moses der Ägypter (Munich 1998)Google Scholar.

12 Most recently, Assmann, J., Echnaton und Zarathuštra: Zur Genese und Dynamik des Monotheismus (Munich 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; there is even an audio-book of Monotheismus und die Sprache der Gewalt (Uni Auditorium 2008). English translations of Assmann’s later books include Of god and gods: Egypt, Israel and the rise of monotheism (Madison, WI 2008)Google Scholar; The price of monotheism (Stanford, CA 2010)Google Scholar. Among critical assessments of Assmann's various theses, note: Korte, A.-M., The boundaries of monotheism: interdisciplinary explorations of the foundations of western monotheism (Leiden 2009)Google Scholar; Pongratz-Leisten, P. (ed.), Reconsidering the concept of revolutionary monotheism (Winona Lake, IN 2011)Google Scholar; Leuze, R., “Probleme des Monotheismus,” in Beutel, A. (ed.), Religiöse Erfahrung und wissenschaftliche Theologie: Festschrift U. Köpf (Tübingen 2011) 261–76Google Scholar; Maciejewski, F., Echnaton oder die Erfindung des Monotheismus: zur Korrektur eines Mythos (Berlin 2010)Google Scholar.

13 Corbin, H., Le paradoxe du monothéisme (Paris 1981)Google Scholar. There is, moreover, a good deal of dispute currently about the sense in which even ancient Judaism (aside from a few prophetic claims) can be considered a monotheistic religion: cf., e.g., Machinist, P., “Once more: monotheism in Biblical Israel,” J. Interdisciplinary Study of Monotheistic Religions (Kyoto) 1 (2005), Special Issue, 155–83Google Scholar.

14 Mitchell, S., “The cult of Theos Hypsistos between pagans, Jews and Christians,” 81–148 Google Scholar. He had already sketched his views in Anatolia, vol. 2: The rise of the Church (Oxford 1993) 43–51 Google Scholar, and “Wer waren die Gottesfürchtigen?,” Chiron 28 (1998) 55–64 Google Scholar. These earlier versions seem to have been totally ignored.

15 The first response was a notably critical piece by Stein, M., “Die Verehrung des Theos Hypsistos: ein umfassender pagan-jüdischer Synkretismus?,” EA 33 (2001) 119–26Google Scholar; also Bowersock, G., “The highest god with particular reference to North Pontus,” Hyperboreus 8 (2002) 353–63Google Scholar; somewhat later: Belayche, N., “ Hypsistos. Une voie de l'exaltation des dieux dans le polythéisme gréco-romain,” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 7 (2005) 34–55 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ead., “De la polysémie des épiclèses: Hypsistos dans le monde gréco-romain,” in ead. et al. (edd.), Nommer les dieux: théonymes, épithètes, épiclèses dans l’Antiquité (Rennes 2005) 427–42Google Scholar.

16 The postdoctoral position was awarded to Van Nuffelen, now research professor in ancient history at Ghent, to work on pagan philosophical monotheism. His monograph, Rethinking the gods: philosophical readings of religion in the post-Hellenistic period (Cambridge 2011), was written during his period at Exeter.

17 Mitchell, S. and Van Nuffelen, P. (edd.), Monotheism between Christians and pagans in late antiquity (Leuven 2010)Google Scholar.

18 Pagan monotheism (supra n.4) 2. M. Edwards (“Pagan and Christian monotheism in the age of Constantine,” in Swain, S. and Edwards, M. [edd.], Approaching late antiquity: the transformation from early to late empire [Oxford 2004] 211–34)Google Scholar is extremely critical of the claim that pagan and Christian monotheism are susceptible of direct comparison.

19 By J. Dillon in relation to Gnosis (see supra n.8), where, of course, the notion of divine hierarchy was sometimes developed to extraordinary lengths.

20 They explicitly criticise (4) Assmann’s claim that monotheism requires a sharp distinction between true and false gods, and so encourages intolerance.

21 In his version of the same claim in the volume under review, M. Frede concedes that we are really talking about city-dwellers, and especially the educated élite, whose conversion may have been “facilitated by the fact that their religious views already favoured some form of monotheism or other”: id., “The case for pagan monotheism in Greek and Graeco-Roman antiquity,” at p. 53, using the Sophist Antisthenes (the teacher of Diogenes the Cynic), Chrysippus and Galen as his case-studies.

22 See the papers in Heinrich-Tamásk, O., Krohn, N. and Ristow, S. (edd.), Christianisation of Europe: archaeological evidence for its creation, development and consolidation (Regensburg 2012)Google Scholar.

