Polytheism and Society at Athens

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This book is the first attempt that has ever been made to give a comprehensive account of the religious life of ancient Athens. The city's many festivals are discussed in detail, with attention to recent anthropological theory; so too, for instance, are the cults of households and of smaller groups, the role of religious practice and argumentation in public life, the authority of priests, the activities of religious professionals such as seers and priestesses, magic, the place of
theatrical representations of the gods within public attitudes to the divine. A long final section considers the sphere of activity of the various gods, and takes Athens as a uniquely detailed test case for the structuralist approach to polytheism. The work is a synchronic, thematically organized
complement (though designed to be read independently) to the same author's Athenian Religion: A History (Oxford 1996).

Polytheism and Society at Athens Review

This substantial tome by Robert Parker is a beautifully written and wonderfully detailed overview of what little is known about Athenian religion of the 5th and 4th centuries. The general reader who ignores the copious footnotes will miss some flashes of wit.

For the Athenians, religion was, as Parker rightly says, utterly pervasive, so woven into their life that they could not easily see it as a thing separable and optional. Yet their attitude towards it seems to have been at times almost ironical. If it was more to them than a poetic representation of their social arrangements and of the central concerns of their life, and more than just an excuse for taking time off from work for a cook-out, a show or a drinking party, it was less than a confidently held system of beliefs in which unseen powers were regarded as being susceptible to influence through begging or through the offer of food and drink.

Athenians embroiled in litigation might send messages to the underworld via the recently dead (those weird Fed Ex deliverymen), asking that their courtroom opponents be cursed, yet court cases were not referred to oracles for decision. Oracle-mongers were allowed to speak in the assembly, yet public policy was settled by the people, not the gods, and was settled on the basis of mundane considerations. Though Athenians were skeptical about the existence of an afterlife, and though the same lines of thought which warranted such skepticism would also have warranted skepticism about the existence of the gods, only a handful of intellectuals appears to have taken the obvious second step.

As Parker shows in detail, this most logical of peoples produced a polytheism that is "indescribable." Their gods and heroes are legion; they lack sharply-defined identities and clearly-defined functions; they are called by many names and at times seem to merge into one another.

The evidence Parker so ably marshals invites one to guess at the thinking, if it can be called thinking, which may lie behind some Athenian religious beliefs and practices. For example, the Athenians asked their departed ones to "send up good things." Perhaps the idea was this: the earth sends up good things (plants); the dead are put into the earth; therefore, the dead can send up good things (wealth). As an argument this is comical, but it has charm. (The idea that you can make a dress for a god--What an irresistible notion!--has the same kind of charm.)

Parker appears to regard Athenian religion with something bordering on affection. It is perhaps worth mentioning that this religion on occasion drove the Athenians into fits of mass hysteria and that it also caused--or furnished a pretext for--the murder of quite a number of people, including a harmless fellow called Socrates.

This book can be dipped into with pleasure again and again. Highly recommended.

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