Part I: Greek Religion

I. The Formative Period
     Know nothing of what happened in third millenium. First Greeks
appear in Hellenic peninsula at begining of Middle Bronze age (c.
2000-1900 BCE). They were nomadic Minyans, who had perhaps, not
long separated from another branch of Indo European stock which was
at this same period settling on Anatolian plateau, the Hittites.
Know nothing of beliefs except that they buried their dead. At same
time as Minyans were occupying continental Greece, there was
developing in Crete a civilization created by a Mediterranean
people who had settled in the island some centuries earleir: The
Minoans. Under the influence of Anatolia, Syria and Egypt, with
which countries they had come successively into contact from 2500-2200, 
this people produced an original civilization. Civilization
flowered between 1700 and 1450 and from its art we can learn
someting of its religion. Minoan religion influenced that of
Greece, so that it will be useful to set out its main
charactisetics.

Composite religion made up by addition of element to an older
foundation of naturalistic religion.  Object of naturalistic
religion is to increase fertility of soil. As everywhere else in
Middle east at that time, the temple, a building constructed by a
community of men to shelter a divinity, was unknown. Even if
offical or private rituals were performed in palaces or homes, real
sanctuareiswere in the high places and caves. Divinity was
worshipped on mountain top or in its caverns; there the people went
from the cities and the palaces to give offerings to worship and to
sacrifice. Mountain top was proper seat of the Nature goddess; and
in its deep caves dwelt the Mother goddess Earth, fertile and
nourishing mistress of birth and death.
Fetishism: Trees and pillars, certain stones, double axe, shield
and the bull -- all may originally have been gods.  Became
attributes of deities and eventually symbolic representations. 
Gods were anthropomorphic. Female divinities predominate and this
correlates with what we know of the Middle East in the second
millennium, Hebrews being sole exception.  We find a goddess in the
Cretan remains, but can we speak of one great Minoan goddess?
Similarities in images but differ in aattributes: goddess with a
snake (domestic and chnthonic dviinity) a nude or semi nude goddess
(fertility) a goddes xwith fawns (mountains), with a tree
(vegetation, or with a ship (sea). Male is represented by the bull
or the double axe. Diodorus Siculus tells us of a ritual which was
public in Crete but became a mystery-rite in Classical Greece. We
now only have representations and images. Purpose of religion
generally feminine and in its expression and women played important
part in worship. Most signigifcant ceremonies were presided over by
priest king. Celebrants watered the crops to increase fecundity ;
frenzied dances and processions of harvesters probably intended to
stimulate activity in nature by sympathetic means; rustic offerings
were made to the goddess.  Traditions perpetuated at Eleusis?
     Games depicted: boxing, wrestling, bull fighting, acrobatics,
presumably part of religious ritual, intended to keep or gain
energy. 
     Compared with such funerary combats as found among Etruscans,
in which the blood must flow to nourish the soul of the dead man,
these games invite a man to devlop his physical qualities for sake
of own individual effort. Roots of athletic and individualistic
ideals of Greeks.
    Know of MInoan ideas about death only from certain funeral
customs. Believed in existence of a goddess who presided over
powers of fertility and realm of dead. But what happened to dead
individual? Did he live in tomb or go to infernal regons common to
all the dead? Evidence seems contradictory to us, but ancients
never found two beliefs incompatible. Sarcophagus at Hagia Triada
shows us the offering of a boat to the dead man for his voyage into
the beyond, but magnificent tombs raised above kings of Crete seem
to suppose their survival in tomb itself.  In any case, men not
equal in face of death and evidence mainly concerns rich and
powerful, and other world recognizes same social distinctions as
monarchical society on earth. 
Probably heroic conception of dead; continues to live a physical
life, since he needs, in the other world, not only food, drink,
arms, tools, etc. but also blood of sacrifices and liquids poured
as libations in order to reinvigorate him from time to time.  After
1500 influence of Egypt and consolidation of Cretan monarchy won
acceptance of idea that kings attained after their death to a
conditions sharing that of divinity. Archaeology and Greek writers
acquaint us with temple tombs, wherein are associated a royal
burial and a local cult. 

