Ancient Greek religion
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Most ancient Greeks recognized the twelve major Olympian gods and goddesses—Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Athena, Ares, Aphrodite, Apollo, Artemis, Hephaestus, Hermes, and either Hestia or Dionysus—although philosophies such as Stoicism and some forms of Platonism used language that seems to assume a single transcendent deity. The worship of these deities, and several others, was found across the Greek world, though they often have different epithets that distinguished aspects of the deity, and often reflect the absorption of other local deities into the pan-Hellenic scheme.
The religious practices of the Greeks extended beyond mainland Greece, to the islands and coasts of
Beliefs
"There was no centralization of authority over Greek religious practices and beliefs; change was regulated only at the civic level. Thus, the phenomenon we are studying is not in fact an organized "religion". Instead we might think of the beliefs and practices of Greeks in relation to the gods as a group of closely related "religious dialects" that resembled each other far more than they did those of non-Greeks."[4]
Theology
Ancient Greek
While being immortal, the gods were certainly not all-good or even all-powerful. They had to obey fate, known to Greek mythology as the Moirai,[6] which overrode any of their divine powers or wills. For instance, in mythology, it was Odysseus' fate to return home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, and the gods could only lengthen his journey and make it harder for him, not stop him.
The gods acted like humans and had human vices.[7] They interacted with humans, sometimes even spawning children with them. At times certain gods would be opposed to others, and they would try to outdo each other. In the Iliad, Aphrodite, Ares and Apollo support the Trojan side in the Trojan War, while Hera, Athena and Poseidon support the Greeks (see theomachy).
Some gods were specifically associated with a certain city. Athena was associated with Athens, Apollo with Delphi and Delos, Zeus with Olympia and Aphrodite with Corinth. But other gods were also worshipped in these cities. Other deities were associated with nations outside of Greece; Poseidon was associated with Ethiopia and Troy, and Ares with Thrace.
Identity of names was not 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. Though worship of the major deities spread from one locality to another, and though most larger cities had temples to several major gods, the identification of different gods with different places remained strong to the end.
Ancient sources for Greek religion tell a good deal about cult but very little about creed, in no small measure because the Greeks in general considered what one believed to be much less importance than what one did.[8]
Afterlife
The Greeks believed in an underworld inhabited by the spirits of the dead. One of the most widespread areas of this underworld was ruled by Hades, a brother of Zeus, and was also known as Hades (originally called 'the place of Hades'). Other well-known realms are Tartarus, a place of torment for the damned, and Elysium, a place of pleasures for the virtuous. In the early Mycenaean religion all the dead went to Hades, but the rise of mystery cults in the Archaic age led to the development of places such as Tartarus and Elysium.
A few Greeks, like Achilles, Alcmene, Amphiaraus, Ganymede, Ino, Melicertes, Menelaus, Peleus, and a great number of those who fought in the Trojan and Theban wars, were considered to have been physically immortalized and brought to live forever in either Elysium, the Islands of the Blessed, heaven, the ocean, or beneath the ground. Such beliefs are found in the most ancient Greek sources, such as Homer and Hesiod. This belief remained strong even into the Christian era. For most people at the moment of death there was, however, no hope of anything but continued existence as a disembodied soul.[9]
Some Greeks, such as the philosophers Pythagoras and Plato, also embraced the idea of reincarnation, though this was only accepted by a few. Epicurus taught that the soul was simply atoms which were dissolved at death, so one ceased to exist on dying.
Mythology
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Greek religion had an extensive
Many species existed in Greek mythology. Chief among these were the gods and humans, though the
There was no set Greek cosmogony, or creation myth. Different religious groups believed that the world had been created in different ways. One Greek creation myth was told in Hesiod's Theogony. It stated that at first there was only a primordial deity called Chaos, after which came various other primordial gods, such as Gaia, Tartarus and Eros, who then gave birth to more gods, the Titans, who then gave birth to the first Olympians.
