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Citizen Bacchae: Women's Ritual Practice in Ancient Greece

Barbara Goff

Terence Taylor (ed.)

What activities did the women of ancient Greece perform in the sphere of ritual, and what were the meanings of such activities for them and their culture? By offering answers to these questions, this ... More

What activities did the women of ancient Greece perform in the sphere of ritual, and what were the meanings of such activities for them and their culture? By offering answers to these questions, this study aims to recover and reconstruct an important dimension of the lived experience of ancient Greek women. A comprehensive investigation of the ritual roles of women in ancient Greece, it draws on a wide range of evidence from across the Greek world–including literary and historical texts, inscriptions, and vase paintings–to assemble a portrait of women as religious and cultural agents, despite the ideals of seclusion within the home and exclusion from public arenas that we know restricted their lives. As the author builds a picture of the extent and diversity of women's ritual activity, she shows that women were entrusted with some of the most important processes by which the community guaranteed its welfare. She examines the ways in which women's ritual activity addressed issues of sexuality and civic participation, showing that ritual could offer women genuinely alternative roles and identities, even while it worked to produce wives and mothers who functioned well in this male-dominated society. Moving to more speculative analysis, the author discusses the possibility of a women's subculture focused on ritual, and investigates the significance of ritual in women's poetry and in vase paintings that depict women. She also includes a substantial exploration of the representation of women as ritual agents in fifth-century Athenian drama.Less

Greek Gods Abroad: Names, Natures, and Transformations

Robert Parker

This is a book about interaction between Greek religion and the religious cultures of the many regions of the eastern Mediterranean and beyond with which it came into contact during the long period ... More

This is a book about interaction between Greek religion and the religious cultures of the many regions of the eastern Mediterranean and beyond with which it came into contact during the long period when Greek was the lingua franca of the ancient world. It studies the practice of identifying Greek gods with those of other countries, and its limits. It shows how Greek gods were named and referred to within Greece, and how these ways of naming were adopted, extended and adapted in new cultural contexts. It argues, following Hermann Usener’s Götternamen, that such naming practices provide essential insight into religious psychology and values.Less

Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition

Claudia Rapp

Between the years 300 and 600, Christianity experienced a momentous change from persecuted cult to state religion. One of the consequences of this shift was the evolution of the role of the bishop—as ... More

Between the years 300 and 600, Christianity experienced a momentous change from persecuted cult to state religion. One of the consequences of this shift was the evolution of the role of the bishop—as the highest Church official in his city—from model Christian to model citizen. This work traces this transition with a twofold aim: to deemphasize the reign of the emperor Constantine, which has traditionally been regarded as a watershed in the development of the Church as an institution, and to bring to the fore the continued importance of the religious underpinnings of the bishop's role as civic leader. The book rejects Max Weber's categories of “charismatic” versus “institutional” authority that have traditionally been used to distinguish the nature of episcopal authority from that of the ascetic and holy man. Instead it proposes a model of spiritual authority, ascetic authority and pragmatic authority, in which a bishop's visible asceticism is taken as evidence of his spiritual powers and at the same time provides the justification for his public role. The book provides an analysis of the changing dynamics of social mobility as played out in episcopal appointments.Less

The Matter of the Gods: Religion and the Roman Empire

Clifford Ando

Berhane Asfaw (ed.)

What did the Romans know about their gods? Why did they perform the rituals of their religion, and what motivated them to change those rituals? To these questions the book proposes simple answers: In ... More

What did the Romans know about their gods? Why did they perform the rituals of their religion, and what motivated them to change those rituals? To these questions the book proposes simple answers: In contrast to ancient Christians, who had faith, Romans had knowledge, and their knowledge was empirical in orientation. In other words, the Romans acquired knowledge of the gods through observation of the world, and their rituals were maintained or modified in light of what they learned. After a preface and opening chapters that lay out this argument about knowledge and place it in context, the book pursues a variety of themes essential to the study of religion in history.Less

