Ancient Greek Religion Research Articles

Book Review of Current Approaches to Religion in Ancient Greece: Papers Presented at a Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 17–19 April 2008, edited by Matthew Haysom and Jenny Wallensten

This volume results from a conference held at the Swedish Institute at Athens and at the British School at Athens in 2008. As the editors underline, the book inserts itself into the modern field of studies on ancient Greek religion, which reflects scholars’ acquired awareness of the centrality of religion to Greek culture and focus on the worshipers “and on their social and mental world” (12), rather than seeking to discover the forgotten origin of gods or the ancestral function of their rituals, as in former times.

Is it possible to believe in a syncretistic god? A discussion on conceptual and contextual aspects of Hellenistic syncretism

This article will look into the phenomenon of syncretism from two different points of view. Firstly, syncretism will be discussed from a conceptual perspective in relation to elaborations on belief, an equally perplexing concept in the studies of ancient Greek religion. Secondly, a very selective example of the syncretism between the goddess Demeter and Isis as an object of veneration in Ptolemaic Egypt will be looked at more closely in order to bring the conceptual perspective into closer contact with the contextual one. It will be argued that syncretism can be regarded both as an essence of polytheistic religious systems in particular, and as a process of syncretization. Once a metaphorical understanding of syncretism is added to these views, believing in a syncretistic deity (Demeter-Isis in our case) appears doubtful since a new entity in a polytheistic belief-system would have entailed a fundamental change in the belief system itself as well as an introduction of totally new features to the conception of deities in general.

Networks and Narratives: A Model for Ancient Greek Religion*

Polis religion has become the dominant model for the description of ritual activity in ancient Greek communities.Indeed,scholars have invoked polis religion to try to resolve the much-debated question of the definition of magic vs. religion, arguing that particular ‘magical’practices, and their practitioners, do not belong to‘collective polis religion.’ However,the relationship to polis religion of a‘magical’practice such as the writingof binding spells is surely moreambiguous, as well as of other cult activity relating (in various ways)to the worshipof Dionysos. Further examination suggests that defining whatit means for ritual activity to be integrated within the schema of polis religion becomes increasingly difficult as we examine the variety of cult organisations and the different levels and types of involvement by the polis. This paper argues that social network theory may beable to overcome these conceptual difficulties. This approach can offer an alternative, more fluid construction of ancientGreek religion, which allows us to take account ofcoexisting,sometimes overlapping,networks of ritual activities.

Animal Sacrifice in Ancient Greek Religion, Judaism, and Christianity, 100 BC to AD 200

Animal Sacrifice in Ancient Greek Religion, Judaism, and Christianity, 100 BC to AD 200

Temples, Stars, and Ritual Landscapes: The Potential for Archaeoastronomy in Ancient Greece

The study of astronomical knowledge and observations in ancient cultures has enabled and enriched archaeological interpretations in contexts as diverse as pre-Columbian America, later prehistoric Europe, Egypt, Babylonia, and the Far East. The application of archaeoastronomy to the study of ancient Greek religion has been less successful and has been hampered by poor practice. Through a case study that investigates the astronomy in Alcman’s Partheneion and its possible relationship with the Artemis Orthia rites carried out at her sanctuary in Sparta, we aim to show that a robust and methodologically sound archaeoastronomical approach can contribute to a better understanding of the role of astronomy in Greek religious practice and perceptions of the cosmos.

L’Hagnè Theos du dème d’Aixônè en Attique : réflexions sur l’anonymat divin dans la religion grecque antique

Article L’Hagnè Theos du dème d’Aixônè en Attique : réflexions sur l’anonymat divin dans la religion grecque antique was published on December 13, 2010 in the journal Archiv für Religionsgeschichte (volume 12, issue 1).

Animal Sacrifice in Ancient Greek Religion, Judaism, and Christianity, 100 b.c. to a.d. 200 (review)

Animal Sacrifice in Ancient Greek Religion, Judaism, and Christianity, 100 b.c. to a.d. 200 (review)

Persephone Rises, 1860-1927: Mythography, Gender, and the Creation of a New Spirituality (review)

