from the non-Greek civilizations to the east. In many cases, the gods themselves, as we have seen, had
been worshipped by the Greeks as early as the Mycenaean Period. The forms of worship, on the other
hand, and the environment in which that worship took place bear so many “oriental” features that foreign
influence can safely be assumed. That is not to say that the Greeks did not import oriental deities as well.
It will be recalled that Aphrodite, whom the Asiatic Paris judged to be the most beautiful goddess, was
the only divine figure involved in the judgment of Paris of whom there is no mention in the Linear B
tablets. The Greeks considered Aphrodite’s place of birth to have been Cyprus, and it was there that the
Greeks came into frequent contact with the Phoenicians, who worshipped a Semitic goddess, variously
named Ashtorith, Astarte, or Ishtar, who shares numerous characteristics with Aphrodite. Everything
points to the conclusion that the Greeks either adopted the worship of Aphrodite as a new goddess at
some time during the Geometric Period or added so many Semitic features to the worship of an existing
goddess that her original identity was wholly obscured.

At any rate, Aphrodite became a regular member of the Greek pantheon and many Greek poleis erected
altars for sacrifices to her and temples to house her cult images. What is of particular significance is the
communal effort that these structures and the tendance of these and other cults required. This communal
effort both grew out of the newly developed structure of the polis and served to define that structure, by
identifying the cult as the concern of the entire community and by proclaiming the investment of the polis’
attention and resources in the maintenance of the cult. In the eighth century BC, at the same time that the
polis develops its characteristic structure, we see a remarkable increase in the number of cult sites and in
the lavishness with which dedicatory offerings are made at those sites. The kinds of valuable objects that
previously had been buried as grave goods for deceased individuals now begin to be redirected and are
dedicated in large numbers in communal sanctuaries. This redirection of resources from the grave to the
communal sanctuary represents a significant shift in Greek society, as the polis begins to encroach upon
the family as the focus of an individual’s identity. For, while the grave is the concern solely of the
descendants of the deceased, the sanctuary concerns the community as a whole.

The Olympic Games

Greece in the eighth century BC consisted of hundreds of separate poleis, whose inhabitants identified
themselves as members of a polis on the basis of their common adherence to a cluster of cults. All Greeks
recognized and worshipped the same pantheon of divinities, but the particular emphasis upon a limited
group of those divinities, the specific character of certain festivals, and a peculiar calendar according to
which those festivals were celebrated marked one Greek polis as distinct from another. As new poleis
came into being with the establishment of Greek settlements along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and
Black Sea, the establishment of sanctuaries and cults served to mark the identity of the new polis and to
differentiate it not only from the non-Greek communities in the surrounding area but from other Greek
poleis, including the polis from which the settlement had originated (called in Greek the metropolis or
“mother-city”). This increasing contact with non-Greek populations and this differentiation of one polis
from another presented the Greeks with the need to define themselves not only as members of a particular
polis but as Greeks, as Hellenes. Their common Greek language, although divided into a number of
dialects, served that purpose, as did certain inherited legends and myths. This purpose was also served by
the development of a small number of religious festivals that attained a PANHELLENIC status; that is,
festivals that were not confined to the members of a single polis but could be observed by all the
Hellenes.