Migrating Tales

Richard Kalmin

This book situates the Babylonian Talmud, or Bavli, in its cultural context by reading several rich rabbinic stories against the background of Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, and Mesopotamian ... More

This book situates the Babylonian Talmud, or Bavli, in its cultural context by reading several rich rabbinic stories against the background of Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, and Mesopotamian literature of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, much of it Christian in origin. The book argues that non-Jewish literature deriving from the eastern Roman provinces is a crucially important key to interpreting Babylonian rabbinic literature, to a degree unimagined by earlier scholars. The book demonstrates the extent to which rabbinic Babylonia was part of the Mediterranean world of late antiquity and part of the emerging but never fully realized cultural unity forming during this period in Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, and western Persia. It recognizes that the Bavli contains remarkable diversity, incorporating motifs derived from the cultures of contemporaneous religious and social groups.Less

The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion

Mark Munn

Michael Rose (ed.)

Among maternal deities of the Greek pantheon, the Mother of the Gods was a paradox. She is variously described as a devoted mother, a chaste wife, an impassioned lover, and a virgin daughter; she is ... More

Among maternal deities of the Greek pantheon, the Mother of the Gods was a paradox. She is variously described as a devoted mother, a chaste wife, an impassioned lover, and a virgin daughter; she is said to be both foreign and familiar to the Greeks. This study examines how the cult of Mother of the Gods came from Phrygia and Lydia, where she was the mother of tyrants, to Athens, where she protected the laws of the Athenian democracy. Analyzing the divergence of Greek and Asiatic culture at the beginning of the classical era, the book describes how Kybebe, the Lydian goddess who signified fertility and sovereignty, assumed a different aspect to the Greeks when Lydia became part of the Persian empire. Conflict and resolution were played out symbolically, it shows, and the goddess of Lydian tyranny was eventually accepted by the Athenians as the Mother of the Gods, and as a symbol of their own sovereignty. The book illustrates how ancient divinities were not static types, but rather expressions of cultural systems that responded to historical change. Presenting a new perspective on the context in which the Homeric and Hesiodic epics were composed, the book traces the transformation of the Asiatic deity who was the goddess of Sacred Marriage among the Assyrians and Babylonians, equivalent to Ishtar. Among the Lydians, she was the bride to tyrants and the mother of tyrants. To the Greeks, she was Aphrodite.Less

Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece

Sarah Iles Johnston

During the archaic and classical periods, Greek ideas about the dead evolved in response to changing social and cultural conditions—most notably changes associated with the development of the polis, ... More

During the archaic and classical periods, Greek ideas about the dead evolved in response to changing social and cultural conditions—most notably changes associated with the development of the polis, such as funerary legislation, and changes due to increased contacts with cultures of the ancient Near East. In Restless Dead, Sarah Iles Johnston presents and interprets these changes, using them to build a complex picture of the way in which the society of the dead reflected that of the living, expressing and defusing its tensions, reiterating its values and eventually becoming a source of significant power for those who knew how to control it. She draws on both well-known sources, such as Athenian tragedies, and newer texts, such as the Derveni Papyrus and an important sacred law from Selinous. Topics of focus include the origin of the goes (the ritual practitioner who made interaction with the dead his specialty), the threat to the living presented by the ghosts of those who died dishonorably or prematurely, the development of Hecate into a mistress of ghosts and her connection to female initiation rites, and the complex nature of the Erinyes, goddesses who punished the living on behalf of the dead. Restless Dead culminates with a new reading of Aeschylus’ Oresteia that emphasizes how Athenian myth and cult manipulated ideas about the dead to serve political and social ends.Less

Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination

Susan Ashbrook Harvey

This book explores the role of bodily, sensory experience in early Christianity (first–seventh centuries c.e.) by focusing on the importance of smell in ancient Mediterranean culture. Following its ... More

