Greek Religion A Sourcebook

by Warrior, Valerie M.

• ISBN13: 9781585100316
• ISBN10: 1585100315
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-12-15
• Publisher: Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Co.

Summary

Greek Religion: A Sourcebook provides an introduction to the fundamentals of ancient Greek religious belief and ritual through the evidence of original sources. Designed as a companion to Warrior's Roman Religion: A Sourcebook, this text includes Focus Classical Library translations as well as new translations by the author and other outstanding scholars. Chapters cover such topics as sacrifice, festivals, mystery cults, divination, and ancient magic, illustrated throughout with photos and maps. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Valerie M. Warrior is a scholar of Greco-Roman history and religion. She has taught at a number of North American colleges and universities and is the author of Roman Religion: A Sourcebook.

Table of Contents

Figures and Maps	p. vii
Preface	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
The Gods in Hesiod's Theogony and Homer's Iliad	p. 13
The gods in Homer's Iliad	p. 22
Family and Community	p. 35
From birth to early adulthood	p. 36
Betrothal, wedding, and marriage	p. 41
Marriage contested	p. 46
Death and death rituals	p. 48
Epitaphs	p. 54
Prayer and Sacrifice	p. 55
Blood and other sacrifice	p. 57
Ritual purity and pollution	p. 69
Some ancestral practices	p. 73
Divination	p. 75
Oracles	p. 78
Divination in time of war	p. 89
Sanctuaries of the Gods	p. 95
Sacred space	p. 96
Custom and regulations	p. 102
Incubation and healing	p. 107
Festivals	p. 113
Organization and regulation	p. 114
The Anthesteria	p. 118
The Thesmophoria	p. 125
The Panathenaea	p. 129
Competitions in Honor of the Gods	p. 135
The Olympic games	p. 136
Athenian drama festivals	p. 143
The Gods and Justice from Homer to Aeschylus	p. 147
The Gods in Sophocles and Euripides	p. 165
Mystery Cults and Initiation	p. 187
Orphic and Bacchic texts	p. 192
The Mysteries of Demeter at Eleusis	p. 195
Challenges to Traditional Religion	p. 205
The Presocratics	p. 205
The Sophists	p. 208
The mutilation of the Herms and the profanation of the Mysteries	p. 219
The trial and death of Socrates	p. 223
Magic, Sorcery, and Witchcraft	p. 229
Binding spells	p. 230
Sorcery and witchcraft in the literary sources	p. 238
New Cults and New Gods	p. 249
Gods	p. 265
Glossary	p. 267
Chronology	p. 277
Maps	p. 281
Ancient Literary Sources	p. 287
Bibliography	p. 291
Credits	p. 295
Index of Texts Cited	p. 297
General Index	p. 301
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