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| The Judgment of
Paris by Peter Paul Rubens (c. 1636), depicting
the goddesses Hera, Aphrodite and Athena, in a
competition that causes the Trojan War. This
Baroque painting shows the continuing
fascination with Greek mythology. |
Ancient Greek
Religion
Ancient Greek religion encompasses the collection of
beliefs, rituals, and mythology originating in ancient
Greece in the form of both popular public religion and
cult practices. These groups varied enough for it to be
possible to speak of Greek religions or "cults" in the
plural, though most of them shared similarities.
Most ancient Greeks recognized the twelve major Olympian
gods and goddesses—Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter,
Athena, Ares, Aphrodite, Apollo, Artemis, Hephaestus,
Hermes, and either Hestia or Dionysus—although
philosophies such as Stoicism and some forms of
Platonism used language that seems to assume a single
transcendent deity. The worship of these deities, and
several others, was found across the Greek world, though
they often have different epithets that distinguished
aspects of the deity, and often reflect the absorption
of other local deities into the pan-Hellenic scheme.
The religious practices of the Greeks extended beyond
mainland Greece, to the islands and coasts of Ionia in
Asia Minor, to Magna Graecia (Sicily and southern
Italy), and to scattered Greek colonies in the Western
Mediterranean, such as Massalia (Marseille). Early
Italian religions such as the Etruscan religion were
influenced by Greek religion and subsequently influenced
much of the ancient Roman religion. |
|
Beliefs
Theology
Ancient Greek theology was polytheistic, based on the
assumption that there were many gods and goddesses, as
well as a range of lesser supernatural beings of various
types. There was a hierarchy of deities, with Zeus, the
king of the gods, having a level of control over all the
others, although he was not almighty. Some deities had
dominion over certain aspects of nature. For instance,
Zeus was the sky-god, sending thunder and lightning,
Poseidon ruled over the sea and earthquakes, Hades
projected his remarkable power throughout the realms of
death and the Underworld, and Helios controlled the sun.
Other deities ruled over abstract concepts; for instance
Aphrodite controlled love. All significant deities were
visualized as "human" in form, although often able to
transform themselves into animals or natural phenomena.
While being immortal, the gods were certainly not
all-good or even all-powerful. They had to obey fate,
known to Greek mythology as the Moirai, which overrode
any of their divine powers or wills. For instance, in
mythology, it was Odysseus' fate to return home to
Ithaca after the Trojan War, and the gods could only
lengthen his journey and make it harder for him, but
they could not stop him.
Afterlife
The Greeks believed in an underworld where the spirits
of the dead went after death. One of the most widespread
areas of this underworld was ruled over by Hades, a
brother of Zeus, and was itself also known as Hades
(originally called 'the place of Hades'). Other well
known realms are Tartarus, a place of torment for the
damned, and Elysium, a place of pleasures for the
virtuous. In the early Mycenaean religion all the dead
went to Hades, but the rise of mystery cults in the
Archaic age led to the development of places such as
Tartarus and Elysium.
Mythology
Greek religion had an extensive mythology. It consisted
largely of stories of the gods and how they interacted
with humans. Myths often revolved around heroes and
their actions, such as Heracles and his twelve labors,
Odysseus and his voyage home, Jason and the quest for
the Golden Fleece and Theseus and the Minotaur.
Many species existed in Greek mythology. Chief among
these were the gods and humans, though the Titans (who
predated the Olympian gods) also frequently appeared in
Greek myths. Lesser species included the
half-man-half-horse centaurs, the nature based nymphs
(tree nymphs were dryads, sea nymphs were Nereids) and
the half man, half goat satyrs. Some creatures in Greek
mythology were monstrous, such as the one-eyed giant
Cyclopes, the sea beast Scylla, whirlpool Charybdis,
Gorgons, and the half-man, half-bull Minotaur.