This book explores the role of bodily, sensory experience in early Christianity (first–seventh centuries c.e.) by focusing on the importance of smell in ancient Mediterranean culture. Following its legalization in the fourth-century Roman Empire, Christianity cultivated a dramatically flourishing devotional piety, in which the bodily senses were utilized as crucial instruments of human–divine interaction. Rich olfactory practices developed as part of this shift, with lavish uses of incense, holy oils, and other sacred scents. At the same time, Christians showed profound interest in what smells could mean. How could the experience of smell be construed in revelatory terms? What specifically could it convey? How and what could be known through smell? The book argues that ancient Christians used olfactory experience for purposes of a distinctive religious epistemology: formulating knowledge of the divine in order to yield, in turn, a particular human identity. Using a wide array of Pagan, Jewish, and Christian sources, the author examines the ancient understanding of smell through: religious rituals, liturgical practices, mystagogical commentaries, literary imagery, and homiletic conventions; scientific, medical, and cosmological models; and ascetic disciplines, theological discourse, and eschatological expectations. In the process, she argues for a richer appreciation of ancient notions of embodiment and of the roles the body might serve in religion.Less

The Seer in Ancient Greece

Michael Flower

Warren Allmon (ed.)

The seer (mantis), an expert in the art of divination, operated in ancient Greek society through a combination of charismatic inspiration and diverse skills ranging from examining the livers of ... More

The seer (mantis), an expert in the art of divination, operated in ancient Greek society through a combination of charismatic inspiration and diverse skills ranging from examining the livers of sacrificed animals to spirit possession. Unlike the palm readers and mediums who existed on the fringe of modern society, many seers were highly paid, well-respected, educated members of the elite who played an essential role in the conduct of daily life, political decisions, and military campaigns. Armies, for example, never went anywhere without one. This book enters into the socioreligious world of ancient Greece to explore what seers did, why they were so widely employed, and how their craft served as a viable and useful social practice.Less

A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity

Richard E. Payne

Christian communities flourished during late antiquity in a Zoroastrian political system, known as the Iranian Empire, which integrated culturally and geographically disparate territories from Arabia ... More

Christian communities flourished during late antiquity in a Zoroastrian political system, known as the Iranian Empire, which integrated culturally and geographically disparate territories from Arabia to Afghanistan into its institutions and networks. Whereas previous studies have regarded Christians as marginal, insular, and often persecuted participants in this empire, this book demonstrates their integration into elite networks, adoption of Iranian political practices and imaginaries, and participation in imperial institutions. The rise of Christianity in Iran depended on the Zoroastrian theory and practice of hierarchical, differentiated inclusion, according to which Christians, Jews, and others occupied legitimate places in Iranian political culture in positions subordinate to the imperial religion. Christians, for their part, positioned themselves in a political culture not of their own making, with recourse to their own ideological and institutional resources, ranging from the writing of saints' lives to the judicial arbitration of bishops. In placing the social history of East Syrian Christians at the center of the Iranian imperial story, this book helps explain the endurance of a culturally diverse empire across four centuries.Less

Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity

Daniel Folger Caner

Jeffrey Wilson (ed.)

An apostolic lifestyle characterized by total material renunciation, homelessness, and begging was practiced by monks throughout the Roman Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries. Such monks often ... More

An apostolic lifestyle characterized by total material renunciation, homelessness, and begging was practiced by monks throughout the Roman Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries. Such monks often served as spiritual advisors to urban aristocrats whose patronage gave them considerable authority and independence from episcopal control. This book studies this type of Christian poverty and the challenge it posed for episcopal authority and the promotion of monasticism in late antiquity. Focusing on devotional practices, the author draws together diverse testimony from Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and elsewhere—including the Pseudo-Clementine Letters to Virgins, Augustine's On the Work of Monks, John Chrysostom's homilies, and legal codes—to reveal gospel-inspired patterns of ascetic dependency and teaching from the third to the fifth centuries. Throughout, his point of departure is social and cultural history, especially the urban social history of the late Roman Empire. The author also introduces many charismatic individuals whose struggle to resist church suppression of their chosen way of imitating Christ was fought with defiant conviction, and the book includes an annotated English translation of the biography of Alexander Akoimetos (Alexander the Sleepless). The book allows us to understand these figures of early Christianity in the full context of late Roman society.Less