Reviewed by: Persephone Rises, 1860-1927: Mythography, Gender, and the Creation of a New Spirituality Sharon Aronofsky Weltman (bio) Persephone Rises, 1860-1927: Mythography, Gender, and the Creation of a New Spirituality by Margot K. Louis; pp. xvi +171. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009. $117.31. Dante Gabriel Rossetti's goddess gazes unsmilingly from the cover of Margot Louis's new book, Persephone Rises. She holds her glowing pomegranate open, showing the fatal seeds that promise pain and terrible joy, a fit icon for the Victorian and Modernist uses of the myth that this monograph examines. Louis argues for Demeter and Persephone as an "ideal nexus" for considering nineteenth-century reactions to rape, negotiations between Christianity and alternative spiritualities, and explorations of mother-daughter relationships. Persephone Rises joins a growing number of important books studying the conjunction of myth and gender in Victorian literature and culture that go back at least as far as Nina Auerbach's Woman and the Demon and include Adrienne Munich's Andromeda's Chains, Dinah Birch's Ruskin's Myths, and Nina daVinci Nichols's Ariadne's Lives. Citing Frank Turner, Robert Ackerman, and Catherine Gallagher, Louis responds to "the specific historical and cultural contingencies informing each mythopoeic text rather than asserting a universal and transcendental value reaffirmed in each appearance of the myth." Leaving behind what came to be derisively called the "myth-lit-crit" of the 1970s and 80s, Louis participates in "a new myth criticism—employing the methods of historicist and cultural studies" (xi). The introduction outlines two trends in Victorian mythography that helped bring Persephone into prominence: a growing interest in Greek chthonic ritual as mediating death (in contrast to the Homeric Olympians as representing immortality) and a gradually increasing respect for ancient Greek religion as genuine faith rather than mere superstition. Chapter 1 usefully compares the myth's classical sources: the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, discovered in a Moscow stable in 1777 and a crucial influence on the Victorians; Ovid's Metamorphosis; and Claudian's De raptu Proserpinae. Louis moves on to Chaucer, Shakespeare (the first to focus on Persephone's experience rather than her mother's), and Milton. Each creates a paradigm that subsequent British and American authors have followed: a sardonic take on women's domination by patriarchal institutions, a story of growing feminine power that culminates in happy reunion, and a prophesy of Christian resurrection, a vision to which many Victorians clung while more radical ways of seeing the myth emerged. The chapter continues with a powerful reading of Mary Shelley's closet drama Proserpine, in which "we hear the mother's rage and rebellion against the male powers that have bereaved her of her child" (35). A glance at Hawthorne's tale "The Pomegranate Seeds," with its Pollyanna-like Persephone, brings in Margaret Fuller, whose "Conversations" shift Persephone from the helpless child of Ovid and Milton and from Wordsworthian affect to an emphasis on intellectual maturation. Far-reaching and erudite, both chapters 1 and 2 analyze the contributions of [End Page 247] Victorian mythographers such as Max Müller, Karl Otfried Müller, John Ruskin, Walter Pater, and Jane Ellen Harrison. Of greatest interest to Victorian Review readers are chapters 2, 3, and 4. Chapter 2 reads Jean Ingelow and Dora Greenwell's Persephone poems compellingly through the lens of J.J. Bachofen's theory that matriarchy preceded patriarchy and of McLennan's notion that patriarchal marriages were originally based on the brutal capture of wives. Both Ingelow and Greenwell depict marriage as a violent tragedy that severs the primary bond between mother and daughter. A well-known Swinburne scholar, Louis shines brilliantly in chapter 3, exploring at length his focus on Proserpine as the queen of the underworld and teasing out the tensions between oblivion and immortality, pessimism and the life force, raised not only in Swinburne but also in Mathilde Blind, Tennyson, Walter Pater, D.G. Rossetti, George Meredith, and Edith Wharton. While in many ways the book's most exciting chapter, replete with beautiful and persuasive readings, it also includes the book's most awkward moment, abruptly referring several times to a very brief appendix on the origins of fin de siècle pessimism that...

Animal sacrifice in ancient Greek religion, Judaism and Christianity, 100 BC to AD 200, by M.-Z. Petropoulou (book review)

Animal sacrifice in ancient Greek religion, Judaism and Christianity, 100 BC to AD 200, by M.-Z. Petropoulou (book review)

On Tyrant Property Turned Ritual Object: Political Power and Sacred Symbols in Ancient Greece and in Social Anthropology

This article explores the conceptualization of religious symbols in both classical scholarship on ancient Greek religion and social anthropology as indicative of where the two disciplines currently stand in relation to each other. Rather than addressing the much debated concept of "thick description," the article focuses on Geertz's considerably less explored notion of "religion as a response to chaos." The article ultimately promotes an approach that sees religious symbols as intrinsic to socio-political power. A look at the cultural practice of the "recycling" of symbolic capital at Athens after the restoration of democracy in 403 B.C.E. exemplifies the explanatory power of this approach for the study of ancient Greek religion.