The mythology largely survived and was expanded to form the later
Morality
One of the most important moral concepts to the Greeks was aversion to hubris. Hubris constituted many things, from rape to desecration of a corpse,[11] and was a crime in Athens. Although pride and vanity were not considered sins themselves, the Greeks emphasized moderation. Pride only became hubris when it went to extremes, like any other vice. The same was thought of eating and drinking. Anything done to excess was not considered proper. Ancient Greeks placed, for example, importance on athletics and intellect equally. In fact many of their competitions included both. Pride was not evil until it became all-consuming or hurtful to others.
Sacred texts
The Greeks had no
While some traditions, such as Mystery cults, upheld certain texts as canonic within their praxis, such texts were respected but not necessarily accepted as canonic outside their circle. In this field, of particular importance are certain texts referring to
Practices
Ceremonies
The lack of a unified priestly class meant that a unified,
One ceremony was pharmakos, a ritual involving expelling a symbolic scapegoat such as a slave or an animal, from a city or village in a time of hardship. It was hoped that by casting out the ritual scapegoat, the hardship would go with it.
Sacrifice
Worship in Greece typically consisted of
The animals used were, in order of preference, bulls or oxen, cows, sheep (the most common sacrifice), goats, pigs (with piglets being the cheapest mammal), and poultry (but rarely other birds or fish).
For a smaller and simpler offering, a grain of incense could be thrown on the sacred fire,[18] and outside the cities farmers made simple sacrificial gifts of plant produce as the "first fruits" were harvested.[19] The libation, a ritual pouring of fluid, was part of everyday life, and libations with a prayer were often made at home whenever wine was drunk, with just a part of the cup's contents, the rest being drunk. More formal ones might be made onto altars at temples, and other fluids such as olive oil and honey might be used. Although the grand form of sacrifice called the hecatomb (meaning 100 bulls) might in practice only involve a dozen or so, at large festivals the number of cattle sacrificed could run into the hundreds, and the numbers feasting on them well into the thousands.
The evidence of the existence of such practices is clear in some ancient Greek literature, especially Homer's epics. Throughout the poems, the use of the ritual is apparent at banquets where meat is served, in times of danger or before some important endeavor to gain the gods' favor. For example, in the Odyssey Eumaeus sacrifices a pig with prayer for his unrecognizable master Odysseus. But in the Iliad, which partly reflects very early Greek civilization, not every banquet of the princes begins with a sacrifice.[20]
These sacrificial practices share much with recorded forms of sacrificial rituals known from later. Furthermore, throughout the poem, special banquets are held whenever gods indicated their presence by some sign or success in war. Before setting out for Troy, this type of animal sacrifice is offered. Odysseus offers Zeus a sacrificial ram in vain. The occasions of sacrifice in Homer's epic poems may shed some light onto the view of gods as members of society, rather than external entities, indicating social ties. Sacrificial rituals played a major role in forming the relationship between humans and the divine.[21]
It has been suggested that the Chthonic deities, distinguished from Olympic deities by typically being offered the holocaust mode of sacrifice, where the offering is wholly burnt, may be remnants of the native Pre-Hellenic religion, and that many of the Olympian deities may come from the Proto-Greeks who overran the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula in the late third millennium BCE.[22]
Festivals
Various religious festivals were held in ancient Greece. Many were specific only to a particular deity or city-state. For example, the festival of
Rites of passage
One rite of passage was the amphidromia, celebrated on the fifth or seventh day after the birth of a child. Childbirth was extremely significant to Athenians, especially if the baby was a boy.
Sanctuaries and temples
The main Greek temple building sat within a larger precinct or temenos, usually surrounded by a peribolos fence or wall; the whole is usually called a "sanctuary". The Acropolis of Athens is the most famous example, though this was apparently walled as a citadel before a temple was ever built there. The tenemos might include many subsidiary buildings, sacred groves or springs, animals dedicated to the deity, and sometimes people who had taken sanctuary from the law, which some temples offered, for example to runaway slaves.[23]
The earliest Greek sanctuaries probably lacked temple buildings, though our knowledge of these is limited, and the subject is controversial. A typical early sanctuary seems to have consisted of a tenemos, often around a sacred grove, cave, rock (
The temple interiors did not serve as meeting places, since the
Some sanctuaries offered oracles, people who were believed to receive divine inspiration in answering questions put by pilgrims. The most famous of these by far was the female priestess called the Pythia at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, and that of Zeus at Dodona, but there were many others. Some dealt only with medical, agricultural or other specialized matters, and not all represented gods, like that of the hero Trophonius at Livadeia.
