Religion in ancient Greece
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| Main Beliefs |
| Paganism · Polytheism Mythology · Theism |
| Practises |
| Amphidromia · Iatromantis · Pharmakos Temples · Votive Offerings |
| Twelve Olympians |
| Zeus · Hera · Poseidon · Demeter Hestia · Aphrodite · Apollo · Ares Artemis · Athena · Hephaestus · Hermes |
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| Aether · Chaos · Chronos · Erebus Gaia · Hemera · Nyx · Tartarus · Oranos |
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| Texts |
| Argonautica · Iliad · Odyssey Theogony · Works and Days Epic Cycle · Theban Cycle |
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| Decline of Hellenistic polytheism · Hellenismos |
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Greek religion encompasses the collection of beliefs and rituals practiced in ancient Greece in form of cult practices. It is therefore the practical counterpart of Greek mythology. Within the Greek world, religious practice varied enough so that one might speak of Greek religions. The cult practices of the Hellenes extended beyond mainland Greece, to the islands and coasts of Ionia in Asia Minor, to Magna Graecia (Sicily and southern Italy), and to scattered Greek colonies in the Western Mediterranean, such as Massalia (Marseille). Greek examples tempered Etruscan cult and belief to inform much of the Roman religion.
There was no single truth about the gods. Although the different Greek peoples all recognized the 14 major gods (Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite, Ares, Hephaestus, Athena, Hermes, Hades, Demeter, Hestia, and Dionysus), in different locations these gods had such different histories with the local peoples as often to make them rather distinct gods or goddesses. Different cities worshipped different deities, sometimes with epithets that specified their local nature; Athens had Athena; Sparta, Nike and Artemis; Corinth was a center for the worship of Aphrodite; Delphi and Delos had Apollo; Olympia had Zeus, and so on down to the smaller cities and towns. Identity of names was not even a guarantee of a similar cultus; the Greeks themselves were well aware that the Artemis worshipped at Sparta, the virgin huntress, was a very different deity from the Artemis who was a many-breasted fertility goddess at Ephesus. When literary works such as the Iliad related conflicts among the gods because their followers were at war on earth, these conflicts were a celestial reflection of the earthly pattern of local deities. Though the worship of the major deities spread from one locality to another, and though most larger cities boasted temples to several major gods, the identification of different gods with different places remained strong to the end.
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[edit] Terminology
It is perhaps misleading to speak of "Greek religion." In the first place, the Greeks did not have a term for "religion" in the sense of a dimension of existence distinct from all others, and grounded in the belief that the gods exercise authority over the fortunes of human beings and demand recognition as a condition for salvation. The Greeks spoke of their religious doings as "ta theia" (literally, "things having to do with the gods"), but this loose usage did not imply the existence of any authoritative set of "beliefs." Indeed, the Greeks did not have a word for "belief" in either of the two senses familiar to us. Since the existence of the gods was a given, it would have made no sense to ask whether someone "believed" that the gods existed. On the other hand, individuals could certainly show themselves to be more or less mindful of the gods, but the common term for that possibility was "nomizein", a word related to "nomos" ("custom," "customary distribution," "law"); to nomizein the gods was to acknowledge their rightful place in the scheme of things, and to act accordingly by giving them their due. Some bold individuals could nomizein the gods, but deny that they were due some of the customary observances. But these customary observances were so highly unsystematic.
[edit] Cultures
There was no single true way to live in dealing with the gods. "The things that have to do with the gods" had no fixed center, and responsibilities for these things had a variety of forms. Each individual city was responsible for its own temples and sacrifices, but it fell to the wealthy to sponsor the "leitourgeiai" (literally, "works for the people," from which the word "liturgy" comes) --the festivals, processions, choruses, dramas, and games held in honor of the gods. "Phratries" (members of a large hereditary group) oversaw observances that involved the entire group, but fathers were responsible for sacrifices in their own households, and women often had autonomous religious rites.
Individuals had a great deal of autonomy in dealing with the gods. After some particularly striking experience, they could bestow a new title upon a god, or declare some particular site as sacred. No authority accrued to the individual who did such a thing, and no obligation fell upon anyone else--only a new opportunity or possibility was added to the already vast and ill-defined repertoire for