- Greek Religion
(By Robert Parker)Gods and Men
Greek religion belongs to the class of ancient polytheisms: one can in very general terms compare the religions of Rome, of
Egypt, of the ancient Indo-Iranians, and most of the religions of the ancient Near East. The gods of such a polytheism have
each a defined sphere of influence. The balanced worshipper does not pick and choose between them but pays some respect
to them all. To neglect one god (Aphrodite, for instance) is to reject an area of human experience. Individual Greek
communities paid special honour to particular gods (put the other way, gods 'took most delight' in particular sanctuaries),
but not to the exclusion of others. Athena, for instance, was the divine patroness of Athens, and Hera that of Samos; an
Athenian decree of 405 B.C. which celebrates Athenian-Samian co-operation is topped by a relief showing the two
goddesses clasping hands; but Hera was also an honoured goddess in Athens, and vice versa.
The number of principal gods was always quite restricted. Homer shows ten important gods in action (Zeus, Hera, Athena,
Apollo, Artemis, Poseidon, Aphrodite, Hermes, Hephaestus, and Ares) and these, together with Demeter and Dionysus,
made up the 'twelve gods', the conventional total recognized from the fifth century onwards. Alongside them, there were
innumerable lesser figures, some quite obscure, but others, such as Pan and the Nymphs, just as important in cult as the
junior partners among the twelve, Hephaestus and Ares. Genealogies varied, but the twelve were all often said to be either
siblings or children of Zeus, 'the father of gods and men'. Most of them could be conceived as living, a sprawling family, in
Zeus' palace on the heavenly mountain Olympus. (At other times they were imagined as dwelling in their favoured cities.)
They were thus the Olympians. Contrasted to them was a less clearly defined group of chthonians (from chthon, earth),
gods of the earth and the underworld, grouped around Hades, the god of death, and his luckless spouse Persephone. Since
crops spring from the earth, the chthonians were not merely a negative counterpoise to the gods of heaven, and even the
lord of the Olympians had also, as 'Zeus under the earth', a chthonic aspect.
This restricted cast of principal gods could be made to play an almost infinite number of roles in cult practice by the
addition of specifying epithets. A single cult calendar from Attica prescribes offerings on different days for Zeus as 'Zeus of
the city', 'kindly Zeus', 'Zeus who looks over men', 'Zeus of fulfilment', 'Zeus of boundaries', and 'Zeus of mountain tops'.
He had, in fact, several hundred such epithets. The epithet sometimes indicated the power in virtue of which the worshipper
was appealing to the god: Zeus 'the general' evidently did not have in his gift the same benefits as Zeus 'of property'.
Sometimes it seems that the epithet's main function was merely to introduce local discriminations within the pantheon
common to all Greece. Villagers no doubt took pleasure in knowing that their Zeus or Athena was not quite the same as the
one worshipped in the next village over the hill.
'There is never equality between the race of deathless gods and that of men who walk the earth', says Apollo in Homer. The
gods had human form; they were born, and they might have sexual contacts, but they did not eat human food, and they
would not age or die. Pindar tells how the two races both spring from Mother Earth but 'arc kept apart by a difference of
power in everything: the one is nothing, but for the other the brazen heaven is a fixed habitation for ever.' The gods were
'blessed', 'best in strength and honour'; men were 'wretched', 'powerless', 'creatures of a day'. In the golden age, men had
dined with gods, but the two races were later 'divided'; this division occurred at the time of the first sacrifice, and each
subsequent sacrifice was a reminder to man that he no longer dined with the gods but made offerings to them from a
distance. Again, it was (with very rare exceptions) only in a greater and more glorious time that gods had visited mortal
women to sire godlike sons.