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Greek Religion
The emphasis on rationalism and the role of human beings in
Greek literature and thought might lead some to believe that a spiritual perspective was
not important to the Greeks. This is simply not true. Greek religion was intricately
connected to every aspect of daily life; it was both social and practical. Public
festivals, which originated from religious practices, served specific functions: boys were
prepared to be warriors, girls to be mothers. Since religion was related to every aspect
of life, citizens had to have a proper attitude to the gods. Religion was a civic cult
necessary for the well-being of the state. Ternples dedicated to a god or goddess were the
major buildings in Greek cities. Proper ritual rather than belief formed the crucial part
of Greek religion. It had no official body of priests enunciating dogma and controlling
religious matters. Although there were priests and priestesses to care for certain
religious shrines, most religious ceremonies were led by civilians serving as priests, and
priesthoods were civic offices.
The epic poetry of
Homer contained a coherent theogony or genealogy of the gods that provided Greek religion
with a definite structure. Over a period of time, all Greeks came to accept a common
Olympian religion. There were twelve chief gods who supposedly lived on Mount Olympus, the
highest mountain in Greece. Among the twelve were Zeus, the chief deity and father of the
gods; Athena, goddess of wisdom and crafts; Apollo, god of the sun and poetry; Aphrodite,
goddess of love; and Poseidon, brother of Zeus and god of the seas and earthquakes.
The twelve Olympian
gods were common to all Greeks, who thus shared a basic polytheistic religion. Each polis
usually singled out one of the twelve Olympians as a guardian deity of the community.
Athena was the patron goddess of Athens, for example. But each polis also had its own
local deities who remained important to the community as a whole, and each family had
Festivals also
developed as a way to honor the gods and goddesses. Some of these (the Panhellenic
celebrations) came to have international significance and were held at special
locations, such as those dedicated to the worship of Zeus at Olympia or to Apollo at
Delphi. Numerous events were held in honor of the gods at the great festivals, including
athletic competitions to which all Greeks were invited. The first such games were held at
the Olympic festival in 776 B.C.E. and then were held every four years thereafter to honor
Zeus. Initially, the Olympic contests consisted of foot races and wrestling, but later,
boxing, javelin throwing, and various other contests were added.
As another
practical side of Greek religion, Greeks wanted to know the will of the gods. One
possibility was to consult seers who obtained omens from dreams, the flight of birds, or
the entrails of sacrificial animals. But perhaps the most famous method of divining the
will of the gods was to visit an oracle, a sacred shrine dedicated to a god or goddess who
revealed the future. The most famous was the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, located on the
side of Mount Parnassus, overlooking the Gulf of Corinth. At Delphi, a priestess listened
to question while in a state of ecstasy that was believed to be induced by Apollo. Her
responses were interpreted by the priests and given in verse form to the person asking
question. Representatives of states and individuals traveled to Delphi to consult the
oracle of Apollo. States might inquire whether they should undertake a military
expedition; individuals might raise such questions as, "Heracleidas asks the god
whether he will have offspring from the wife has now." Responses were often enigmatic
and at times even politically motivated. Croesus, the king of Lydia Asia Minor who was known
for his incredible wealth sent messengers to the oracle at Delphi, asking "when he
shall go to war with the Persians." The oracle replied that if Croesus attacked the
Persians, he would destroy a mighty empire. Overjoyed to hear these words, Croesus made war
on the Persians but was crushed. By the end, a mighty empire—that of Croesus—was
destroyed.
The Greek city-state was, above all, a male community: only adult male citizens took part in public life. In Athens, this meant the exclusion of women, slaves, and foreign residents, or roughly 85 percent of the total population in Attica. There were probably 150,000 citizens in Athens, of whom about 43,000 were adult males who exercised political power. Resident foreigners, who numbered about 35,000, received the protection of the laws, but were also subject to some of the responsibilities of citizens, namely, military service and the funding of festivals. The remaining social group, the slaves, numbered around 100,000.
Slavery was a common institution in the ancient world. Economic needs
dictated the desirability of owning at least one slave, although the very poor in Athens
did not own any. The really wealthy might own large numbers, but those who did usually
employed them in industry. Most often, slaves in Athens performed domestic tasks, such
as being cooks and maids, or worked in the fields. Few peasants could afford more than one
or two. Other slaves worked as unskilled and skilled labor. Those slaves who worked in
public construction were paid the same as citizens. In many ways, as some historians have
argued, although Athens was a slave-owning society, the economy was not dependent on the
use of slaves. Slavery in most instances was a substitute for wage labor, which was
frowned upon by most freedom-loving Athenians.
