Through a rich illustration and the presentation of excerpts from historical and literary sources, from laws, eulogies, and inscriptions, John Mikaelson proposes a radiography of the polytheism of the ancient Greeks. The study of Greek religion is impressively complex and includes hundreds of deities with many different forms, which were worshipped for more than two millennia in hundreds of ancient Greek city-states.

The deities, their myths, and rituals, as well as the beliefs held about them, varied, more or less, from city to city and from century to century. Without neglecting the major panhellenic cults of Delphi and Olympia, the author primarily focuses the discussion on Athens, because the data—artistic, archaeological, and epigraphic—are infinitely richer for the city of Pericles than for any other Greek city-state.

Here, the coherence of the ancient Greek religious system is better revealed. In the book, the religion of classical Athens is presented through certain key concepts and specific groups of deities and cults that represent, in their own way, significant aspects of Greek religious life within the context of either the family or the community and city-state or the religious life of the individual.

It is characteristic that the direct connection between religion and mythology in ancient Greece, in almost all manifestations of public and private life, as well as their close relationship with literature and art—important expressions of Greek culture highlighted in the book—resulted in the constant application and renewal of religious practices and the "living" presence of the deities in human affairs.

This makes the reader's approach fascinating, besides being educational, regardless of their level of familiarity with ancient Greek religion.