dogmatic: it was not constructed around a unified set of doctrines, and it was
above all the observance of rituals rather than fidelity to a dogma or belief that
ensured the permanence of tradition and communal cohesiveness’ (Bruit Zaid-
man and Schmitt Pantel 1992:27, cf. 11, 101; see also Burkert 1985:8;
R. Osborne 1994:144; Price 1998:3, 1984:11). This is not the place to discuss
the relative merits of the term belief (or of alternatives such as religious ‘know-
ledge’) and its anachronistic overtones (see, e.g., Harrison 2000:1–30, and
especially Feeney 1998:12–46). It is fair to say, in Denis Feeney’s words, that
‘‘not all religionsplace as high a value on beliefin key dogmas as does modern
Christianity’’ (1998:13). Such stark contrasts, however, as between dogma and
ritual offer us little more than a choice of caricatures. It is the area of religious
experience that falls between these two poles, of ‘‘beliefs’’ that fall short of
dogma, that literature – so long as it is read as notmerely literature– can
illuminate.GUIDE TO FURTHER READINGStudies on ‘‘literary religion’’ tend to focus on particular genres or individual works. So, for
example, on the religion of tragedy, see especially Parker 1997 and 1999, Sourvinou-Inwood
1997, and especially now Sourvinou-Inwood 2003; contrast Mikalson 1991, emphasizing the
distance between tragedy and ‘‘real life.’’ For historiography see the overlapping studies of
Harrison 2000 (and 2003) and Mikalson 2002 and 2003 on Herodotean religion (see also,
importantly, Gould 1994); for Thucydides, contrast Hornblower 1992 and Marinatos 1981;
for Xenophon’sAnabasis, see especially Parker 2004. For Attic oratory, see Mikalson 1983
(largely a digest of passages by theme), and (for an insightful comparison of Attic oratory with
tragedy) Parker 1997.
In addition to these studies on particular sources, there are also a small number of accessible
studies of distinct themes: see especially Parker 1983 on ideas of pollution, Pulleyn 1997 on
prayer, and Currie 2005 on the ideas underlying hero cult (focusing, though not exclusively, on
Pindar). Two excellent introductions to Greek religion which focus on literary sources are
Gould 1985 and Kearns 1996. For the theoretical questions surrounding ‘‘belief ’’ see espe-
cially Feeney 1998:12–46.
384 Thomas Harrison