Polytheism and Society at Athens

Erscheinungsjahr 2007
ISBN: 978-0-19-921611-6
Verlag: OUP Oxford

Buch, Englisch, 576 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 866 g

This book is the first attempt that has ever been made to give a comprehensive account of the religious life of ancient Athens. The city's many festivals are discussed in detail, with attention to recent anthropological theory; so too, for instance, are the cults of households and of smaller groups, the role of religious practice and argumentation in public life, the authority of priests, the activities of religious professionals such as seers and priestesses, magic, the place of theatrical representations of the gods within public attitudes to the divine. A long final section considers the sphere of activity of the various gods, and takes Athens as a uniquely detailed test case for the structuralist approach to polytheism. The work is a synchronic, thematically organized complement (though designed to be read independently) to the same author's Athenian Religion: A History (Oxford 1996).

Autoren/Hrsg.

Parker, Robert

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsgeschichte Religionen der Antike

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Introduction

- I

- 1: Ancestral Gods, Ancestral Tombs: The Household and Beyond

- 2: `Those with whom I sacrifice'

- 3: Places of Cult: Athens and the Demes

- 4: International Religion

- 5: Who prays for Athens? Religion in Civic Life

- 6: `Those who make a profession out of rites': Unlicensed Religion, and Magic

- 7: Religion in the Theatre

- II

- 8: Festivals and their Celebrants

- 9: Things Done at Festivals

- 10: The Festival Year

- 11: Parthenoi in Ritual

- 12: The Panathenaea

- 13: Women's Festivals: Thesmophoria and Adonia

- 14: The Anthesteria and other Dionysiac Rites

- 15: Eleusinian Festivals

- 16: Festivals, Rituals, Myths: Reprise

- 17: Gods at Work I: Protecting the City

- 18: Gods at Work II: The Growth of Plants and Men

- Epilogue

Über Autor(innen)

Robert Parker is Wykeham Professor of Ancient History at the University of Oxford.