Religions of the Ancient Greeks Book

Scattered notes:

-Sanctuaries range from Panhellenic to civic to more local
-worship often included local variants of myths
-there was a detailed religious calendar for each city-state detailing when festivals were set and how long (sometimes weeks)
-festivals included animal sacrifice, processions, athletic contests, theatre, and singing, depending on the festival
-temples and sanctuaries were located inside cities for deities and rite closely connected with urban life, just outside cities for more peripheral rites, and in rural areas and on borders to mark boundaries
-sanctuaries and temples varied widely in size, most were not imposing structures, but some like the Acropolis and the Samian temple of Hera were very breathtaking
-sanctuaries took a wide variety of forms, from the typical columnar buildings, to dirt mounds on top of mountains (Zeus Lykaios), caves (Pan), woods or terraces.
-sanctuaries and temples often included multiple shrines, statutes and sacred objects, even for multiple gods (e.g. the Erektheion on the Acropolis)
-Temples often had a statue of the god in precious materials, and many votive offerings
-Dedications were usually made by rich citizens, some temples such as for Asclepius had wider offerings such as stone and clay figurines
-Panhellenic sanctuaries would have have treasuries supplied by other states as gifts
-Altars were the most important part of sanctuaries, situated outside of the temples (dwelling place of the god)
-Temples were expensive to build and maintain, sometimes supplied their costs through gifts and taxation, but mostly through the leasing of sacred land (owned by the god), keeping the money inside the temple. Could be used sometimes by the state so long as it was paid back with interest.
-Priests were typically not full-time professionals but were seen as essential to state functions and rituals, one of the few public offices women could hold
-Interpreters of religious law also important
-Oracles, at Delphi and elsewhere were commonly consulted by every state of Greece, with a decline from the Archaic to Classical ages
-Times of civic and political change were often accompanied by reorganization of religious ritual while reaffirming the importance of tradition
-Religious threats (defacement of herms, profanation of mysteries) were treated harshly and seen as connected to threats toward the state
-Girls and boys had different trajectories in life with different participation in rituals, sometimes sex exclusive (girls "playing the bear" for Artemis, women celebrating the Thesmophoria, men sacrificing to Zeus Ktesios) or unisex (initiation into the Elusinian mysteries)
-Birth, marriage and death not typically accompanied by important religious rituals
-Tablets dedicated to cthonic gods asking for curses on one's enemies were fairly commonly
-Eleusinian mysteries offered a slightly more hopeful expectation of special treatment in the afterlife
-In addition to the obligatory state and local cults, there were also voluntary/elective cults, such as to Asclepius, or to rare foreign gods (ex. Sabazios)
-Dionysus had both civic and elective cults
-He also figured prominently in alternate cosmologies: from the Derveni papyrus: Night -> Ouranos -> Kronos -> Zeus, who swallows Protogonos/Phanes/Metis, enveloping the universe and recreating it, then creating Aphrodite from his semen.
-Rhapsodies: Expands Derveni cosmology, with Zeus fathering Dionysus with Persephone, and the Eumenides/Erinyes by Apollo and Persephone. Dionysus aids mortals in the living world and Persephone in the world of the dead. Zeus installs Dionysus as king of the gods, but he is torn apart and eaten by the titans.
-Those who called themselves Orphics and Pythagoreans often rejected the eating of meat, or only ate the meat of sacrifices
-Pythagoreans rejected beans due to their similarity to human organs
-Both groups believed that human souls reincarnated, and that special knowledge could free human souls from this process, possibly culminating in apotheosis
-Philosophers held a variety of opinions on the reality and nature of the gods, though almost all except the Cynics affirmed the goodness and necessity of conventional and traditional worship and sacrifice, even if they rejected the truth of anthropomorphism or the myths
-Romans had contact with Greeks from very early times, and consciously identified their own deities with those of the Greeks, as well as adopting some Greek rituals (for Ceres) and deities (Asclepius), however, they tended to maintain a distinction between native Roman religion and introduced elements, as well as specifically Romanising those deities introduced, though there was less of a distinction in later eras
-Romans had an interest in the supposed Eastern origins of their city, making pilgrimages and receiving initiation at a shrine in Samothrace (supposedly the ancestors of Priam and the Trojans), which was otherwise unheard of in Greece
-Rome did not have a highly developed inter-divine mythology, their mythology consisting of civic events with divine influence
-Romans in the imperial period considered some aspects of Greek religion (bizarre myths, bacchic cults, etc) to be unsavoury and dangerous, but generally respected the antiquity of Greek religion
-Romans did not generally impose their rituals on Greeks, except when founding new cities in Greece, and there were cults to Roman rulers, much as in the Hellenistic period
-Jewish and Christian response to Greek religion was a combination of criticism and attempts to co-opt the antiquity of Greek religion for their own purposes (Orpheus as monotheist), as well as the use of Greek philosophy in the justification of Christian religion
-The conversion of Constantine did not immediately criminalize non-Christian religions, but it did provide vast resources for the growth of Christianity. Eventually, sacrifice was made illegal, and temples and sanctuaries were demolished, allowed to moulder when destroyed inadvertently, or changed into secular buildings or churches
-Greek cults survived into the 5th century, especially healing cults like Asclepius, but waves of mass conversion in later centuries eventually resulted in the extinction of traditional Greek religion, with only small traces remaining within the Greek Christian system

Overall, this was a good book, though I found the later chapters far more engaging than the early ones, in that they tend to develop an argument more strongly rather than reciting facts. It covers primarily the Archaic and Classical eras, with some material on the Imperial period. There's a strange hole related to the Hellenistic period, which I was hoping to learn a bit more about, the interaction of Greek religion with further flung regions like western Asia and Egypt, as well as the ruler cults which were previously unknown to Greece. There are several themes repeated throughout the book, principally the deep connection between Greek states and Greek religions, contrary to the sort of pluralism and free-wheeling people might expect, as well as the idea of of the supremacy of tradition and antiquity which was a pillar of both state and religion throughout Greece. The authors take pains at time to correct and pre-empt assumptions that might exist due to a readers presumed Christian background, such as non-professional priests being unimportant to the religious system, which they argue against strongly. As a non-Christian, I found some of those interesting in their own right.