Religion And Society In Ancient Thessaly

The volume investigates the Thessalian particularities of the evidence and the role of religion in giving the inhabitants of this land a sense of their identity and place in the wider Greek world, as well as the role of Thessaly in the ancients' and moderns' understanding of Greekness.

This collection of essays considers many aspects of Greek civil life and reveals how religion manifested itself in institutions, art and literature. Clarifies the more puzzling and elusive elements by tracing the attitudes that lay behind the manifold cults and customs.

"This volume assembles fourteen highly influential articles written by Michael H. Jameson over a period of nearly fifty years, edited and updated by the author himself. They represent both the scope and the signature style of Jameson's engagement with the subject of ancient Greek religion. The collection complements the original publications in two ways: firstly, it makes the articles more accessible; and secondly, the volume offers readers a unique opportunity to observe that over almost five decades of scholarship Jameson developed a distinctive method, a signature style, a particular perspective, a way of looking that could perhaps be fittingly called a 'Jamesonian approach' to the study of Greek religion. This approach, recognizable in each article individually, becomes unmistakable through the concentration of papers collected here. The particulars of the Jamesonian approach are insightfully discussed in the five introductory essays written for this volume by leading world authorities on polis religion"--

This 1999 book is about the religious life of the Greeks from the eighth century BC to the fifth century AD, looked at in the context of a variety of different cities and periods. Simon Price does not describe some abstract and self-contained system of religion or myths but examines local practices and ideas in the light of general Greek ideas, relating them for example, to gender roles and to cultural and political life (including Attic tragedy and the trial of Socrates). He also lays emphasis on the reactions to Greek religions of ancient thinkers - Greek, Roman, Jewish and Christian. The evidence drawn on is of all kinds: literary texts, which are translated throughout; inscriptions, including an appendix of newly translated Greek inscriptions; and archaeology, which is highlighted in the numerous illustrations.

The present volume explores the interdependent relationship between religion, education, and knowledge in ancient Greek cultures. While in modern scholarship Greek religion has been widely studied as embedded in society, the socio-religious aspects of education and knowledge have not yet been investigated in depth. The essays look for contexts, agents, and media through which religion, education, and knowledge were shared and transmitted within and beyond a community. The chronological framework extends from the classical period to late antiquity and covers the eastern and part of the western Greek Mediterranean. Examining a diverse range of evidence from both literary sources and material culture, this volume highlights the variety of Greek religious education and the comprehensive baggage of knowledge required for performing rituals.

Which dimensions of the religious experience of the ancient Greeks become tangible only if we foreground its local horizons? This book explores the manifold ways in which Greek religious beliefs and practices are encoded in and communicate with various local environments. Its individual chapters explore 'the local' in its different forms and formulations. Besides the polis perspective, they include numerous other places and locations above and below the polis-level as well as those fully or largely independent of the city-state. Overall, the local emerges as a relational concept that changes together with our understanding of the general or universal forces as they shape ancient Greek religion. The unity and diversity of ancient Greek religion becomes tangible in the manifold ways in which localizing and generalizing forces interact with each other at different times and in different places across the ancient Greek world.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

A study of the approbation of religious actions and artefacts and an investigation of the various authorities in religious activities in classical and Hellenistic Athens. New esthetic and social aspects and a new view of polis control of religion emerge.