Core basics re: Greek religion:

enjoyed favor of gods

willing to spend public funds to erect mons. to honor them

humans, as indivs & in groups, honor gods to thank for blessing rec'd
and to receive more blessings in return

honors: sanctuaries, sacrifices, gifts, festivals of
song/dance/prayer/procession

reciprocity underlies Gk understanding of the divine. Gods don't love
humans, except for the mythological realm; rather, they support humans
who honor them and avoid offending them. If the gods are offended, they
send famine, earthquake, epidemic, storms, defeat in war

How does one offend a god? determined from a moral order replete with
rules of behavior:
1. gods demand hospitality for strangers and proper burial for family
members (e.g., the Antigone)
2. gods punish hubris, arrogance (Oedipus), and murderous violence
(Clytaemnestra)

How does one determine if the gods are offended?
1. oracles, dreams, divination, prophesies
2. offenses: forgetting a sacrifice, violating a sacred area, breaking an
oath/sworn agreement
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3. gods concerned with certain transgressions, e.g., breaking of oaths,
but uninterested in certain crimes, which humans had to police
themselves
4. homicide, however, gods punished by casting a state of pollution, of
miasma upon murderers and all around them as well (Oedipus;
Alkmaeonids; Athens after Melos???)
5. purification could rid of the pollution by punishing the murderer (role
of Areopagus in Athens), otherwise all suffer

What were the gods' lives like?
1. easy; exposed to pain sometimes; sad at misfortunes of favored
humans; essentially carefress. 12 Olympians banqueting on Mt.
Olympus. As Solon says, "the gods are envious of human success and
prone to disrupt our affairs"

How does one interact with the gods?
1. At the god's sanctuary, prayer, sing hymns of praise, sacrifice, present
offerings, to propitiate in times of misfortune, to thank for success, to
hope for the latter and avoid the former. With public cults,
priests/priestesses, chosen from citizen body, otherwise ordinary
citizens, separate from politics; special knowledge: how to perform the
gods' rites. They were not high priests nor guardians of theological
orthodoxy, for there was no religious/theological dogma.
2. sacrifices at home with household, even slaves, gathered around
3. sacrifice was primary contact with gods
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4. state sacrifices were common: Athens, 1st 8 days of every month were
expressions of piety towards polis' offical cults (e.g., celebrated
Athena's bday on the 3rd, Artemis on the 6th of each month; Apollo on
the 7th). Nearly half of Athens' calendar features some religious
festival. Calendars of Erchia, Marathon.
5. Not all attended the festivals, and laborers' contracts actually
specified the numbers of days off for religious ceremonies
6. Largest crowds for Panathenaic festival, honoring her with sacrifices,
parades, contests in music, dancing, poetry, athletics
7. Some festivals for women only, such as 3-day festival for married
women in honor of Demeter, protectress of agriculture and fertility
8. Sacrifice at center of all cults: bloodless offering of fruits, vegetables,
honey cakes to slaughter of large animals
9. Large animals relatively rare since land supported only in small
numbers, so important symbolism, to ensure good fortune, to
symbolize control over animal world, and to have a rare meal of meat.
It provided an occasion for the community to reassemble to reaffirm
its ties to the divine world and, by sharing the roast beast, for the
worshippers to benefit from a good relationship with gods
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Process of sacrifice:
1. serious and solemn event, and requires a guarantee purity
2. at altars outside of temples
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3. victim unblemished, decorated w. garlands, induced to approach altar
on its own
4. strict silence to avoid impure remakrs
5. sprinkle water on head so that as animal shakes head, it appears to
consent to its own death
6. wash hands, scatter barley grains on altar fire and victim's head, then
cut lock of animal's hair, sprinkle in flames
7. prayer; swift cutting of throat to music and ululation, to express ritual
sorrow at death
8. carcass butchered, some portions on altar fire so gods partake of
smoke/meat; distribute meat to worshippers

Other activites besides cult of the gods:
1. birth, marriage, death marked with prayers, sacrifices, rituals
2. offerings at tombs of relatives
3. consultation of seers re: dreams and omens; magicians sought out for
spells re: love lives, curses upon enemies' heads
4. hero cults: rituals at tomb of distant dead (Theseus, who was seen at
Marathon, and whose bones were returned to Athens by Kimon;
special Theseion built in his honor, cult grew up around him; so with
oikistes as well); power of local heroes was local, to reveal future via
oracles, to heal, to provide aid in war; only Herakles had universal
appeal
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One international cult: Demeter/Kore at Eleusis, a deme of Attika
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1. Mysteries, central rite of cult of initiation. So important that an
annual international truce declared for 55 days to allow for travel
to/fro + initiation/worship
2. Had to be free of pollution, and open to all Greek speakers (read last
psg. in ch. on what it meant to be Greek), incl. slaves
3. Initiation: complicated ceremonies, fasting, then revelation of the
secret of Demeter; Telesterion held 3000 people on tiered steps,
revelation (something done, something said, something shown); proof
of sanctity and importance: over 2000 years, never revealed. Promised
a better life now (against ghosts, illness, poverty, shipwreck, etc.) and
a better fate after death as a direct result for appropriate conduct.
4. Gods expected honors and rites, and Gk religion required action from
its worshippers; had to pray, sing hymns, sacrifice, purify, all active
responses to the precarious conditions of life. Gods send good and
bad in life, as they like humans were good and evil. No expectation of
a paradise in the future when evil would be vanquished forever, no
change in the relationship between human and divine. The
relationship incorporated sorrow and joy, punishment and reward,
with perhaps an uncertain hope for favored treatment now and later.
5. What do you imagine the Athenians, Spartans, Corinthians and
others thought re: the gods by 400 BC?
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