Cult images
The temple was the house of the deity it was dedicated to, who in some sense resided in the cult image in the cella or main room inside, normally facing the only door. The cult image normally took the form of a statue of the deity, typically roughly life-size, but in some cases many times life-size. In early days these were in wood, marble or terracotta, or in the specially prestigious form of a chryselephantine statue using ivory plaques for the visible parts of the body and gold for the clothes, around a wooden framework. The most famous Greek cult images were of this type, including the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, and Phidias's Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon in Athens, both colossal statues, now completely lost. Fragments of two chryselephantine statues from Delphi have been excavated. Bronze cult images were less frequent, at least until Hellenistic times.[25] Early images seem often to have been dressed in real clothes, and at all periods images might wear real jewelry donated by devotees.
The
Many of the Greek statues well known from Roman marble copies were originally temple cult images, which in some cases, such as the Apollo Barberini, can be credibly identified. A very few actual originals survive, for example, the bronze Piraeus Athena (2.35 m (7.7 ft) high, including a helmet). The image stood on a base, from the 5th century often carved with reliefs.
It used to be thought that access to the cella of a Greek temple was limited to the priests, and it was entered only rarely by other visitors, except perhaps during important festivals or other special occasions. In recent decades this picture has changed, and scholars now stress the variety of local access rules. Pausanias was a gentlemanly traveller of the 2nd-century CE who declares that the special intention of his travels around Greece was to see cult images, and usually managed to do so.[26]
It was typically necessary to make a sacrifice or gift, and some temples restricted access either to certain days of the year, or by class, race, gender (with either men or women forbidden), or even more tightly. Garlic-eaters were forbidden in one temple, in another women unless they were virgins; restrictions typically arose from local ideas of ritual purity or a perceived whim of the deity. In some places visitors were asked to show they spoke Greek; elsewhere Dorians were not allowed entry. Some temples could only be viewed from the threshold. Some temples are said never to be opened at all. But generally Greeks, including slaves, had a reasonable expectation of being allowed into the cella. Once inside the cella it was possible to pray to or before the cult image, and sometimes to touch it; Cicero saw a bronze image of Heracles with its foot largely worn away by the touch of devotees.[27] Famous cult images such as the Statue of Zeus at Olympia functioned as significant visitor attractions.[28]
Role of women
The role of women in sacrifices is discussed above. In addition, the only public roles that
It is contested whether there were gendered divisions when it came to serving a particular god or goddess, who was devoted to what god, gods and/or goddesses could have both priests and priestesses to serve them. Gender specifics did come into play when it came to who would perform certain acts of sacrifice or worship. Per the significance of the male or female role to a particular god or goddess, a priest would lead the priestess or the reverse.
There were segregated religious festivals in Ancient Greece; the Thesmophoria, Plerosia, Kalamaia, Adonia, and Skira were festivals that were only for women. The Thesmophoria festival and many others represented agricultural fertility, which was considered to be closely connected to women. It gave women a religious identity and purpose in Greek religion, in which the role of women in worshipping goddesses Demeter and her daughter Persephone reinforced traditional lifestyles. The festivals relating to agricultural fertility were valued by the polis because this is what they traditionally worked for; women-centered festivals that involved private matters were less important. In Athens the festivals honoring Demeter were included in the calendar and promoted by Athens. They constructed temples and shrines like the Thesmophorion, where women could perform their rites and worship.[33]
Mystery religions
Those who were not satisfied by the public cult of the gods could turn to various mystery religions that operated as cults into which members had to be initiated in order to learn their secrets.[34]
Here, they could find religious consolations that traditional religion could not provide: a chance at mystical awakening, a systematic religious doctrine, a map to the afterlife, a communal worship, and a band of spiritual fellowship.
