... one part antiquity, one part Renaissance, one part Smash Hits. Erudition, with an erotic frisson.

Hughes moves quickly from antiquity to the present day. The breakneck speed leads to some sweeping statements. And it can make for some fast leaps.

... thoroughly enjoyable.

Quick paced, insightful, and often times humorous.

The trouble is that we have not a scrap of evidence that any ancient Greek or Roman saw their gods in these broad and abstract terms. Aphrodite as goddess of mixis is inescapably a modern rationalization, not how the Greeks really saw her. What’s more, not all of Aphrodite’s actual functions can be made to fit with this idea of 'violent mingling': It doesn’t explain her patronage of Greek civic magistrates, nor does it really square with her role as the goddess who calms the seas (she makes warriors more violent, but the sea less violent?). Nor does it explain why certain spheres of violent mingling were never brought within her supposed domain (she calms storms at sea, but never storms on land). Finally, it misleadingly smooths out what are in fact genuine contradictions and inconsistencies in Greco-Roman religious thought and practice.

... brisk and incisive.