Introduction;
    If the past in general is a foreign country and they do things
differently there, this holds especially true of the Classical
Greeks and their religious past. 

Avoid Athenocentricity (thousand plus other poleis)
Radically question received intellectual categories. 
For "us" the divine (in form of a transcendent God) is external to
the world, it has created the world and mankind, it is present
within mankind, and it is confined to its own sharply defined
sphere within every day life. For "them", the Greeks, the gods were
not external to the world: they did not create either the cosmos or
mankind, but were themselves created; they had not always existed,
but had usurped power; they were not eternal but only immortal;
they were not omnipotent and omnisicent, but possessed limited
powers and areas of knowledge; they were subject to fate, and they
intervened constantly in the affairs of men. 
Greek Sense of the Sacred
     Classic evolutionary model for study is that of M.P. Nilsson.
Envisages Greek religion as successful marriage between preHellenic
religion of native poulations and cults and beliefs introduced by
Greeks when they arrived. In this origins function as explanations. 
    Functionalist paradigm of explanation rejects idea that origins
constitute a sufficient explanation of its functioning,
significance and role at a given moment in history. 
Distinction between sacred and profane for Greeks is irrelevant. 
Greek distinguished  by terms such as hieron, hosion, and hagion,
a number of concepts that we heap together as "the sacred." Thus ta
hiera designated the cults and sanctuaries of the gods but also
sacrificial victims.  These acts, places, objects endowed with a
power that rendred them conducive or favorable to the efficacy of
the ritual.  But nothing in their intrinsic nature distinguished
them from objects of everyday use. The hiereus, the priest,
entrusted with performing the hiera, the cult acts, was not in any
way a holy man set apart.  Only had to fulfill obligations of
office on appointed days.  Hosion applied more espeacially to modes
of behavior that were in conformity with norms governing relations
between gods and men or among men themselves.  Everything
prescribed or permitted by divine law was hosion and was associated
with dikaion.  Haagion was applied to temples or sanctuaries,
cutsoms or rituals, offerings or cultic objects. 
Miasma, pollution, equally problematic. 
Consider blood. On one hand is principle of life and means of
consecration as when it flows out upon altar duing sacrifice. On
other hand it becomes pollution when it is spilt onto the ground or
gusshes out over body of murdered individual. When it is mixed with
dust, blood signifies murder and death. Polluton consists in
establishment of a link between entities which should be kept
separated and distinct. But pollution may be positive, e.g. bones
of Oedipus, favorable to recipient; sacrifice of pig, most polluted
of animals, that effected most potent purification for Eleusinian
initiate.  Apollo presided over both purification and pollution, at
once cause and healer of diseas (Troy). 

     Asebeia (impiety) was absence of respect for the beliefs and
rituals shared by inhabitants of a polis. 
    Malicious damage to property of gods, their rituals or figural
representations.
    Introduction of new gods and cults not  yet officially
recognized by city
    Opinions of gods held by certain individuals.. (Anexaogoras
allegedly prosecuted for impiety at Athens; Socrates)
Obligations of community involved above all respect for ancestral
tradition.  Antique rituals were performed without  citizens
knowing precisely what they mean, whereas more recently introduced
rites sometimes decried as being less worthy of veneration, on the
grounds, for instance that they attributed too much importance to
banquets that followed animal sacrifice.
Polis considered itself to be a concrete and living entity  under
sure protection of the gods who would not abandon it as long as it
did not abandon them.  To unity of gods around a city at its
moments of crisis there had to correspond a unity of men, and the
force and symbolic efficacy of this human solidarity was expressed
in collective manifestations like the Panathenaic festival or the
Athenians' public civic funeral of their war dead.
    To be eusebes was to believe in the efficacy of the symbolic
system that the city had established for the purpose of managing
relations between gods and men, and to participate in it, moreover,
in the most vigorously active manner possible.
  Sources of evidence for study of Greek religon: literary texts,
epigraphic documents, and archaeological data

