The aim of this book

It may perhaps be useful for our English readers if we explain our initial motivation in writing this book. It was written under the influence of two principal and in our eyes complementary considerations, one methodological, the other pedagogical.

Pedagogically speaking, we noted that there was no recent textbook in France which dealt with ancient Greek religion. This meant that both students and anyone with a general interest in Greek antiquity had the greatest difficulty in acquiring the basic information and understanding that are indispensable for pursuing more detailed investigations within the area of religion. There was a need therefore to collect together and make generally available all such basic materials and to present them in an expository framework that raised the sorts of questions asked today by historians of religion: what is a ritual? a festival? a sanctuary? and so forth. Constant reference to different kinds of documentary evidence satisfied the need both to render the exposition more concrete and to make some fundamental texts accessible in translation to readers who might not always know Greek.

Methodologically speaking, we noted the growing gap between the textbooks that were available and the current state of scholarly research, for over the past thirty years the study of Greek religion, especially research on the myths and analysis of the pantheon, has been revitalized.