Polytheism and Society at Athens

by: Parker, R.

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).

Table of Contents
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

Polytheism and Society at Athens

by: Parker, R.

• ISBN-13: 9780199216116 / 978-0-19-921611-6
• ISBN-03: 0199216118 / 0-19-921611-8
• Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007