Morality
One of the most important moral concepts to the Greeks
was the fear of committing hubris. Hubris constituted
many things, from rape to desecration of a corpse, and
was a crime in the city-state of Athens. Although pride
and vanity were not considered sins themselves, the
Greeks emphasized moderation. Pride only became hubris
when it went to extremes, like any other vice. The same
was thought of eating and drinking. Anything done to
excess was not considered proper. Ancient Greeks placed,
for example, importance on athletics and intellect
equally. In fact many of their competitions included
both. Pride was not evil until it became all-consuming
or hurtful to others. |
|
Practices
Ceremonies
The lack of a unified priestly class meant that a
unified, canonic form of the religious texts or
practices never existed; just as there was no unified,
common sacred text for the Greek belief system, there
was no standardization of practices. Instead, religious
practices were organized on local levels, with priests
normally being magistrates for the city or village, or
gaining authority from one of the many sanctuaries. Some
priestly functions, like the care for a particular local
festival, could be given by tradition to a certain
family. To a large extent, in the absence of
"scriptural" sacred texts, religious practices derived
their authority from tradition, and "every omission or
deviation arouses deep anxiety and calls forth
sanctions".
Sacrifice
Worship in Greece typically consisted of sacrificing
domestic animals at the altar with hymn and prayer. The
altar was outside any temple building, and might not be
associated with a temple at all. The animal, which
should be perfect of its kind, was decorated with
garlands and the like, and led in procession to the
altar; a girl with a basket on her head containing the
concealed knife led the way. After various rituals, the
animal was slaughtered over the altar. As it fell, all
of the women present "[cried] out in high, shrill
tones". Its blood was collected and poured over the
altar. It was butchered on the spot and various internal
organs, bones and other inedible parts burnt as the
deity's portion of the offering, while the meat was
removed to be prepared for the participants to eat; the
leading figures tasted it on the spot. The temple
usually kept the skin to sell to tanners. That the
humans got more use from the sacrifice than the deity
had not escaped the Greeks, and was often the subject of
humor in Greek comedy.
Festivals
Various religious festivals were held in ancient Greece.
Many were specific only to a particular deity or
city-state. For example, the festival of Lykaia was
celebrated in Arcadia in Greece, which was dedicated to
the pastoral god Pan. Like the other Panhellenic Games,
the ancient Olympic Games were a religious festival,
held at the sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia. Other
festivals centered on Greek theatre, of which the
Dionysia in Athens was the most important. More typical
festivals featured a procession, large sacrifices and a
feast to eat the offerings, and many included
entertainments and customs such as visiting friends,
wearing fancy dress and unusual behavior in the streets,
sometimes risky for bystanders in various ways.
Altogether the year in Athens included some 140 days
that were religious festivals of some sort, though
varying greatly in importance.
Rites of passage
One rite of passage was the amphidromia, celebrated on
the fifth or seventh day after the birth of a child.
Childbirth was extremely significant to Athenians,
especially if the baby was a boy. |
|
Sanctuaries and temples
The main Greek temple building sat within a larger
precinct or temenos, usually surrounded by a peribolos
fence or wall; the whole is usually called a
"sanctuary". The Acropolis of Athens is the most famous
example, though this was apparently walled as a citadel
before a temple was ever built there. The tenemos might
include many subsidiary buildings, sacred groves or
springs, animals dedicated to the deity, and sometimes
people who had taken sanctuary from the law, which some
temples offered, for example to runaway slaves.
The earliest Greek sanctuaries probably lacked temple
buildings, though our knowledge of these is limited, and
the subject is controversial. A typical early sanctuary
seems to have consisted of a tenemos, often around a
sacred grove, cave, rock (baetyl) or spring, and perhaps
defined only by marker stones at intervals, with an
altar for offerings. Many rural sanctuaries probably
stayed in this style, but the more popular were
gradually able to afford a building to house a cult
image, especially in cities. This process was certainly
under way by the 9th century, and probably started
earlier.
The temple interiors did not serve as meeting places,
since the sacrifices and rituals dedicated to the
respective deity took place outside them, at altars
within the wider precinct of the sanctuary, which might
be large. As the centuries passed both the inside of
popular temples and the area surrounding them
accumulated statues and small shrines or other buildings
as gifts, and military trophies, paintings and items in
precious metals, effectively turning them into a type of
museum. |
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