The more one studies religions, the better one comes to undrstand
that, just like tools or language, they are integral components of
the machinery of symbolic thought. Despite their diversity, they
all perform the double and mutually reinforicing function of both
giving to things a fullness of meaning, which in themselves they
appear to lack, and uprooting human beings from their individual
isolation and embedding them in a reassuring and transcendently
important community. 
    Complexity of Greek culture better expressed in Greek religion
than in any other area.  Greek religion is a subject area where the
scholar is obliged to conceptualize in combination religion and
politics, anthropology and history, morality and daily life. 
Observance of rituals rather than fidelity to a dogma or belief
that ensured permanence of tradition and communal cohesiveness. 
     Everyday life, no less than public civic life, was
rhythmically regulated by all kinds of rituals, so that every
moment and every stage of citizens' existence imbued with a
religious dimension. 
SACRIFICE
   Most common ritual, sacrifice; Ritual slaughter of one or more
animals, a part of which was offered up to the gods by being
cremated on an altar, while remaineder was consumed according to
precisely fixed rules by those participting in the sacrifice.
Initiataed by an act of consecration, the riual of animal sacrifice
was concluded by cooking and eating. Without this strict framework
of sacrificial regulation, humans would have risked sinking to
level of the beasts whenever they ate animal flesh.
    Victims, domestic animals, placed on a scale of value from at
one end a goat, pig, sheep, or even a cock (humblest offering) to
top end, cow or ox, most precious of all.  At great festivals many
animals. e.g. 240 bulls at Athenian Great Dionysia of 333. 
     Every day several hundred animal sacrifices were taking place
in different contexts within each of the thousand and more separate
Greek poleis. 
Sale of meat made its first appearance in form of a simple, post-sacrificial distribution. 
A sacred law from Didyma(LSAM[59] 54.1-3)
laid down that, if it proved impossible for someone after the
sacrifice to feast in the tent specially set aside for the purpose,
then whoever so wished might take the meat away  to be sold by
weight.
   In agora stalls one might find either meat of a ritually
sacrificed animal by a mageiroos, meat which had been consecrated
by a first fruits offering before slitting animal's throat and from
which the gods' portion had been duly set aside (at Athens a tithe,
entrusted to the prytaneis) -- or sacrificial meat that had been
allotted to the priests and resold by them.  The cutting up of the
mwat that was sold in the stalls was done on precisely same
egalitarian basis as that of meat of victims distributed at a
sacrifice. 
Most solemn form of thusia was that of public sacrifices on
occasion of religious festival and culminating in a civic banquet.
The Panathenaia at Athens and Hyakinthia at Sparts, most grandiose
respective examples, required slaughter of a huge army of cattle to
feed mass of citizens participating. 
    In a stage preceding sacrificial ritual itself victim was
chosen by a procedure of variable length and complexity. At least
priest had to assure himself that the victim met criteria for
purity (e.g. blemish on coat might be sign of impurity) and
conformed in all other respects to ritual regulations. 
Thusia proper began with procession led by priest and sacrificers. 
Around altar stood all participants: the woman who carried the
lustral water, the woman who bore the basket of grain in which
sacrifical knife was concealed, the sacrificer and his assistants,
and finally ordinary citizens.  Priest pronounced customary
prayers, sprinkling victim's head with lustral water. Act of
purification designed to elicit victim's assent to its slaughter
which it signified by nodding its head.  Next priest offered up
first fruits of sacrifice by throwing onto altar fire some grains
and hairs.  Slaughterer now authorized to kill victim, first
smiting it on forehad with an axe and then cutting its throat. for
the latter the animal's head had to be turned up so blood might
spurt skywards and fall in a stream. Women let out indispensable
ritual scream (ololuge)
Third act was butchering and sharing out of the carcass.  Mageiros
first opened beast's thorax in order to remove entrails (lungs,
heart, liver, spleen, kidneys) and digestive system (entera, eaten
as sauges and black puddings). Then victim was skinned. In private
sacrifices skins went to the priest, but in public, sold off for
benefit of state's sacred treasury. Finally, carcass cut up. First
stage, removing thigh bones which were placed on the altar, covered
with fat, sprinkled with a libation and incense, and then burnt for
the gods. Second stage, cutting up and cooking of remaining flesh
but the slankhna, vital and precious elemnts were spit roasted and
shared by those who were thereby assured of maximal participation
in sacrifice

     A different type of sacrifice consisted of slaughtering and
offering of an animal that was burnt whole (holocaust); such a
sacrifice dedicated in entirety to gods through the agency of the
flames. This was primarily for  certain hero cults or cults of the
dead.  Blood made to flow onto a low altar or a grave or ground.
    Third type of bloody sacrifice performed annually at Patrai in
honor of Artemis Laphria in which both domesticated and wild
animals sacrificed together with game birds and were put into
flames when still alive.
      Bloodless sacrifices, whether comestibles or spices, aroma of
which was transmitted to gods through the flames.  In this
bloodless form that daily sacrifices in private homes typically
made. 
      Libations: could be associated with animal sacrifice but
could be autonomous ritual. At start of meals, same function as
first fruits offering. Used to mark arrival or departure, placing
familiar actions under protection of gods who were thereby invoked
as witnesses or helpers. 
Prayer, e.g. Thesmo, Aristophanes 295-305; Libation Bearers, 124-51

