Jon D. Mikalson - Athenian Popular Religion

Both the initial research and the publication of this work were made possible in part through grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a federal agency whose mission fa to award grants to support education, scholarship, media programming, libraries, and museums, in order to bring the results of cultural activities to a broad, general public.

1983 The University of North Carolina Press

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

03 02 01 00 8 7 6 5

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Mikalson, Jon D., 1943
Athenian popular religion.
Bibliography: p.
Includes indexes.
1. Athens (Greece)Religion. 1. Title.
BL793.A76M54 1981 292. 08 82-25616
ISBN 0-8078-1563-2
ISBN 0-8078-4194-3 (pbk.)

THIS BOOK WAS DIGITALLY MANUFACTURED.

CHAPTER ONE
Introduction

CHAPTER TWO
Priority of the Divine

CHAPTER THREE
Areas of Divine Intervention

CHAPTER FOUR
The Gods and Human Justice

CHAPTER FIVE
The Gods and Oaths

CHAPTER SIX
Divination

CHAPTER SEVEN
The Gods and Death

CHAPTER EIGHT
The Nature of Divine Intervention

CHAPTER NINE
The Nature of the Gods

CHAPTER TEN
The Afterlife

CHAPTER ELEVEN
Some Social Aspects of Popular Religion

CHAPTER TWELVE
Piety and Impiety

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Consensus

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Some Historical Considerations

This book presents what Athenian people, apart from poets and philosophers, said about their gods and religious beliefs in the late fifth and fourth centuries B.C. The gods and religious views of Homer, Pindar, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Plato, Aristotle, and other philosophic and literary masters have been widely studied for generations, in some cases for centuries. But such studies are, fundamentally, treatments of Greek theological and intellectual history. Athenian writers clearly expected their audiences to be familiar with current literary treatments and philosophic theories about the gods and religion, but the question has remained open of the extent to which their audiences shared these views and made them a part of their religious life. It was this question that led me to collect, from what I judged to be reliable sources, the religious beliefs and attitudes that were publicly expressed and casually accepted by the great majority of Athenian citizens.

What emerged from this collection was a surprisingly consistent and homogeneous corpus of popular religious beliefs. Amidst remarkable multiplicity and variety of rituals, myths, and cult figures the Athenians maintained rather straightforward, simple, and self-consistent ideas of what the gods provided for them, what was expected of worshippers, what was pious and impious, and so forth. These popular beliefs often lack the intellectual and metaphysical dynamism of the theories of intellectuals of the time, but a recognition and understanding of them is of fundamental importance to our view of Athenian society. This understanding will also substantially aid our efforts to describe and appreciate more fully both the traditional and the innovative elements in the handling of religion by creative thinkers such as Euripides and Plato.

Two works, Jean Rudhardts Notions fondamentales de la pense religieuse et actes constitutifs du culte dans la Grce classique and Kenneth Dovers Greek Popular Morality, have been especially helpful to me. They provide good collections of material and also clear much of the ground. I have, in some ways, done less than they with this same material, but in this instance a less ambitious approach may produce a more sound and useful study. Dover and Rudhardt each incorporate numerous poetic sources into their discussions of popular religion. It is, I contend, better methodology first to determine from reliable evidence what can be proved to be popular belief. Only after this has been satisfactorily accomplished can we isolate and evaluate statements of popular beliefs or allusions to them in the poets and the philosophers.

I intend to provide a descriptive study of Athenian popular religion and have not introduced current psychological and anthropological theory and speculation concerning Greek religion. It seems that accurate description must precede theoretical interpretation, and that both prosper when they are somewhat independent. Sound and independent description permits us, as we read studies in Greek religion, to recognize more clearly when we are moving from the descriptive and analytical to the interpretive, the theoretical, and even the fantastic. It will also allow us to distinguish better what was common and widespread in religion among the Greeks and Athenians from what was idiosyncratic and peculiar even to them. Such distinctions are of the utmost importance, particularly in the complex and protean subject of Greek religion.

The completion of this work was made possible largely by the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities and of the University of Virginia. They provided the means for a precious year of uninterrupted work. That year was spent at Cambridge University, where the pleasure of my stay was greatly enhanced by the kindnesses of Geoffrey Kirk and John Morrison. In particular I wish to thank A. Geoffrey Woodhead who, with his colleagues at Corpus Christi College, provided such warm hospitality. I am also grateful to the readers of the University of North Carolina Press and to the others who have offered valuable suggestions and criticisms.

JON D. MIKALSON
University of Virginia

The names and works of classical authors are abbreviated in the text and notes in general accord with the system in the Oxford Classical Dictionary2. Modern works cited frequently in the notes have been assigned a short title; full citations appear in the Bibliography.