Who is her father, and what is his deme?
Have you an Apollo Patroosand a Zeus Herkeios?
Have you a family tomb and where is it?
Doyou treat your parents well?
Do you pay your taxes?
Have you done your military service?When these questions have been answered the examiner proceeds: ‘Call your
witnesses!’ and when they have been produced he goes on to ask: ‘Has anyone
anything to say against this man?’ (Athenian Constitution55).
Question five is a direct question about the individual’s religious standing; it is
one that invites an affirmative answer, an answer that affirms that the individual is a
good citizen. Further light on the meaning of it may be shed by the following passage
in Homer:
The minstrel Phemius, Terpius’ son who served unwillingly as their bard, was still
hoping to escape the black hand of death. He stood now close to the side door,
the tuneful lyre in his hands, debating in his mind whether to slip out of the hall
and seat himself at the massive altar of mighty Zeus Herkeios, on which Laertes
and Odysseus had made so many burnt offerings, or to run forward and clasp
Odysseus’ knees in supplication.
(Odyssey, 22, 330–336)The word herkeiosused in Homer and in dokimasiais an adjective derived from the
noun herkoswhich is defined as a fence or a place enclosed by a fence, an enclosure,
a courtyard, or metaphorically a defence. This is Zeus, whose cult inspired some of
the most magnificent temples in Greece, brought into the domestic sphere as a
bulwark and defender. In the house of Odysseus there is an altar outside the main hall
dedicated to Zeus herkeios(Odyssey,22, 334–5). Excavations of later ordinary Greek
houses have found physical evidence of altars which confirms that they were integral
to the design of domestic buildings and the life of the inhabitants within. It is clear
that there was continuity in religious belief and practice from Homeric times at least
until the end of the Classical period.
In another example, Socrates himself is represented by Plato as having, like any
other Athenian, the requisite altars in his house. In the Euthydemus,the philosopher
reports to his friend Crito a dialogue between himself and a young, visiting, non-
Athenian sophist Dionysodorus who asks:
Socrates, have you a Zeus Patroos? ...
No,Dionysodorus, I have not.RELIGION AND SOCIAL LIFE 107