Religious personnel
    Religious authority belonged to people as a whole, on whose
behalf it was exercised by a range of personnel.  Number and
importance of these civic functonaries grew in course of fifth
century, at expense of certain ancient priesthoods. It was their
job to maintian order and respect for laws within the sactuary
enclosure (temnos). They organzied religious festivals in
collaboration with other officials and relevant priests. They
controlled religious finances, checking revenues and expenditure. 
    Office of hieropoioi (those who make the heira)  attested in
numerous poleis. At Athens were a board of ten choen each year by
Council of 500, with responsibility of all major quadrennial
festivals except the Great Panathenaia which had its own special
board. So oversaw the Brauronia (Artemis) the Herakleia, the
Eleusinian Mysteries, and Athens' official deligation to festival
of Apollo and Artemis on Delos, as well as annual Lesser
Panathenaia.  Remit included provison of animals for the sacrifices
and administration and policing of festivals as a whole. In return,
were privileged to share in honors accorded other officials, in
particualr in distribution of the hecatomb sacrificed during
Panathenaia.
     At Athens epimeletai (overseers) appointed individually for
particular fesivals, among others Great Dionysia and Panathenaai. 
Origlnally, those elected expect to pay for the processions out of
their own pocket, so was equivalent of performing liturgy.  By 330s
cost borne by  state funds.  For Eleusinian Mysteries four
epimeletai appointed, two chosen from all Athenians over age
thirty, other two from the two priestly families who had hereditary
prerogatives in cult of Demeter and Persephone, the Eumolpidai and
Kerykes. 
    The three senior Archons of Athens included religious affairs
in their portfolios. The Basileus, who legendarily inherited
religioius functions of old king of Athens, was principal religious
dignitary of Athenian state.  Charged abaove all with sacrifices
involved in ancestral cults, i.e., whose antiquity was guaranteed
by traditon. Included Eleusinian Mysteries, Lenaia.  Responsibility
for  religious calendar.  The Eponymous Archon, who had charge of
more recently established civic festivals, ta epitheta, most
famously Great or City Dionysia and was responsible for Delian
theoria, the processions in honor of Zeus Soter, and Asklepios and
the Thargelia (Pythian Apolloo)
     War Archon (polemarch) religious role in field of cults with
military application: Artemis Agrotera (to whom battlefield
sacrifices made) and Enyalios (by name of Ares), public funeral in
honor of Athenian war dead, and festival commemorating Marathon. 
Alos festival for Harmodios and Aristogeiton.

Priesthoods and Priestesshoods tied to particualr sanctuaries and
cults. In most cases functioned like a civic magistrate, exercising
liturgical authority in parallel to legislative, judicial,
financial or military authority of city officials. Method of
selection makes clear affinity to status of magistrates. Most
appointed annually and often by lot and at end of term were obliged
to render accounts.  Into this category at Athens, priests of
Dionysos Eleuthereus, Asklepios and Zeus Soter and Priestesses of
Athene Soteria and Athene Nike.  No foreigners or metics. 
    Other priesthoods preserve of particualr families or gene.
Holders selected from among relevant family members for life.
Athenian examples inlude priest of Athene Polias and priest of
Poseidon Erekthehus, who had to be members of the Eteoboutadai
genos ; and male Hierophant and Dadoukhous (Torchbearer) of
Eleusinian Mysteries, former a member of Eumolpidai and latter of
Kerykes.  Other priests such as those of Apollo at Delphi appointed
for life but without any stipulatoin of aristocratic birth.
   In addition to sacrifical duties, had to take care of
accoutrements of the temple and sanctuary with assistance of one or
more sacristans.  Looking after cult statue and relevant cult
buildings but also included responsibility ofor mainting sanctuary
as a going cencern both financially and as a secure place of
worship.  State increasingly compete in these two spheres, not
least by deciding how much revenue to allot for a sanctuary's
upkeep.
     Portion of sacrificial animals belongs to priest or priestess
by right. So economic status varied depending on importance of
sanctuary
    Exegetes, oracle mongers, and diviners.
See Plato, Laws759a-760a