Jon Mikalson. Ancient Greek Religion, Chapter 6 and Chapter 7: “Religion of the Greek City-State” pp. 150-168; “Greek Religion and the Individual” pp. 170-184.
For Thursday, February 19, 2015.
Terra Cotta votives from the Asclepieion at Corinth.
“Religion of the Greek City-State” pp. 150-168
0. How might we account for Athenian state/national cults that reflect cults of the home and the demes? What is one example?
1. What gods protected herdsmen, and where was their “homeland”?
2. What is a probable reason that the Athenians had no state cult of Hermes or Pan?
3. When, and why did the Athenians import the cult of Asclepius from Epidaurus?
4. What kinds of dedications did people make at the Asclepius sanctuary on the Acropolis south slope?
5. What temple and annual festival did Athena and Hephaestus share? Why is it logical that Athenians worshipped them together?
6. Who was the god who oversaw activities in the Athenian Agora?
7. What evidence is there that the Attic silver mines might have “been subject to divine oversight”?
8. Give one example of how the Athenians regarded Athena as a protecting war goddess.
9. Give one example of how the Athenians regarded Artemis as a protecting war goddess.
10. Mikalson quotes Aeschylus Persae 742 “Whenever someone himself shows eagerness, the god also lends a hand.” What point is he making here about Greek religion?
11. What was the attitude of one city-state towards another city-state’s religious system and deities?
12. Why was it important for Athenians to worship Apollo Patroös? What does Patroös mean?
13. Describe the monument of the ten eponymous heroes in the Athenian Agora.
14. What is the essence of the oath which Athenian jurors swore, and what does it have to do with religion?
15. How does Mikalson say that the Athenians “essentially forced the gods to endorse the democratic principles of their society”?
16. What does “the Athenians’ unusually grand expenditures on religious cults” have to do with reciprocity?
“Greek Religion and the Individual” pp. 170-184.
17. What is the basic way than an individual shows proper respect of the gods and wins their favor (charis)?
18. Why was it religiously important for the whole city-state that a murderer undergo purification for his pollution?
19. Why was it religiously important for the whole city-state that traitors and temple-robbers be killed and buried outside the boundaries?
20. Why was it religiously dangerous to maltreat a suppliant who had sought asylum in a deity’s sanctuary?
21. What kind of relationships did Zeus Xenios oversee?
22. How did the Athenian Nicias’s “exemplary respect for the gods and religious correctness” earn him a great reputation for piety, and also lead to his death?
23. How would you correct someone who asserts that the picture of the afterlife in Odyssey 11 represents what the ancient Greeks themselves believed awaited them after death? [You might begin by saying, “Au contraire, my dear fellow…”]
24. What can we learn about ancient Greek attitudes towards death from the epitaphs that Mikalson quotes in this chapter? Cite an example.
25. What does the custom of leaving food and drink for the dead at their tombs imply about the deceased? What does a belief in “avenging spirits of the dead” imply about the power of the deceased?
26. What is Cephalus’ fear about death, according to Plato (Republic 1.330d-331b)?
27. What kind of afterlife could an initiate into the Eleusinian Mysteries expect?
28. What are three “elective” or “esoteric” cults that Mikalson mentions? Why were these attractive? What does he mean by “elective” cult?
29. Name at least three ways that the “religious institutions and practices of the Greek people” enriched the cultural environment of the individual and the state.
British Museum 8310. “Tyche [gives] a thank offering to Asclepius and Hygeia”. From the island of Melos.
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