visualization of the mental state of the protagonists. On the Athenian stage of the fifth
century, the myth of the polluted matricide Orestes who is haunted by the vengeful
Erinyes can be told as a story of the internalization of guilt and of mental disarray;
Dionysiac ritual can lay claim to possessing cathartic measures against those very same
mental illnesses (Scullion 1998). These are not simply evolutionary processes in the
course of which a supposedly ‘‘archaic’’ notion of purity and pollution is being
replaced by more enlightened views; almost all of the texts presented here date
from the fifth century BC and later. The mental and the ethical dimensions of purity
and pollution coexist with their ritual relevance as religious categories; they represent
different yet non-exclusive Greek interpretative models.
GUIDE TO FURTHER READINGRohde 1925 still offers many pertinent observations about Greek notions of purity and
pollution even though the book, first published in German in 1884, reflects the paradigm
shifts of its time. Fehrle 1910 on ritual chastity, though reflective of the conceptualizations of
religion in theReligionsgeschichtliche Schulearound 1900, contains much useful material.
Moulinier 1952 and Parker 1983 (second edition 1996) remain indispensable. The relevant
entries inREandThe New Paulymay profitably be consulted. On purity in theleges sacraeand
other Greek cult regulations, see Wa ̈chter 1910, Cole 1992, Chaniotis 1997, and Lupu 2004
(¼NGSL). For the text from Selinus, see Jameson, Jordan, and Kotansky 1993, Clinton 1996,
and Burkert 2000. On gender-related issues in theleges sacrae, see Cole 1992 and, more
generally, Von Staden 1992, Dean-Jones 1994, and Carson 1999. On Apollo’s advisory role in
cases ofmiasma, see Dyer 1969. Hoessly 2001 provides a useful overview of the notion of
katharsisin the Greek medical writers and in the religious cathartic tradition
Dirt, physical pollution, and disease, and their impact on the living conditions of ancient
populations, have attracted justified attention: Hope and Marshall 2000 contains several
contributions pertinent to the Greek material. On the problems of insufficient waste disposal,
add Liebeschuetz 2000. For the medical writers’ attitudes to urban pollution, see in particular
Nutton 2000 and Magdelaine 2003. Lloyd 2003 discusses Greek intellectual attitudes towards
disease from Homer to Aristotle and beyond, and offers useful insights into the relation
between physical and ritual pollution. Ginouve`s 1962 is a systematic treatment of bathing
and washing in the Greek world, in both its secular and its sacred aspects.
For an anthropological interpretation of purity and pollution, see Douglas 1966 (with the
reservations expressed above). It is instructive to compare the modified post-structural position
in Douglas 1999. For other approaches, see Testart 1991:251–62, Burkert 1996:118–28
(emphasizing ‘‘the separation of what has been mixed up’’), and Bendlin 1988–2001a and
1988–2001b.
Purity and Pollution 189