23 Trombley, F. R., Hellenic religion and Christianization c.370-529 (2nd edn., Leiden 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bowersock, G. W., Hellenism in late antiquity (Ann Arbor, MI 1990) 1–13 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (starting with John of Ephesus; Hist. Eccl. 3.3.36 [in Syriac]); cf. also Vinzent, M., “Das ‘heidnische’ Ägypten in 5. Jhdt.,” in van Oort, J. and Wyrwa, D. (edd.), Heiden und Christen im 5. Jhdt. (Leuven 1998) 32–65 Google Scholar; F. Winkelmann, “Heiden und Christen in den Werken der oströmischen Historiker des 5. Jhdts.,” ibid. 153-56.

24 Cf., e.g., van den Berg, R. M., “‘Becoming like God’ according to Proclus’ interpretations of the Timaeus, the Eleusinian Mysteries, and the Chaldaean Oracles,” in Sharples, R. and Sheppard, A. (edd.), Ancient approaches to Plato's Timaeus (BullInstClassStudLon Suppl. 76, 2003) 189–202 Google Scholar.

25 Cod. Iust. 1.11.7, cf. K. L. Noethlichs, “Kaisertum und Heidentum im 5. Jhdt.,” in van Oort and Wyrwa (supra n.23) 1-31, who discusses the anti-pagan edicts of Honorius, Arcadius and Theodosius II, whose sheer repetition indicates their ineffectuality. Delmaire, R. et al. (Les lois religieuses des empereurs romains de Constantin à Théodose I, vol. 2 [Sources Chrétiennes 531; 2009] 429–68)Google Scholar rightly defend the authenticity of, e.g., Const. Sirmondiana 12 (promulgated 25 November, 407), which resumes earlier edicts against heratics and pagans.

26 Trombley (supra n.23) vol. I, xii. I am not sure what justification there is for the phrase “isolated village communities”; almost everywhere conversion to Christianity was a complex matter (the continued use of [healing and aversive] amulets by the rural population is a frequent cause of complaint by bishops well into the Byzantine period).

27 See the monograph cited in n.16 above.

28 “Pagan monotheism as a religious phenomenon,” 16-33.

29 N. Belayche, “Deus deum … summorum maximus (Apuleius): ritual expressions of distinction in the divine world in the imperial period,” at 141, rightly stresses both the complexity of traditional religious discourses and their constant adaptation to new circumstances. From that point of view one must again lament the inability of scholarship to come up with satisfactory alternatives to “paganism” and “polytheism”.

30 Origen, Contra Celsum 5.25, cf. 34; cf. A. Fürst, “Monotheism between cult and politics: the themes of the ancient debate between pagan and Christian monotheism,” at 91 f.

31 Iamblichus, , De vita pyth. 14, 18 and 151 Google Scholar. On the value of the ‘wise nations’ to Middle Platonism, see Boys-Stones, G., Post-hellenic philosophy: a study of its development from the Stoics to Origen (Cambridge 2001) 99–122 Google Scholar.

32 Pagan monotheism (supra n.4) 30 f.

33 Ezquerra, J. Alvar, Romanising oriental gods. Myth, salvation and ethics in the cults of Cybele, Isis and Mithras (Leiden 2008) 154–203 Google Scholar.

34 Rome, Sta Prisca: Vermaseren, M. J. and van Essen, C. C., The excavations in the Mithraeum of the church of Santa Prisca in Rome (Leiden 1965) 155–60Google Scholar (upper layer, right wall); Ostia (mitreo di Felicissimo): Becatti, G., Scavi di Ostia, vol. 2: I mitrei (Rome 1954) 105–12Google Scholar with pls. XXIV.1 and XXV; cf. Beck, R. L., Planetary gods and planetary orders in the mysteries of Mithras (Leiden 1988) 1–3 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 A. Chaniotis, “Megatheism: the search for the almighty god and the competition of cults,” 112-40. Belayche’s argument (supra n.29) 159-62 is very similar: “the uttering of shouts was a form of decision-making in competitive civic or imperial society … it belonged pre-eminently to a world of relative positioning … it classified without rejecting anyone”.

36 Chaniotis, A., “Acclamations as a form of religious communication,” in Cancik, H. and Rüpke, J. (edd.), Die Religion des Imperium Romanum: Koine und Konfrontationen (Tübingen 2009) 199–218 Google Scholar.

37 They also occur on amulets and ring-stones, which combine selective iconographies (especially heads and busts, as the most directly telling parts of deities, but also allusions to cosmic order) in order to achieve maximum pragmatic efficacy, cf., e.g., Veymiers, R., “Sérapis sur les gemmes et bijoux antiques. Un portrait du dieu en images,” in Bonnet, C. et al. (edd.), Les religions orientales dans le monde grec et romain: cent ans après Cumont (1906–2006). Bilan historique et historiographique (Brussels 2009) 187–214 Google Scholar.

38 Cf. Chaniotis, A., “Staging and feeling the presence of god: emotion and theatricality in religious celebrations in the Roman East,” in Bricault, L. and Bonnet, C. (edd.), Panthée: religious transformations in the Graeco-Roman empire (Leiden 2013) at 180–86Google Scholar.