Mycenean Religion
1600 appeared new gorup of Hellenic peoples. Spread far and wide,
expanson continuing to a later date in Asia minor. Subject to
strong Minoan influence and were in direct contact with Hittites,
Asianic peoples of Asia Minor and Semites of Syria and Palestine.
They were the Achaeans, memory of whom Homer preserves.
Decipherment of Linear B opened source of information
   Mycenaean religion presents two aspects, depending on whether it
is seen through archaeology or thorugh the texts. Had no temples
but in the Argolid small domestic sanctuiareis like those of Crete.
Rleigion is anthropomorphic and polytheist, principal deity being
a goddess. But Mycneans do seem to have given particular attention
to cult of the dead.  Between 1600 and 1450 buried dead in graves
surrounded by a circle of stones, and from about 1500, in the
beehive tombs. Dead continued to live more or less individual life
in the tomb. Can see growth of heroic character of the dead in
local cults of great men of the past, and in fact, greatest heroes
honored in Classical Greece were still Achaeans. 
    Texts present different world of gods. Their significance
limited by uncertainty as well as by fact that gods are named only
on votive tablets as receivers of offerings and not as personal
divinities: names we have but no theology. But most of gods of
historical Greece already there. Zeus occurs many times, sometimes
associated with goddess Diuia (Fem. of Zeus) who may be identified
with Rhea, mother goddess of Ida and who resembles the Pamphylian
Diuia who is also called Great Mother; sometimes he is associated
with Hera, goddess of fecundity, whose primacy in Achaean times is
undeniable. Poseidon's name also occours associated with consort
Posidaia. Hephaistus, Ares, Hermes, Demeter and Artemis also named.
Athena also and is given appellation Potnia (Mistress). Dionysus is
also there and may represent bull god suggested in Minoan
representations. Nine of twelve Olympians present; also Apollo,
mentioned under name of Paiawo (Homeric Paieon). Aphrodite and
Hestia not mentioned, but minor deities Eileithyia, Erinys, and
dove goddess Peleia are there. Why have Achaeans not left to us any
image of any of these deities, while they took over traditional
Minoan arepresentations of the gods? And, did these gods already
constitute an organized pantheon to which one could, as men did
later, render collective worship? 
   Usual offerings to gods are wheat, barley, wine, oil, figs,
honey and precioius vessels. No evidence of human sacrifice, but a
sacrificial meal dedicated to Poseidon is mentioned, and so are
offerings of cows, sheep, pigs to Peleia. Cnossos furnishes us with
fragments of a ritual calendar including days of good or ill omen,
and specifying offerings due to this or that god or his priests. 
Priests seem to have been numerous and specialized and of both
sexes. 

     
Minoan Religion
     
      Fusion and Contamination: The Dorian Contribution
Formation of Greek religion was result of fusion of Indo European
elements (which were  already adulterated) brought in by Minyans
and the Achaeans, with the "Aegean" elements borrowed by these
peoples from Crete.  But also influences from Thrace, Anatolia,
Syria, Phoenicia, Mesopotamia and, perhaps, from Elam and India.
Current of ideas never stopped flowing, though slowed during
periods of Greek and Roman stability, but kept on until it broke
forth again in Hellenistic and Roman times. Chrisianity used same
routes to spread over the world and so in turn did principal
heresies right on into Middle Ages. So beteween 1600 and 800 a
gradual fusion so thorough that Greeks scarecely even remembered
it. Result of process was a multiplication of legends concerned
with local cults and with particularist movements, the
contradictions in which Greeks of Classical times were hardly even
aware.  Some changes remembered and represented as conflicts
between gods. Greeks told of an older generation displaced by a new
generation.  Imagined Apollo as taking over sanctuary of Delphi
originally consecrated to Cretan Great Mother. (This is the version
assumed by Aeschylus in the Oresteia.) 
   Dorians who came from regions around Danube and about 1200
invaded Peloponnese, Crete, and large number of Aegean islands as
far as Rhodes. Brought about downfall of Achaean civilization and
Greece entered Dark Age which did not end until eighth century.
Contributions seen in two facts: burning of the dead, and the
building of temples, oldest of which dates from ninth century.  If
temples like human habitations, proof of complete triiumph of
anthropomorphism at this time and evidence that religion, which up
to this time had been business of priest king and of individuals,
became essentially the polis' business.  This civic and urban
character is chief mark of later Greek religion.

Intimately connected with social life, wtihout any clergy or
official dogmas, religion developed more or less freely at level of
popular piety, within framework of the polis, through the
reflection of poets and philosphers. 

Importance of extra urban sanctuaries for birth of Greek city. Were
often positioned at boundaries of the city's cultivated area, on
margins of forests, mountains, and uncultivated land. Here they
acted both as a frontier and as a point of junction between two
kinds of terrain, wild and cultivated. But served more narrowly
political function of marking limits of a city's territory in
opposition to that of its often hostile neighbors.  Sometimes these
peripheral sancutaries linked to urban center by a sacred way. 
    Within a sanctuary complex of cultic structures and great
Panhellenic sanctuariaes of Delphi and Olympia came to resemble
veritable towns. All contained one altar or more, indispensible
pieces of ritual furniture inside temenos but never inside a
temple. It was here that animal sacrifice was conductaed and blood
of victim made to pour out into a stream onto the altar. Fire grate
in which portions for gods burnt and those for humans roasted,
placed on stone socle surrounding the altar.  Temple most
spectacular survival. Rituals performed outside temple, not inside.
Rare for ordinary Greeks to be granted right of entry to temples,
which were kept locked for large part of year. This was because
temple typically had one defined function, to preserve god's cult
statue or statues and other property dedicated to him or her.  So
was akin to smaller buildings, "treasuries" filled with votive
offerings to gods.  Thus Parthenon, which housed Pheidias'
chryselephantine cult statue of Athene Parthenos, was not used for
rituals; it also housed Athens state treasury. 
    Not all temples designed as house of god. Some were built to
protect a holy place and rituals attached to it. That of Pythian
Apollo at Delphi, e.g., contained the Pythian hearth, the altar of
Poseidon and in its holy of holies, oracular seat of the Pythia. 
     One of most frequnt cult acts was to make a dedication, so
sanctuaries were bursting at seams with offerings of all kinds. 

Xenophon, Anabasis v. 3.7-13