In this journal, V. Sauer and E. Olshausen (Sauer - Olshausen, Gephyra, 29, 2025, 56 no. 2) have recently published an interesting Imperial-period dedication (“Votiv- oder Weihinschrift eines Altar”) to a deity which they were not able to identify. Following an attempt to elucidate the text, a brief discussion of the epithet of Zeus revealed by this inscription is offered. This is Theopomenos (Θεοπομηνός), a toponymic epithet which points to an ancient place name Θεοπόμα (Theopoma) or Θεοπόμη (Theopome). Etymologically, this can be thought to have been formed from a compound word—θεός + πόμα = “Divine Drink (of Water)”?—which in turn could perhaps be identified with a source of fresh water near the findspot of the inscription, at Ayvalı near Vezirköprü, Samsun İli, that is to say in the region of Neoklaudiopolis. The locality Theopoma / Theopome and its probable divine spring was most likely connected to the broader tributary-system of the Halys/Kızılırmak river which flows nearby