39 Belayche (supra n.29) at 146 and 150-55 likewise stresses the contingency and communicative specificity of εἷςθεός acclamations, and rightly rejects any comparison with philosophical claims about First Principles.

40 “Megatheism,” 136 f.

41 North, J. A., “Pagan ritual and monotheism,” 34–52 Google Scholar.

42 On Dionysiac/Bacchic associations, see the excellent collection and interpretation of Jaccottet, A.-F., Choisir Dionysos. Les associations dionysiaques ou, la face cachée du dionysisme. vols. 1-2 (Zürich 2003)Google Scholar. For the recent re-assessments of the entire phenomenon of the ‘oriental cults’, see, e.g., L. Bricault and C. Bonnet, “Introduction,” to their volume evaluating the series “Études préliminaires” (1962-90): Panthée (supra n.38) 1-14, especially those cited at 11 n.32.

43 Smith, J. Z., “The wobbling pivot,” Journal of Religion 52 (1972) 236–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar = Map is not territory: studies in the history of religions (Leiden 1978) 88–103 Google Scholar. The distinction has become classic in History of Religions circles. Although Smith claimed to see these as mere alternative possibilities, he often wrote as though, particularly in the Roman and Late Roman periods, the one followed the other in a quasi-evolutionary manner.

44 See, e.g., Bourdieu, P., Méditations pascaliennes (Paris 1997) 25 f. and 139–41Google Scholar.

45 Cf. Gordon, R. L., “Individuality, selfhood and power in the second century: the mystagogue as a mediator of religious options,” in Rüpke, J. and Woolf, G. (edd.), Religious dimensions of the self in the second century CE (Tübingen 2013) 146–72Google Scholar.

46 Van Nuffelen in Pagan monotheism (supra n.4) 18-21; less decisively, Mitchell, , “Further thoughts on the cult of Theos Hypsistos” in One god 179 fGoogle Scholar.

47 Versnel (supra n.9) 35 f.

48 On historicism, see the instructive collection of essays edited by Scholtz, G., Historismus am Ende des 20. Jhdts. Eine internationale Diskussion (Berlin 1997)Google Scholar, especially the contribution by Iggers, G., “Historismus — Geschichte und Bedeutung. Eine kritische Übersicht der neuesten Literatur,” 102–26Google Scholar.

49 Bricault, L., Myrionymi: les épiclèses grecques et latines d’Isis, de Sarapis et d’Anubis (Stuttgart 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 I should here expressly call attention to the point made by Fürst (supra n.30) 97, that the true issue is not between one god and many but the rôle religion is to play in the state. My remarks here should, however, not be construed as an argument for the adoption of ‘henotheism’.

51 Mitchell (supra n.46) 167-208. For the original article, see n.14 above.

52 Ibid. 178. They are so routine that very few photographs are to be found (neither epigraphers nor art-historians are much interested in the appearance of such items).

53 Cf. Nilsson, M. P., Geschichte der griechischen Religion I (3rd edn., Munich 1967) 134 Google Scholar, noting particularly how the frequent occurrence in the Hellenistic and later periods of κατ’εὐχήν and χαριστήριον conveys a sense both of routinisation and of gratitude for a wish fulfilled. Cf. also Schörner, G., Votive im römischen Griechenland: Untersuchungen zur späthellenistischen und kaiserzeitlichen Kunstund Religionsgeschichte (Stuttgart 2003) 13–20 Google Scholar.

54 Mitchell (supra n.46) 168. A little later, however, he undercuts his own argument by conceding that a group of new texts from Macedonia (and Thessaly) are indeed unrelated to the others (“have a special place in the corpus”: 171). And it later turns out (186) that some 17 are clearly Jewish.

55 Levick, B. and Mitchell, S. (edd.), Monuments from the Aezanitis (MAMA IX.1; JRS Monog. 4, 1988)Google Scholar. It is by no means straightforward to establish even this one figure, since to arrive at it one has to combine the figures for ‘Dedications’ (pp. 19-28 nos. C49-72, possibly including two others which may or may not have been inscribed) with the list of religious items published elsewhere, some of which are not votives (p. 180: P61-73), and four of which also appear in the C entries (i.e., those recorded by Cox, Cameron and Cullen in the 1920s).

56 If we continue in this line of thinking, we might ask: How many votive offerings in stone did the average ancient worshipper put up in a lifetime? We can hardly know, but we are surely talking at best about extremely unusal events in a single lifetime.

57 ‘Lived Ancient Religion: questioning “cults” and “polis religion”’, directed by J. Rüpke at the University of Erfurt and financed by the European Reseach Council (2013-17).

58 See again my paper cited in n.45.

59 C. Markschies, “The price of monotheism: some new observations on a current debate about late antiquity,” 100-11.