Joshua Cook on Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood:
FURTHER ASPECTS OF POLIS
RELIGION
I. Priests represented the entire polis, or
any subgroup of the polis, in sacred rites
A. The rules regulating priestly intercession with the gods were rigid,
though variable.
1. Priests and priestesses were limited to specific acts in specific
cults.
2. Different priesthoods placed different prerequisites on potential
priests and priestesses, such as age or sex.
3. Certain standards of ritual purity were required of priests while
in office.
B. With certain exceptions, the position of a formal priest could be
filled by a civil magistrate or layman.
1. All sacrifices on behalf of the polis were carried out by priests.
2. Some common rites not concerned with the upkeep of cult areas were
performed by civil magistrates.
3. Deme sacrifices were sometimes performed by mayors.
4. Individuals could officiate at their own sacrifices, even when performed
in sacred cult areas.
C. The people of a state held authority to punish priestly offenders.
D. Priests were held to a review of their actions after leaving office.
Whereas civil magistrates were held to account for financial stewardship,
the more general conduct of priests was reviewed.
1. Priests and priestesses were held to account individually.
2. Each genos was also reviewed, because every genos was intrusted
with its particular cult by the polis.
3. Priests and priestesses were held to account all together, “all
the mediators with the divine taken together, as though they symbolically
made up one mediator” (p.41).
E. Priests also reported the results of their sacrifices to the Council,
a civil body.
F. Other religious figures were under the control of the polis, but
not all.
1. Exegetai were experts on religious affairs.
2. Some prophets were employed by the state.
3. Other prophets were free-lance, without any official position.
4. Other minor offices such as arrephoroi, arktoi, and archousa were
regulated by the state.
II. Cult finance
A. Votives were donated by individuals, civic bodies, or the whole city.
B. Property owned by the cult was rented out, or its produce was sold,
to support the cult and sactuary.
C. Fees were paid to the cult, as well as fines, including confiscated
property.
D. Endowments and contributions were made by worshipping groups which
could be an entire polis. Polis funds given to cults came from special
taxes levied on behalf of specific cults, and from general state revenues.
Deme rites worked in much the same way. Liturgies formed a special method
of polis contribution by way of the individual.
E. Any group within the polis could also contribute, including gene,
colonists and allies. Each polis subgroup contributed both to its own level
of rites and to those above it.
III. The individual worshipper was the primary
element in polis religion.
A. Individual worship was performed in the same manner as corporate
worship. Prayers and curses for both individuals and groups are very similar,
as are votive offerings and other dedications. These dedications were inscribed
and remained in the sanctuary, thus transcending the single moment of worship
to act as continuous worship.
B. Individual sacrifice was for the most part the same as corporate
sacrifice, in essence if not in appearance. In the fourth century, many
individuals began establishing shrines after having personal experiences
with the divine.
C. Individuals involved in corporate worship were grouped by age, sex,
and profession, all of which are personal forms of identification. They
were also grouped by their polis subdivisions, an impersonal form. Even
in some corporate rites, worshippers participated as individuals.
D. Individuals performed liturgies related to cults.
E. Mystery rites requiring initiation emphasized the individual.
F. Religious restrictions could be placed on either groups or individuals.
G. Individuals were able to form their own cult groups.
IV. Openings and Closures in polis cults
A. Openings and Closures developed in the same period as the polis,
so they were built into the system of polis religion.
B. Openings
1. The perception of a common Greekness
2. Panhellenic sanctuaries, open to all Greeks
3. Homer and Hesiod, known to the Greeks universally
4. Oracles, pilgrimages, and votives
` 5. Examples of openings:
a. Citizens were central to the Panathenaea, but non-citizens could
participate as well.
b. Any Greek, slave or free, could be initiated into the Eleusinian
Mysteries.
c. Metics, who were excluded by tribe and phratry cults, could form
their own cults, which could admit citizens also.
d. The Athenian Assembly granted land to foreigners so that they could
own their own cult.
C. Closures
1. Non-citizens could only worship as foreigners (xenoi), though not
all foreigners had equal access to rites. Resident aliens (metics) had
more access, while travellers had fewer. Priesthood in Athens was limited
to citizens, but foreigners and slaves could attend and pray at rites.
` 2. Examples of closures:
a. Sometimes a whole sex was excluded, as males were not allowed at
the Thesmophoria.
b. Non-Greeks could only consult oracles, not participate in rites.
c. Non-citizens could not worship founder cults.
d. Demes sometimes allowed only demesmen to participate.
e. Slaves were excluded from certain cults and shrines.
V. “Polis religion encompassed all religious
activity within the polis” (p. 51).
A. The polis itself defined the common perception of the gods and their
relationships to humans. The polis was limited, though, by oracles.
B. Even private cults such as oikos (household) cults were dependent
on the polis.
1. The polis regulated oikos cults by laws concerning private funerals,
by determining the fate of the bodies of war dead and traitors, by enforcing
familial duties, and by ritualizing such things as the Genesia, when immediate
ancestors were celebrated.
2. The most prominent oikos cults, such as that of Zeus Herkeios, formed
connections between the smaller units, the households, and the larger ones,
especially the polis.
a. Zeus Herkeios had deme cults and a polis cult in connection with
the most central cults in Athens.
b. Candidates for the archonship (the highest magistracy in Athens)
had to have their own cult to Zeere ancestral, but had always been established
under polis law and custom.
b. Transferring these sacred things diminished the amount of divine
help available to a polis (i.e. the system was only as strong as its constituent
parts).
c. Therefore, cult activities seeming personal were really part of
the polis system.
Although the Eleusinian Mysteries and the Dionysiac rites, both involving
individual initiation, were within the polis religion system, some others,
such as Orphic rites, may not have been.
Return to Main Page: CLST 4003 H. Spring, 2002.
Ancient Greek Religion.
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