Some of these mysteries, like the
History
Origins
Mainstream Greek religion appears to have developed out of
The Mycenaeans perhaps treated Poseidon, to them a god of earthquakes as well as the sea, as their chief deity, and forms of his name along with several other Olympians are recognizable in records in Linear B, while Apollo and Aphrodite are absent. Only about half of the Mycenaean pantheon seems to survive the Greek Dark Ages. The archaeological evidence for continuity in religion is far clearer for Crete and Cyprus than the Greek mainland.[36]
Greek religious concepts may also have absorbed the beliefs and practices of earlier, nearby cultures, such as Minoan religion,[37] and other influences came from the Near East, especially via Cyprus.[36] Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BCE, traced many Greek religious practices to Egypt.
The Great Goddess hypothesis, that a Stone Age religion dominated by a female Great Goddess was displaced by a male-dominated Indo-European hierarchy, has been proposed for Greece as for Minoan Crete and other regions, but has not been in favor with specialists for some decades, though the question remains too poorly evidenced for a clear conclusion; at the least the evidence from Minoan art shows more goddesses than gods.[38] The Twelve Olympians, with Zeus as sky father, certainly have a strong Indo-European flavor;[39] by the time of the epic works of Homer all are well-established, except for Dionysus, but several of the Homeric Hymns, probably composed slightly later, are dedicated to him.
Archaic and classical periods
The mainstream religion of the Greeks did not go unchallenged within Greece. As
Hellenistic period
In the
New cults of imported deities such as
Roman Empire
When the
The Romans generally did not spend much on new temples in Greece other than those for
After the huge Roman conquests beyond Greece, new cults from Egypt and Asia became popular in Greece as well as the western empire.
Suppression and decline
The initial
The Roman Emperor Julian, a nephew of Constantine, initiated an effort to end the ascension of Christianity within the empire and reorganize a syncretic version of Greco-Roman polytheism that he termed "Hellenism". Later known as "The Apostate", Julian had been raised Christian but embraced his ancestors' paganism in early adulthood. Taking notice of how Christianity ultimately flourished under suppression, Julian pursued a policy of marginalization but not destruction towards the Church; tolerating and at times lending state support to other prominent faiths (particularly Judaism) when he believed doing so would be likely to weaken Christianity.[43] Julian's Christian training influenced his decision to create a single organized version of the various old pagan traditions, with a centralized priesthood and a coherent body of doctrine, ritual, and liturgy based on Neoplatonism.[44][45] On the other hand, Julian forbade Christian educators from utilizing many of the great works of philosophy and literature associated with Greco-Roman paganism. He believed Christianity had benefited significantly from not only access to but influence over classical education.[46]
Julian's successors
Despite official suppression by the Roman government, worship of the Greco-Roman gods persisted in some rural and remote regions into the early Middle Ages. A claimed temple to Apollo, with a community of worshipers and associated sacred grove, survived at Monte Cassino until 529 CE, when it was forcefully converted to a Christian chapel by Saint Benedict of Nursia, who destroyed the altar and cut down the grove.[52] Other pagan communities, namely the Maniots, persisted in the Mani Peninsula of Greece until at least the 9th century.[42]
Modern revivals
Greek religion and
More recently, a revival has begun with contemporary
See also
Notes
- )
- )
- OCLC 422753768.
- )
- ^ Burkert (1985), 2:1:4
- ^ Burkert, Walter (1985). Greek Religion. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 129.
- ^ Otto, W.F. (1954). The Homeric Gods: The Spiritual Significance of Greek Religion. New York: Pantheon. p. 131.
- ^ Rosivach, Vincent J. (1994).The System of Public Sacrifice in Fourth Century (B.C.E.) Athens Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press. p. 1.
- ^ Erwin Rohde Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the Greeks. New York: Harper & Row 1925 [1921]
- ^ Ames-Lewis 2000, p. 194.
