Extract

In considering the very numerous surnames or epithets of gods it is necessary first to distinguish between those appearing only as literary (especially epic) ornaments and those known to have been used in cult. Thus we have no proof that *Athena was ever addressed in ritual as γλαυκῶπις (‘grey-eyed’); it is her stock epithet in *Homer, *Zeus' pet-name for her (Il. 8. 373). It seems unlikely that *Ares was prayed to as βροτολοιγός (‘ruinous to mortals’); he is so addressed by Athena (Il. 5. 31), which is a very different thing, and it is his stock epithet (as ibid. 846). But there are many borderline cases, hard to decide. We have no instance of *Athena being called Pallas in cult, yet it is not easy to suppose that so familiar a name was never used for her by worshippers; Zeus' stock epithet, ‘cloud-gatherer’, appears in the vocative, νεφεληγερέτα, in epic in many places where it is syntactically a nominative, strongly suggesting that its form had become fixed by some ancient liturgical phrase, which, however, is quite lost to us.