Personal Religion in the Ancient Greek World : A Cultural History

Explores ancient Greek personal religion in all its different facets, featuring the individual as agent, participant, observer, and interpreter of religious beliefs and practices. The personal emerges as a complementary perspective that evolves within, alongside, and occasionally in opposition to the civic dimension of ancient Greek religion.

Much is known about the manifold ways in which ancient Greek religious beliefs and practices map onto the social and political structures of the ancient Greek polis. The way in which the individual served as the basic unit of ancient Greek religion, and the personal dimension of ancient Greek religion associated with it, is much less well understood. This book offers the first comprehensive study of ancient Greek personal religion since the major paradigm changes that affected the study of ancient Greek religion in recent years. An international cast of scholars explores ancient Greek personal religion in all its different facets. They do not treat the personal dimension of ancient Greek religion as an antipode of civic religion but rather as a complementary perspective that evolves within, alongside, and occasionally in opposition to the civic dimension of ancient Greek religion.