On tyrant property turned ritual object: political power and sacred symbols in ancient Greece and in social anthropology

Abstract

For it is only by repetition that signs and practices cease to be perceived or remarked; that they are so habituated, so deeply inscribed in everyday routine, that they may no longer be seen as forms of control – or seen at all. It is only then that they come to be (un)spoken of as custom, (dis)regarded as convention – and only disinterred, if at all, on ceremonial occasions, when they are symbolically invoked as eternal verities. Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff INTRODUCTION In the first two chapters of this book I referred variously to ancient Greek religion as a ‘symbolic system’, a ‘language’ which allows those fluent in it to ‘make sense’ of the world they inhabit. The model of polis religion draws on such a conception of ancient Greek religion insofar as it posits the existence of religion as a more or less coherent symbolic order, which maps onto the structures of Greek society. I turn next to an investigation of this notion.