Roger Woodard is Andrew V. V. Raymond Professor of the Classics and professor of linguistics at the University of Buffalo (The State University of New York). Among his many books are Greek Writing from Knossos to Homer and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages.

"Woodard fashions a point-by-point comparison between classical Latin and Greek accounts of certain archaic Roman ceremonies that demarcate, celebrate, and hallow civic space . . . and some of the many painstakingly detailed prescriptions for sacrifice in which the brahmanic literature of ancient India abounds."--Indo-European Studies Bulletin"A stimulating, thought-provoking, and structured account of what can appear to be random and inexplicable details in the synchronic system, a way of thinking 'outside the box' of a single culture."--Journal of the American Oriental Society"A great and beautiful book."--History of Religions