Understanding Greek Religion Understanding the Ancient World Series

Understanding Greek Religion is one of the first attempts to fully examine any religion from a cognitivist perspective, applying methods and findings from the cognitive science of religion to the ancient Greek world. In this book, Jennifer Larson shows that many of the fundamentals of Greek religion, such as anthropomorphic gods, divinatory procedures, purity beliefs, reciprocity, and sympathetic magic arise naturally as by-products of normal human cognition. Drawing on evidence from across the ancient Greek world, Larson provides detailed coverage of Greek theology and local pantheons, rituals including processions, animal sacrifice and choral dance, and afterlife beliefs as they were expressed through hero worship and mystery cults.

Eighteen in-depth essays illustrate the theoretical discussion with primary sources and include case studies of key cult inscriptions from Kyrene, Kos, and Miletos. This volume features maps, tables, and over twenty images to support and expand on the text, and will provide conceptual tools for understanding the actions and beliefs that constitute a religion. Additionally, Larson offers the first detailed discussion of cognition and memory in the transmission of Greek religious beliefs and rituals, as well as a glossary of terms and a bibliographical essay on the cognitive science of religion.

Understanding Greek Religion is an essential resource for both undergraduate and postgraduate students of Greek culture and ancient Mediterranean religions.

Contents

List of Illustrations, Maps and Tables

Preface and Acknowledgments

Using This Book

Abbreviations

1. What is Greek Religion?

Essay 1.1: Twelve Gods, and Other Ways to Limit a Pantheon

Essay 1.2: Homer’s Hera and the Hera(s) of Cult

Essay 1.3: Reciprocity in Greek Religion

2. Implicit Theology and the (Ir)rational

Essay 2.1: Epiphanies of Athena

Essay 2.2: What Do The Gods Know?

Essay 2.3: Myth, Ritual and Adonis

3. Orthopraxy, Identity, and Society

Essay 3.1: The Inclusiveness of the Panathenaic Festival

Essay 3.2: Dancing for the Gods

Essay 3.3: The Kyrene Cathartic Law

4. Ritual, Festival and Sacrifice

Essay 4.1: Sacrificing to Zeus Polieus on Kos

Essay 4.2: Theseus and the Athenian Calendar

Essay 4.3: Ritual Form and the Greek Evidence

5. Eschatology, Mysteries and Hero Cults

Essay 5.1 How Mystical Were the Eleusinian Mysteries?

Essay 5.2 Texts to Accompany the Dead

Essay 5.3 Three Heroic Founders

6. Memory, Continuity and Change

Essay 6.1 Memory and the Molpoi

Essay 6.2 Herakles as Pan-Mediterranean Deity

Essay 6.3 The Origins of Sarapis

Glossary

The Cognitive Science of Religion: A Bibliographical Essay

Index

Jennifer Larson is Professor of Classics at Kent State University. Her research interests include Greek poetry, mythology and religion. She is the author of Greek Nymphs: Myth, Cult, Lore (2001) and Ancient Greek Cults: A Guide (2007).