Animal sacrifice in ancient Greek religion, Judaism, and Christianity, 100 BC to AD 200. By Maria-Zoe Petropoulou. (Oxford Classical Monographs.) Pp. xii+336. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. £60. 978 0 19 921854 7

Animal sacrifice in ancient Greek religion, Judaism, and Christianity, 100 BC to AD 200. By Maria-Zoe Petropoulou. (Oxford Classical Monographs.) Pp. xii+336. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. £60. 978 0 19 921854 7 - Volume 60 Issue 2

Polis Religion – A Critical Appreciation

This article explores the scope and limits of the model of “polis religion” as one of the most powerful interpretative concepts in current scholarship in the field. It examines the notion of the ‘embeddedness’ of ancient Greek religion in the polis as well as the unity and diversity of Greek religious beliefs and practices, and discusses in how far the model is able to capture developments beyond the Classical period. The article looks at religious phenomena and forms of religious organization above and below the polis level. I argue that the strengths of the model lie in its capacity to explain an important structuring principle of ancient Greek religion. The weaknesses of the model are due to the fact that it is focused too narrowly on the polis as the primary discourse of power relevant for the study of ancient Greek religion.

From Polis to Borders: Demarcation of Social and Ritual Space in the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia, Greece

This article focuses on three interrelated themes in the study of ancient Greek religion, looked at through the mateiral evidence from the sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia on the island of Poros, Greece. First, I look at the so-called polis model and its applicability to an interpretation of Kalaureian material related to the cultic life of the sanctuary from the point of view of the 'historiography' of Greek religion. I then discuss the historical context of the archaeological material, with particular emphasis on the topic of the sanctuary as a known place of asylum particularly during the Hellenistic period. Thirdy, I examine the archaeological material related to eating and dining and its potential connections to the demarcation between sacred and profane activities and between sacralised and profane space in the sanctuary, with special interpretative attention to the significance of border(s) and boundaries. Drawing attention to these issues may help us understand the dynamics and interplay between 'official' and 'private' aspects of ancient Greek religion, within both the tradition of the scholarship of ancient Greek religion and the so-called 'archaeology of cult'.

Sin, Punishment And Forgiveness In Ancient Greek Religion: A Yoruba Assessment

This paper looks in particular at the special sin of hubris in ancient Greek religious thought. It examines what constitutes hubris and some cases in which hubris has been committed and punished. It demonstrates with examples that hubris is an unforgivable sin in ancient Greek religion and examines the reasons for this concept. Finally, the paper interprets the operation of hubris in Greek religion from the Yoruba concept of sin (ese) and its attendant punishment. It concludes that whereas in Greek society the operation of hubris gives the signal that human beings are always plagued with the sense of being victims, in the Yoruba case, sin, punishment and forgiveness have humanistic principles that allow space for choices. The blending of the two concepts however can help in limiting man\'s depravity and help man to govern himself. Journal of Philosophy and Culture Vol. 3 (1) 2006: pp. 72-101

Sin, Punishment And Forgiveness In Ancient Greek Religion: A Yoruba Assessment

This paper looks in particular at the special sin of hubris in ancient Greek religious thought. It examines what constitutes hubris and some cases in which hubris has been committed and punished. It demonstrates with examples that hubris is an unforgivable sin in ancient Greek religion and examines the reasons for this concept. Finally, the paper interprets the operation of hubris in Greek religion from the Yoruba concept of sin (a»‡a¹£ao¹) and its attendant punishment. It concludes that whereas in Greek society the operation of hubris gives the signal that human beings are always plagued with the sense of being victims, in the Yoruba case, sin, punishment and forgiveness have humanistic principles that allow space for choices. The blending of the two concepts however can help in limiting man’s depravity and help man to govern himself.

Human or superhuman: The concept of hero in ancient Greek religion and/in politics

The word hero appears in Greek language with a twofold meaning. On one hand it is used for denoting a divine being, who lived a mortal life, but after doing some great deed deserved to become god. On the other hand, the hero stands for great and brave warrior who is ready to give his life in order to gain immortal glory, and continue to live in the social sphere, in the memory of his descendants. Exactly this epic narrative survived and was exploited many times, as a very convenient and useful pattern in con strutting the ideal of brave warrior, ready to die for his country when necessary. I am going to requisition the relation between two meanings of the word hero, in order to get deeper insight in the meaning of this twofold term in the social and cultural context in which it appears, as a religious concept or as a narrative in war propaganda.

The Sins of the Fathers: C.A. Lobeck and K.O. Müller

The notion of “inherited guilt,” or ancestral fault, has played a prominent role in scholarship on ancient Greek religion and literature. Although it corresponds to no clearly circumscribed ancient concept, it has acquired something of a self-evident value in philological research. Shaped by centuries of ideological involvement with the Greek material, and by the apparently equivalent Judeo-Christian notions of corporate responsibility and original sin, the term “inherited guilt” imposes a heavy baggage of assumptions and resonances on the material it is meant to describe and translate. Rather than abandoning “inherited guilt” altogether, or simply deconstructing it away, as some scholars have suggested in recent years, a new perspective grounded in a detailed understanding of its tradition is needed to make sense of the abundant and complex material at hand. A thorough engagement with the religiously charged tradition of scholarship is one of the keys to a fruitful redefinition of Greek ancestral fault. The present paper proposes to revisit the seminal discussions of the two contemporary scholars who pioneered the modern professional study of Greek religion: C.A. Lobeck and K.O. Müller.