- ^ Omitowoju {which book?}, p. 36; Cartledge, Millet & Todd, Nomos: Essays in Athenian Law, Politics and Society, 1990, Cambridge UP, p 126
- ^ Burkert (1985), Introduction:2; Religions of the ancient world: a guide
- ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece 8. 47.2
- ^ a b Burkert (1985), Introduction:3
- ^ Walter Burkert, Greek Religion (1985), 2:1:1, 2:1:2. For more exotic local forms of sacrifice, see the Laphria (festival), Xanthika, and Lykaia. The advantageous division of the animal was supposed to go back to Prometheus's trick on Zeus
- ^ Walter Burkert, Greek Religion (1985): 2:1:1; to some extent different animals were thought appropriate for different deities, from bulls for Zeus and Poseidon to doves for Aphrodite, Burkert (1985): 2:1:4
- ^ Struck, P.T. (2014). "Animals and Divination", In Campbell, G.L. (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Animals in Classical Thought and Life, 2014, Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199589425.013.019, online
- ^ Burkert (1985): 2:1:2
- ^ Burkert (1985): 2:1:4
- ^ Sarah Hitch, King of Sacrifice: Ritual and Royal Authority in the Iliad, online at Archived 2021-01-25 at the Wayback Machine Harvard University's Center for Hellenic Studies
- ^ Meuli, Griechische Opferbräuche, 1946
- ISBN 978-0-521-29037-1.
- ^ Miles, 219-220
- ISBN 113480167X, 9781134801671, google books
- ^ Miles, 213
- ^ Miles, 212-213, 220
- ^ Stevenson, 48-50; Miles, 212-213, 220
- ^ Stevenson, 68-69
- ProQuest 1296355183.
- ^ Dillon, Matthew. "Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion". Researchgate.
- ^ Holderman, Elisabeth (7 June 2021). A Study of the Greek Priestess. Printed by the University of Chicago press – via HathiTrust.
- ^ Dillon, Matthew. "Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion". Researchgate.
- ^ Dillon, Matthew. "Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion". Researchgate.
- ^ Burkert (1985): 4:1:1.
- ^ Burkert (1985): 1:1, 1:2
- ^ a b Burkert (1985): 1:3:6
- ^ Burkert (1985): 1:3:1
- ^ Burkert (1985): 1:3:5
- ^ Burkert (1985): 1:2
- ^ Burckhardt 1999, p. 168: "The establishment of these Panhellenic sites, which yet remained exclusively Hellenic, was a very important element in the growth and self-consciousness of Hellenic nationalism; it was uniquely decisive in breaking down enmity between tribes, and remained the most powerful obstacle to fragmentation into mutually hostile poleis."
- ^ Burkert (1972), 6-8
- ^ a b Gregory, T. (1986). The Survival of Paganism in Christian Greece: A Critical Essay. The American Journal of Philology, 107(2), 229-242. doi:10.2307/294605
- ^ Brown, Peter, The World of Late Antiquity, W. W. Norton, New York, 1971, p. 93.
- ^ a b "A History of the Church", Philip Hughes, Sheed & Ward, rev ed 1949, vol I chapter 6.[1]
- ^ Ammianus Marcellinus Res Gestae 22.12
- ^ Brown, Peter, The World of Late Antiquity, W. W. Norton, New York, 1971, p. 93.
- ^ Themistius Oration 5; Photius, Epitome of the Ecclesiastical History of Philostorgius, 8.5
- ^ Ammianus Res Gestae 20.9; Themistius Oration 12.
- ^ Grindle, Gilbert (1892) The Destruction of Paganism in the Roman Empire, pp.29-30.
- ^ Ramsay McMullan (1984) Christianizing the Roman Empire A.D. 100–400, Yale University Press, p.90.
- ^ Theodosian Code 16.10.20; Symmachus Relationes 1-3; Ambrose Epistles 17-18.
- ^ Pope Gregory I (2009). "7:10-11". The Life of Saint Benedict. Translated by Terrence Kardong, OSB. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press. p. 49.
- ^ Open University, Looking at the Renaissance: Religious Context in the Renaissance (Retrieved May 10, 2007)
- ^ Greece. State.gov. Retrieved on 2013-07-28.
- ^ Hellenic Religion today: Polytheism in modern Greece. YouTube (2009-09-22). Retrieved on 2013-07-28.
