Practitioners of the Divine: Greek Priests and Religious Officials from Homer to Heliodorus

by Beate Dignas, Kai Trampedach

Overview

“What is a Greek priest?” The volume, which has its origins in a symposium held at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C., focuses on the question through a variety of lenses: the visual representation of cult personnel, priests as ritual experts, variations of priesthood, ideal concepts and their transformation, and the role of manteis. Each chapter looks at how priests and religious officials used a potential authority to promote themselves and their posts, how they played a role in conserving, shaping and reviving cult activity, how they acted behind the curtain of polis institutions, and how they performed as mediators between men and gods. It becomes clear that Greek priests had many faces, and that the factors that determined their roles and activities are political as well as historical, religious as well as economic, idealistic as well as pragmatic, personal as well as communal.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674027879
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	10/01/2008
Series:	Hellenic Studies Series , #30
Pages:	250
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Beate Dignas is Tutor in Ancient History, Somerville College, Oxford.

Kai Trampedach is Professor of Ancient History at Heidelberg University.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: What is a Greek Priest? Albert Henrichs

Part I: Priests and Ritual
1. Priests as Ritual Experts in the Greek World Angelos Chaniotis

Part II: Variations of Priesthood
2. Priestly Personnel of the Ephesian Artemisium: Anatolian, Persian, Greek, and Roman Aspects Jan Bremmer
3. Professionals, Volunteers, and Amateurs in the Cult of Demeter: Serving th eGods kata ta patria Susan Guettel Cole
4. “Greek” Priests of Sarapis? Beate Dignas
5. Priests - Dynasts - Kings: Temples and Secular Rule in Asia Minor Ulrich Gotter

Part III: Visual Representation
6. Images of Cult Personnel in Athens between the Sixth and First Centuries BC Ralf von den Hoff

Part IV: Ideal Concepts and their Transformation
7. Philosopher and Priest: The Image of the Intellectual and the Social Practice of the Elites in the Eastern Roman Empire Matthias Haake
8. An Egyptian Priest in Delphi: Kalasiris as theios aner in Heliodorus' Aethiopica Manuel Baumbach

Part V: Manteis: Priests at All?
9. The Iamidae: A Mantic Family and Its Public Image Michael Flower
10. Authority Disputed: The Seer in Homeric Epic Kai Trampedach

• Epilogue Beate Dignas and Kai Trampedach
• Bibliography
• Index