| Abstract |
"This book is intended to serve as a first introduction to the fascinating subject of ancient Greek religion. It will be, I hope, a place to begin but certainly not to end. The study of Greek religion is wondrously complex, involving hundreds of deities of several different types who were worshiped over a period of nearly two thousand years in hundreds of ancient Greek city-states. The deities, their myths and rituals, and even the beliefs about them varied, in greater or smaller degrees, from city to city and from century to century. The complexity of Greek religion is understandably daunting for those first approaching it, and I attempt here to make the subject more intelligible initially by a variety of strategies. First, I limit my descriptions largely to Greek religion as it was practiced in the Classical period, from about 500 to 323 b.c.e. I do not attempt to describe the developments over many preceding centuries that led to its form at this time, and I devote only Chapter VIII to distinctive features of religion in the Hellenistic period (323-30 b.c.e.). Secondly, I center much of the discussion on Athens because the evidence - literary, artistic, archaeological, and epigraphical - is many, many times more abundant for Athens than for any other one Greek city-state and this allows us to see better the coherency of the Greek religious system. But even a full account of religion in classical Athens would require several volumes, and for this introduction I have chosen to direct attention first to some basic concepts, then to a select group of deities and cults which, each in its own way, represent important aspects of Greek religious life, then to the religion as practiced in the context of the family, the village, and the city-state, and, finally, to the religious life of the individual. For each deity, ritual, belief, and myth I have attempted to concentrate on what seems to me essential for the purpose at hand, leaving aside many of the questions and uncertainties, variant ancient accounts, and details that accompany many of these topics. Also, we intend to give a general account, and to virtually any general statement about Greek religion some exceptions may be found. In addition, readers should be forewarned that many of the statements made on every page have been challenged at one time or another by one modern scholar or another. And, finally, this book is largely descriptive, based on the ancient evidence that survives, and it limits discussion of modern theoretical interpretations of these complex subjects. Over the last hundred and fifty years a number of theoretical systems to explain major elements of Greek religion have come and sometimes gone. These theoretical approaches hold great interest in themselves, but one needs to know what the Greeks themselves did and said about their religion before one can adequately apply or evaluate the various theoretical systems to explain it all. On that principle we have placed last in this third edition chapters on the sources for (X) and the scholarship on (XI) Greek Religion. The books and essays suggested in Further Reading at the end of each chapter will begin to open up for readers the full complexity of these subjects, but we need a place for those interested in the subject to begin, and I hope that this book offers that"-- Provided by publisher. |
