‘Roman poets found Jupiter, but they also made him.’ From this more than sound premise, Julia Hejduk revisits the arguments of her earlier article ‘Jupiter's Aeneid: fama and imperium’ (Classical Antiquity 28 (2009), 279–327), to which she frequently draws attention in this book. The book nuances her position on the two key concepts addressed there. The evaluation is here set in the context of a fuller investigation of the panoply of Augustan poets’ treatment of Jupiter, with chapters on each of Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, Propertius and Ovid. The work aims to probe the contribution of poetry, to be understood alongside theology, philosophy and cultic practice, in shaping ‘the god of Rome’ through the Augustan period. This is an ambitious and potentially immensely rewarding project, the best structure for delivering which, its author concedes, was the cause of much deliberation on her part. Although any choice ineluctably risks attendant frustrations for readers who come to the work primarily interested in Jupiter, in Augustan history or in Augustan poetry, what is valued most is clear from the choice of poet-by-poet approach. Context is key. The potential rewards of a thematic treatment are largely overridden by the importance of exploring individual poets’ choices, with due attention to the tone, genre, and literary and historical context of individual passages. That said, some chapters, such as that on Ovid, who engaged with Jupiter more frequently than did some other poets, take the form of more thematic groupings rather than exhaustive exploration of examples sequentially within the poet's oeuvre. Despite the laudable attempt to allow poets’ engagements with Jupiter to illuminate their age and vice versa, H., who is mainly known for her work on Virgil and Ovid, is ultimately more interested in the poets than in Jupiter, who serves rather as a key — albeit a very carefully chosen key — to unlock their engagement with the Augustan world. Her rather jarring description of the poets in question as ‘my friends’ (34) seems to seal this point.

The result is a very clear exposition, in part aimed to be accessible to students and more general readers, of the dazzling variety of roles and guises of Jupiter in poetry of the age. In the introduction, H. seeks to set up a context for what follows, exploring ‘Greek Zeus’, who is rightly presented as source of ideas and material for the Augustan poets rather than as a straightforward counterpart to ‘Roman Jupiter’; Roman religion; and the rise of Augustus, whose varied associations with Jupiter underlie questions of interest in the work as a whole — though H. rightly eschews simple equations of the two throughout the work. The overview will be useful to readers less familiar with any of these contexts, though the summary nature of the discussion inevitably brings some generalisation.

There is much of value in the book, both in specific readings and whole-text analyses. Worth noting inter alia are the reading of ruit per vetitum nefas in Horace, Odes 1.3.26; the exploration of the consolation of Hercules in Aeneid, where H. engages effectively with Jenkyns’ analysis; the attention drawn to acrostics, in which H. has a particular interest; the examination of all the examples in different books of Virgil's Georgics; and the juxtaposition of treatments in works of different genre and time of composition (again particularly fruitful in the chapter on Virgil).

In considering the tightness of the relationship between particular passages or texts and historical context, H. treads a careful line, illustrating the variety of positions taken by different authors and by the same authors in different works, and indeed within the same work. Nods to possible relations to Roman society and to Augustus are careful not to push beyond what can be defended. While to posit a stronger line would have been misleading, the value of the book for historians is arguably lessened to a degree by conclusions such as ‘Horace makes Jupiter neither a consistent locus for protest nor a consistent purveyor of “Augustan” values’ (155), although the importance of exploring Jupiter's pivotal role in the relation of poetry and power that is key to Odes 1–3 has been effectively illustrated in the course of smaller constituent parts of the chapter to which this claim forms the conclusion.

Ultimately, The God of Rome is arguably most interesting in its treatment of Virgil and will be of most value to those interested in Augustan poetry and in individual passages and works, while having something to offer many other readers. The overall impression is indeed something akin to H.'s own interpretation of Virgil on Jupiter. She draws attention to an author who deliberately places hints that lead readers in opposite directions in order to push those readers to decide what it is that really makes the greatest impact. H. does not set out in this book to present her readers with a similar, deliberately disconcerting hermeneutic challenge. Rather, through her very engagement with so many individual passages, works and oeuvres, and through the careful evaluation of contextualised examples and viewpoints, H. ultimately creates a valuable framework from within which readers are supported to ponder further not only poetic treatments of Jupiter but the contribution of poetic engagements with a whole variety of deities to the societies from which they sprang.