Singing the Dead: A Model for Epic Evolution (review)

Reviewed by: Singing the Dead: A Model for Epic Evolution Barry B. Powell Reyes Bertolín Cebrián . Singing the Dead: A Model for Epic Evolution. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2006. Pp. 173. US $62.95. ISBN 0-8204-8165-3 Tackling the tough problem of the evolution of epic one must have a strong sense of what happened in archaic Greece and the ancient Near East and of how texts came into being then. Certainly Greek epics did not "crystallize" like salt in a glass, as Bertolín Cebrián would have it (p. 3), but were dictated at a single time and place by illiterate bards to men trained in the very new and radical technology of the Greek alphabet, as argued by Milman Parry, Albert B. Lord, Richard Janko and many others. Working from a false model for text-formation, Bertolín Cebrián is from the beginning held from solving the problems she has chosen to address, and I found her book unpersuasive at many levels. Complicating her false model of text-formation, she raises from the dead such discredited interpretations as the "Pisistratean Recension," which never existed, and imagines that epic began after 1100 BC, which no one believes. Her affection for such neologisms as "illocutionary," "performativity," "self-referentiality," further muddies the waters to yield amateurish speculations about various matters. Considering the relationship between rite and myth, Bertolín Cebrián views rites as accompanying myths, but more conservative than them. Myths like to change. Bertolín Cebrián does not make clear what she means by "rite," but the religious act of sacrifice, the principle rite in Greek religion, was in fact rarely accompanied by myths in ancient Greek religion, so far as we know. We cannot connect one single Greek literary text with a known rite and certainly not the Iliad or the Odyssey. Bertolín Cebrián seems to confuse magical spells with rite. She sees a connection somehow between "rite" and choral poetry. Certainly such poetry was performed in public festivals, but was never a "rite" as was the slashing of an animal's throat and the consumption of its flesh. Bertolín Cebrián seems not to understand the all-male symposium as the natural setting for the delivery of elegy and lyric, but imagines that these forms of poetry took place, again, "in a ritual context" before being on occasion "secularized." Bertolín Cebrián's main argument is built on her vision of the initial [End Page 69] union of myth and rite. Epic grew from a specific rite, the lament for the dead (was this a "rite"?), though I was surprised to learn that such laments might blame as well as praise the deceased. Bertolín Cebrián appears unaware of the magical role of the lament in consoling the unhappy ghost, and through such practices as ululation of frightening the ghost away. She thinks that the purpose of the lament was to foster communal cohesion, which it no doubt did, and the willingness to die for the community, about which I am less certain. In any event, first came laments at the tomb, then the laments were separated from the tomb, then they incorporated narrative and indirect speech and became epic. Males created the epic, while females continued their ritual practice of lamenting the dead at tombs. That is where epic comes from. There is, however, no evidence that Greek epic, which also flourished at the symposium and probably at some public festivals, was ever connected with tomb-cult in any way. Epic was a form of entertainment, making use of traditional tales and other material, and no doubt enforcing public values, but has no plausible genetic relationship to lament. We are not sure what "rite" means, but just as well Bertolín Cebrián never makes clear what is meant by "epic." Nothing is said about dactylic hexameter verse, or the differences between Homer and Hesiod and what such differences imply in deciding what "epic" means. She places Homer two hundred years too late and does not understand the critical difference between dictated oral verse and poetry created in writing. Fanciful etymologies do more...

La nourriture et les repas dans les Papyri Graecae Magicae

In the PGM consumption of food or other substances has several aspects: a way of constraining a person or exploiting the power of words, but also an ideal framework of communication with supernatural beings. During ritual meals, the divine being is sometimes treated as an exceptional guest, xenos. In some other cases, the contact with the divine is realised in a more discrete way, while there is a type of detached – in time and space – commensality in which the practitioner offers rests of his food to the divine beings. There are, in ancient Greek religion, some practices and creeds that could render those strange meals more comprehensible.

An ‘Oedipus pattern’ in the Old Testament?

The Oedipus myth and a scapegoat pattern have been central issues in both Walter Burkert's and René Girard's writings about ancient Greek religion. This article proposes the existence of a comparable pattern in the Old Testament legend about the Ark (1–2 Samuel). Together with other Old Testament narratives (David, Moses) and other ancient Near Eastern legends and rituals, these instances form a transformational network, which shows some fundamental positions in a trans-cultural scapegoat-pattern of actantial positions: king, hero, villain and scapegoat.