Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Maps
- List of Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction to Volumes I and II
- Introduction to Volume I
- Part I Mesopotamia and the Near East
- Part II Egypt and North Africa
- Part III Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean
- 9 Minoan Religion
- 10 Mycenaean Religion
- 11 Archaic and Classical Greek Religion
- Part IV The Western Mediterranean and Europe
- Suggestions for Further Reading
- General Index
- Index of Citations
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Maps
- List of Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction to Volume II
- Part I Iran and the Near East
- Part II Egypt and North Africa
- Part III Greece and Asia Minor
- Part IV Italy, Roman Gaul, and Spain
- Suggestions for Further Reading
- General Index
- Index of Citations
- References
11 - Archaic and Classical Greek Religion
from Part III - Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2013
By
General editor
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Maps
- List of Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction to Volumes I and II
- Introduction to Volume I
- Part I Mesopotamia and the Near East
- Part II Egypt and North Africa
- Part III Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean
- 9 Minoan Religion
- 10 Mycenaean Religion
- 11 Archaic and Classical Greek Religion
- Part IV The Western Mediterranean and Europe
- Suggestions for Further Reading
- General Index
- Index of Citations
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Maps
- List of Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction to Volume II
- Part I Iran and the Near East
- Part II Egypt and North Africa
- Part III Greece and Asia Minor
- Part IV Italy, Roman Gaul, and Spain
- Suggestions for Further Reading
- General Index
- Index of Citations
- References
Summary
What do we mean by “Greek religion”? First and foremost, the limits of time need some definition. It is traditional in accounts of the ancient Greek world to begin as a sort of preface with a brief treatment of the Bronze Age Aegean (“Minoan-Mycenaean religion”), to proceed to a somewhat agnostic version of the relationship between Homer and the “Dark Ages,” and to take “archaic and classical” and “Hellenistic” as significant dividers in what follows. This may not be the only set of categories we can apply to a diachronic treatment of the subject, but it has two advantages: At least at the upper end, it fits the nature of the evidence as it shifts in the different periods, and it corresponds roughly to far-reaching changes in social and political organization, with which religious expression is intimately connected. Thus it is possible to view the religion of the archaic and classical period as mediated to us to a great extent through contemporary literature and epigraphy, unlike that of earlier periods, and, as we shall see, we can also characterize it as “polis-religion,” corresponding as it does (and not merely chronologically) to the heyday of the polis between the eighth or seventh century and the world of Alexander and his successors. Other ways of dividing up the extent of pre-Christian Greek religion may reveal other characteristics, and it is undeniable that much in Hellenistic religion is continuous or even identical with earlier periods, but it is certainly convenient and frequently helpful to take the archaic and classical period as a unit.
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- The Cambridge History of Religions in the Ancient World , pp. 280 - 306Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013
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