References
- Ames-Lewis, Francis (2000), The Intellectual Life of the Early Renaissance Artist, New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-09295-4
- Burkert, Walter (1972), Homo Necans
- Burkert, Walter (1985), Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0674362810. Widely regarded as the standard modern account, online at archive.org.
- Burckhardt, Jacob (1999) [1872]. The Greeks and Greek Civilization. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-24447-7.
- Miles, Margaret Melanie. A Companion to Greek Architecture. Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons, 2016.
- Stevenson, Gregory, Power and Place: Temple and Identity in the Book of Revelation, 2012, Walter de Gruyter, ISBN 3110880393, 9783110880397, google books
Further reading
- Cook, Arthur Bernard, Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion, (3 volume set), (1914–1925). New York, Bibilo & Tannen: 1964. ASIN B0006BMDNA
- Volume 1: Zeus, God of the Bright Sky, Biblo-Moser, June 1, 1964, ISBN 0-8196-0148-9(reprint)
- Volume 2: Zeus, God of the Dark Sky (Thunder and Lightning), Biblo-Moser, June 1, 1964, ISBN 0-8196-0156-X
- Volume 3: Zeus, God of the Dark Sky (earthquakes, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorites)
- Volume 1: Zeus, God of the Bright Sky, Biblo-Moser, June 1, 1964,
- Dodds, Eric Robertson, The Greeks and the Irrational, 1951.
- Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, 1951.
- Lewis Richard Farnell, Cults of the Greek States 5 vols. Oxford; Clarendon 1896–1909. Still the standard reference.
- Lewis Richard Farnell, Greek Hero Cults and Ideas of Immortality, 1921.
- Jane Ellen Harrison, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912.
- Jane Ellen Harrison, Epilegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, 1921.
- Karl Kerényi, The Gods of the Greeks
- Karl Kerényi, Dionysus: Archetypical Image of Indestructible Life
- Karl Kerényi, Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter. The central modern accounting of the Eleusinian Mysteries.
- Jennifer Larson, Ancient Greek Cults:A Guide New York: Routledge, 2007. ISBN 978-0-415-32448-9
- Jon D. Mikalson, Athenian Popular Religion. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983. ISBN 0-8078-4194-3.
- Martin P. Nilsson, Greek Popular Religion, 1940.
- Mark William Padilla, (editor), "Rites of Passage in Ancient Greece: Literature, Religion, Society", ISBN 0-8387-5418-X
- Robert Parker, Athenian Religion: A History Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. ISBN 0-19-815240-X.
- Parker, Robert (24 November 2005). Polytheism and Society at Athens. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-927483-3.
- Parker, Robert (15 March 2011). On Greek Religion. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-6175-0.
- Andrea Purvis, Singular Dedications: Founders and Innovators of Private Cults in Classical Greece, 2003.
- Rask, K. A. (2023). Personal experience and materiality in Greek religion. London: Routledge. ISBN 9781032357485.
- William Ridgeway, The Dramas and Dramatic Dances of non-European Races in special Reference to the Origin of Greek Tragedy, with an Appendix on the Origin of Greek Comedy, 1915.
- William Ridgeway, Origin of Tragedy with Special Reference to the Greek Tragedians, 1910.
- Xavier Riu, Dionysism and Comedy, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1999. ISBN 0-8476-9442-9.
- Erwin Rohde, Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the Greeks, 1925 [1921].
- William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, 1870.
- Sourvinou-Inwood, Christiane (1990). "What Is Polis Religion?". In Murray, Oswyn; Price, S. R. F. (eds.). The Greek City: From Homer to Alexander. Oxford : New York: Oxford University Press / Clarendon Press. pp. 295–322.
- Martin Litchfield West, The Orphic Poems, 1983.
- Martin Litchfield West, Early Greek philosophy and the Orient, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1971.
- Martin Litchfield West, The East Face of Helicon: west Asiatic elements in Greek poetry and myth, Oxford [England]; New York: Clarendon Press, 1997.
- Walter F. Otto, The Homeric Gods: The Spiritual Significance of Greek Religion, New York: Pantheon, 1954
External links
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.