WHAT IS A POLYTHEISTIC RELIGION?

The Greeks worshipped gods, daimones, and heroes (Thales?).

Epithets of the gods: Athena had at least fifty.

Gods were born, yet did not die. Nourished by ambrosia, nectar, smoke. Ichor flowed in their veins.

Anthropomorphic, yet they were powers, not persons.

Some were collective powers: Muses, Nymphs, etc.

Daimones: beneficent and maleficent.

Heroes: mortals who had lived in the distant past. Center of their worship was the tomb.

Local, yet some Panhellenic.

Expected to deliver oracles, effect cures, provide protection, deal out retribution.

Cycles of epic adventures. Common themes / local traditions.

Since Mycenean times: focus of cult. They marked the city's appropriation of a territory, they legitimized its space. (Theseus' "housing together")

Argos: Phoroneus, first man.

Hierarchies. The Pantheon: a varying list of approximately twelve.

Deities of marriage. Deities of technology.

THE PANTHEON (ALL THE GODS) was variable.

How to classify them? By their modes of operation.

System that fits the societal center.

No Greek word for the Roman term religio (binding).

Christianity and paganism.

Origins of the gods?

Herodotus: Homer and Hesiod. Egypt? (Martin Bernal)

Aristotle

Religion (cf. Goethe's Faust) = acknowledgment of sheer dependence, inferior rank vis-à-vis a flow of power emanating from the superior.

god = king cf. Adon, potis in Poseidon, Lord, etc. Iuno regina, but Dominus only with Christianity. Islam = surrender to the will of god.

Dependence is a form of "making sense." (W. Burkert)

Rituals of submission. Praise (hymns)

Exercise of power in the name of religion and through religion.

SIGNS