Religion in the Ancient Greek City / Edition 1

by Louise Bruit Zaidman, Pauline Schmitt Pantel, Paul Cartledge

Overview

This book is an English translation of the French work La Religion Grecque. Its purpose is to consider how religious beliefs and cultic rituals were given expression in ancient Greece. The chapters cover first ritual and then myth, rooting the account in the practices of the classical city while also taking seriously the world of the imagination. For this edition the bibliography has been substantially revised to meet the needs of a mainly student, English-speaking readership. The book is enriched throughout by illustrations, and by quotations from original sources.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521423571
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	12/17/1992
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	306
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.54(h) x 0.79(d)

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; Authors' preface; Translator's introduction; List of sources; Part I. Introduction: How Should we Study Greek Civic Religion?: 1. The necessity of cultural estrangement; 2. Some fundamental notions; 3. Sources of evidence; Part II. Cult-Practices: 4. Rituals; 5. Religious personnel; 6. Places of cult; 7. Rites of passage; 8. Settings of religious life; 9. Religion and political life; 10.The festival system: the Athenian case; 11.The Panhellenic cults; Part III. System for Representing the Divine: 12. Myths and mythology; 13. A polytheistic religion; 14. Forms of imaginative projection; Part IV. Envoi: 15. Concluding reflections; Appendixes: I. The classical Greek temple; II. The monuments of the Athenian Akropolis; Bibliography; Index and glossary.

Editorial Reviews

"The book is methodologically sophisticated and can be recommended to anyone wishing to be brought up to date in the field of Greek religion." Journal of the American Academy of Religion

"...brims with enthusiasm for the subject and for current theoretical approaches." Jon D. Mikalson, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"...an up-to-date, concise and readable textbook, which brings to the English-speaking general reader a synthesis of much of the past thirty years' work of the 'Paris School' of classical studies....The translation is lively, but sacrifices none of the theoretical rigour of the text....This is a challenging, absorbing study, to be recommended to anyone with an interest in the history of religion." Helen King, Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher