INTRODUCTION

In Chapter 1 I discussed the way in which polis religion is construed as extending to what scholars have called the ‘panhellenic’ dimension of ancient Greek religion. I argued that the ‘panhellenic’ is traditionally applied to describe a dimension of the religious in ancient Greece which transcended the level of individual poleis. As such it is frequently contrasted with those religious practices that were specific to a particular polis, that found no extension on the ‘panhellenic’ level, and that are therefore described as representing the ‘local’ dimension of ancient Greek religion. We speak of ‘local’ and ‘universal’ tellings of myth, for example, of ‘local’ and ‘panhellenic’ sanctuaries, of ‘local’ and ‘panhellenic’ festivals and so forth. In the absence of key organising principles of the religious such as a church, a dogma, a holy book and a creed, classical scholarship has conceptualised the fabric of ancient Greek religion around a bipolar model in which ‘the local’ (read: the polis) and ‘the universal’, or ‘panhellenic’ serve as opposing, yet mutually reinforcing, localisations of the religious.

INTRODUCTION

An inquiry into ancient Greek religion beyond polis religion necessarily startsfrom the question of what we mean by polis religion and the impact of this modelon how we conceive of ancient Greek religion as a field of study. In currentscholarship, particularly in the Anglo-American and Francophone worlds, polisreligion has become a powerful interpretative model for the study of Greekreligion. The model is now sufficiently well established that we need to exploreits implications as well as the alternatives that complement or move beyond it.Surprisingly, however, the implications of the model are rarely discussed in thestudy of ancient Greek religion. There is no single account that directly andcomprehensively responds to Sourvinou-Inwood's two methodological articles onpolis religion – the most explicit conceptual formulation of themodel.

This chapter offers a critical evaluation of where we stand. It identifies keyproblems in the scholarly use of the polis-religion model and examines howindividual scholars have positioned their work in regard to these issues. Ratherthan rejecting the model outright, the chapter aims to move the debates forwardby exploring its scope and limits. It examines polis religion in its differentforms and formulations and discusses the ways in which some scholars haverecently sought to overcome the ‘polis orientation’ implicit inlarge parts of the work done in this field.

INTRODUCTION

In her once-influential book Prolegomena to the Study of GreekReligion (1903) Jane Ellen Harrison sketched a picture of ancientGreek religion in which the category of magic formed a central component of thereligious. Influenced by evolutionary anthropology as practised by Frazer andothers, Harrison sought to uncover an earlier, more ‘primitive’stratum of ancient Greek religion, which significantly pre-dated theanthropomorphic conception of the Greek gods and goddesses living in an ordereddivine society on Mount Olympus as propagated in particular by Homer and Hesiod(Olympianism). This prehistoric stratum, she argued, was still visible inreligious phenomena such as witchcraft, purification and mysteries, allpractices that Olympianism had eventually driven underground. It was alsoevident in festivals such as the Thesmophoria, which were ‘left almostuncontaminated by Olympian usage’. Harrison, then, focused on magicalelements in such festivals and practices in order to access earlier stages inthe development of ancient Greek religion – with the effect that magicbecame an ubiquitous feature within her oeuvre.

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.