BY
LEWIS RICHARD FARNELL, M.A., D.Litt.
RECTOR OF EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD; GIFFORD LECTURER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF
ST. ANDREWS; FORMERLY WILDE LECTURER IN NATURAL AND COMPARATIVE
RELIGION IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD; HIBBERT LECTURER; HON. D.
LITT. OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GENEVA, TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN, AND
UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS; AUTHOR OF “CULTS OF THE GREEK
STATES,” “THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION,” “HIGHER ASPECTS
OF GREEK RELIGION,” “GREECE AND BABYLON”
LONDON
DUCKWORTH & CO.
3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN
First issued 1920
New Edition 1921
All rights reserved
I. The Sources and the Evidence
III. The Second Period, 900-500 B.C.
IV. The Third Period, 500-338 B.C.
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The foundation of a serious and scientific study of Greek religion,as distinct from the mere mythology of Hellas, may almost be said tohave been an achievement of the last generation of scholars. And it isonly through recent research that the Hellenic spirit, so creative andimperial in the domains of literature, art and science, can berecognised as manifesting itself not unworthily in the sphere ofreligion.
The history of Greek religion means, partly, the account and theinterpretation of the various rites, cults and cult-ideas of thevarious Greek families, tribes and communities; partly the estimate ofthe religious temperament, both of the masses and of the individualswho emerged from among them and of whom some record has beenpreserved.
Now as the Greek world in the long period of its independence wasnever organised as a single State, the attempt to give a summary andgeneral account of its religion is confronted with the perplexityarising from the often incalculable diversity of {8} religious formsand ideas in the different centres of its social life, which was inthe highest degree centrifugal. Nevertheless, as will be shown, wefind in the midst of manifold local variation certain uniformity ofreligious psychology, making for uniformity of practice, which enablesus to deliver certain general pronouncements about the whole.
Ancient Sources: Literary.—Our real knowledge of any ancientreligion depends obviously on the copiousness and variety of ourrecords. And it is likely to be more luminous, if the society inquestion expressed its religious life not only in survivingliterature, but also in surviving art. Of both these kinds the studentof Greek religion has an unusually rich material.
For in spite of its secular freedom, which is its salient achievement,Greek literature in its highest and most popular forms, as well as inits narrower and more special, is deeply infused or preoccupied withre