"Which dimensions of the religious experience of the ancient Greeks become tangible only if we foreground its local horizons? This book explores the manifold ways in which Greek religious beliefs and practices are encoded in and communicate with various local environments. Its individual chapters explore 'the local' in its different forms and formulations. Besides the polis perspective, they include numerous other places and locations above and below the polis level, as well as those fully or largely independent of the city-state. Overall, the local emerges as a relational concept that changes together with our understanding of the general or universal forces as they shape ancient Greek religion. The unity and diversity of ancient Greek religion becomes tangible in the various ways in which localising and generalising forces interact with each other at different times and in different places across the ancient Greek world"--

Which dimensions of the religious experience of the ancient Greeks become tangible only if we foreground its local horizons? This book explores the manifold ways in which Greek religious beliefs and practices are encoded in and communicate with various local environments. Its individual chapters explore 'the local' in its different forms and formulations. Besides the polis perspective, they include numerous other places and locations above and below the polis-level as well as those fully or largely independent of the city-state. Overall, the local emerges as a relational concept that changes together with our understanding of the general or universal forces as they shape ancient Greek religion. The unity and diversity of ancient Greek religion becomes tangible in the manifold ways in which localizing and generalizing forces interact with each other at different times and in different places across the ancient Greek world.

A Greek historian investigates the importance of local identity in the Mediterranean world in a “rare, genuinely original book . . . Highly recommended” (Choice). Much as our modern world is interconnected through global networks, the ancient Greek city-states were a dynamic part of the wider Mediterranean landscape. In Localism and the Ancient Greek World, historian Hans Beck argues that local shifts in politics, religion and culture had a pervasive influence in a world of fast-paced change. Citizens in these communities were deeply concerned with maintaining local identity, commercial freedom, distinct religious cults, and much more. Beyond these cultural identifiers, there lay a deeper concept of the local that guided polis societies in their contact with a rapidly expanding world. Drawing on a staggering range of materials—including texts by both known and obscure writers, numismatics, pottery analysis, and archeological records—Beck develops fine-grained case studies that illustrate the significance of the local experience. Localism and the Ancient Greek City-State builds bridges across disciplines and ideas within the humanities. It highlights the importance of localism not only in the archaeology of the ancient Mediterranean, but also in today’s conversations about globalism, networks, and migration.

Studied for many years by scholars with Christianising assumptions, Greek religion has often been said to be quite unlike Christianity: a matter of particular actions (orthopraxy), rather than particular beliefs (orthodoxies). This volume dares to think that, both in and through religious practices and in and through religious thought and literature, the ancient Greeks engaged in a sustained conversation about the nature of the gods and how to represent and worship them. It excavates the attitudes towards the gods implicit in cult practice and analyses the beliefs about the gods embedded in such diverse texts and contexts as comedy, tragedy, rhetoric, philosophy, ancient Greek blood sacrifice, myth and other forms of storytelling. The result is a richer picture of the supernatural in ancient Greece, and a whole series of fresh questions about how views of and relations to the gods changed over time.

The ancient state of Rhodes was famous for many things in the Hellenistic period; it emerged as an economic powerhouse thanks to its strategic position on maritime trade routes, its status further bolstered by its proud independence in an era of great kings, and its cultural successes and heritage celebrated by contemporaries as well as later writers. But what did this state look like on the inside, and what social and religious forces contributed to its success? This book explores the origins of the Rhodian state in the late fifth century BC, a union born out of three separate city-states, Lindos, Cameiros, and Ialysos. By digging deep into the abundant epigraphic culture that survives, narratives emerge that tell the stories of these Rhodians and their communities. Despite the political unification and the foundation of a famed and successful capital city, Rhodes-town, the three old centres continued to exhibit distinctive and seemingly lively local religious cultures. What these looked like, and the question of whether they indicate cultic vitality rather than ossification, is considered in detail by examining the local pantheons and the religious dynamics and interactions that characterised and shaped them. Pulling together the diverse threads and local customs, a diachronic religious history of Rhodes is sketched. The role religion played in the social landscape of Hellenistic Rhodes is addressed through a thorough examination of priesthoods. Finally, providing a counterbalance to the institutional side of religion, the lived experience of Rhodian religious associations is depicted. The resulting picture offers a nuanced insight into the religious life and history of a Hellenistic city-state.

The Hellenistic age witnessed a dynamic increase of cultural fusion and entanglement across the Mediterranean and Eurasian worlds. Amid seismic changes in the world writ large, the regions of central Greece and the Peloponnese have often been considered a cultural space left behind. Localism in Hellenistic Greece explores how various processes impacted the countless small-scale, local communities of the Greek mainland. Drawing on notions of locality, localism, local tradition, and boundedness in place, Sheila L. Ager and Hans Beck delve into some of the main hubs of Hellenistic Greece, from Thessaly to Cape Tainaron. Along with their contributors, they explore how polis and ethnos societies positioned themselves in a swiftly expanding horizon and the meaning-making force of the local. The book reveals how local discourses were energized by local sentiments and, much like an echo chamber, how discourses related back to the community and the place it occupied, prioritizing the local as the critical source of communal orientation. Engaging with debates about cultural connectivity and convergence, Localism in Hellenistic Greece offers new insights into lived experience in ancient Greece.

Why do "peace-loving" religions so often cause instability, conflict, and violence? The Hopeful Heretic explores the history and evolution of western institutional religion, providing the context, language, and arguments free societies need to understand and inoculate themselves against resurgent religious fanaticism in the 21st Century. Book I examines the invention of institutional religion as a social governance operating system built around the human need to understand our place in the Universe. From pre-historic nature-based religions to structured polytheism to the main western institutional monotheistic religions, Th Hopeful Heretic charts the history, innovations, key features, and inherent defects of those systems, demonstrating each is man-made, inherently divisive, and prone to chronic instability and conflict. Book II surveys the immense body of scientific knowledge accumulated since the questionable mythologies of our ancestors became generationally entrenched. From Newtonian Physics to Quantum Mechanics, Deep Field Astronomy, and Emergent Intelligence, the Hopeful Heretic argues that spirituality and meaning can be found without the need for "blind faith" by appreciating the scientific fact that life is a pre-programmed feature of a sublimely beautiful Universal Operating System and that we may all be part of and contributing to a living Universal Being. A fascinating tour through history, religion, politics and science.