The Athenian
economy was largely agricultural, but highly diversified as well. Agriculture consisted of
growing grains, vegetables, and fruit trees for local consumption; raising vines and
olive trees for wine and olive oil, which were exportable products; and grazing sheep and
goats for wool and milk products. Given the size of the population in Attica and the lack
of abundant fertile land, Athens had to import between 50 and 80 percent of its grain, a
staple in the Athenian diet. Trade was thus highly important to the Athenian economy. The
building of the port at Piraeus and the Long Walls (a series of defensive walls four and
one-half miles long connecting Athens and Piraeus) created the physical conditions that
made Athens the leading trade center in the fifth-century Greek world.
Artisans were more
important to the Athenian economy than their relatively small numbers might suggest. In
particular, Athens was the chief producer of high-quality painted pottery in the fifth
century. Other crafts had moved beyond the small workshops into the factory through the
use of slave labor. The shield factory of Lysias, for example, employed 120 slaves. Public
works projects also provided considerable livelihood for Athenians. The building program
of Pericles, financed from the Delian League treasury, made possible the hiring of both
skilled and unskilled labor.
The Athenian
lifestyle was basically simple. Athenian houses were furnished with necessities bought
from artisans, such as beds, couches, tables, chests, pottery, stools, baskets, and
cooking utensils. Wives and slaves made clothes and blankets at home. The Athenian diet
was rather plain and relied on such basic foods as barley, wheat, millet, lentils, grapes,
figs, olives, almonds, bread made at home, vegetables, eggs, fish, cheese, and chicken.
Olive oil was widely used, not only for eating, but for lighting lamps and rubbing on the
body after washing and exercise. Although country houses kept animals, they were used
for reasons other than their flesh: oxen for ploughing, sheep for wool, and goats for milk
and cheese.
The family was an
important institution in ancient Athens. It was composed of husband, wife, and children (a
nuclear family), although other dependent relatives and slaves were regarded as part of
the family economic unit. The family's primary social function was to produce new
citizens. Strict laws of the fifth century had stipulated that a citizen must be the
offspring of a legally acknowledged marriage between two Athenian citizens whose parents
were also citizens.
Women who were
citizens could participate in most religious cults and festivals, but were otherwise
excluded from public life. They could not own property beyond personal items and always
had a male guardian. The function of the Athenian woman as wife was very clear. Her
foremost obligation was to bear children, especially
Women were kept
under strict control. Since they were married at fourteen or fifteen, they were taught
about their responsibilities at an early age. Although many managed to learn to read and
play musical instruments, they were often cut off from any formal education. And women
were expected to remain at home out of sight unless they attended funerals or festivals.
If they left the house, they were to be accompanied. A woman working alone in public was
either poverty-stricken or not a citizen.
Male homosexuality
was also a prominent feature of Athenian life. The Greek homosexual ideal was a
relationship between a mature man and a young male. It is most likely that this was an
aristocratic ideal and not one practiced by the common people. While the relationship was
frequently physical, the Greeks also viewed it as educational. The older male (the
"lover") won the love of his "beloved" by his value as a teacher and
by the devotion he demonstrated in training his charge. In a sense, this love relationship
was seen as a way of initiating young males into the male world of political and military
dominance. The Greeks did not feel that the coexistence of homosexual and heterosexual
predilections created any special problems for individuals or their society.
p. 137 - Household
Management and the Role of the Athenian Wife
In fifth-century
Athens, a woman's place was in the home. She had two major responsibilities: the bearing
and raising of children and the management of the household. In his dialogue on estate
management, Xenophon relates the advice of an Attican gentleman on how to train a wife.
Xenophon,
Oeconomicus
[Ischomachus
addresses his new wife] For it seems to me, dear, that the gods with great discernment
have coupled together male and female, as they are called, chiefly in order that they may
form a perfect partnership in mutual service. For, in the first place, that the various
species of living creatures may not fail, they are joined in wedlock for the production of
children. Secondly, offspring to support them in old age is provided by this union, to
human beings, at any rate. Thirdly, human beings live not in the open air, like beasts,
but obviously need shelter. Nevertheless, those who mean to win stores to fill the covered
place, have need of someone to work at the open-air occupations; since ploughing, sowing,
planting and grazing are all such open-air employments; and these supply the needful
food.... For he made the man's body and mind more