The Spartan king Cleomenes, having seized the acropolis of Athens in 507 BC with the aim of suppressing the young democracy, is ordered by the priestess of Athena to withdraw from the goddess's shrine, where no Dorian is permitted to enter. Robert Parker uses this incident to illustrate some of the multiple types of question that a Greek historian may choose to confront in the late 20th century - questions about political history, about gender relations, about ethnicity. In particular, he takes up the priestess's attempt to debar a stranger from a sanctuary on ethnic grounds, and reflects on the role of shared cults in creating group solidarity at almost every level of society in Greece.

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.

Reciprocity has been seen as an important notion for anthropologists studying economic and social relations, and this volume examines it in connection with Greek culture from Homer to the Hellenistic period.

The Greeks are on trial. They have been for generations, if not millennia, from Rome in the First century, to Romanticism in the Nineteenth. We debate the place of the Greeks in the university curriculum, in New World culture - we even debate the place of the Greeks in the European Union. This book notices the lingering and half-hidden presence of the Greeks in some strange places - everywhere from the U.S. Supreme Court to the Modern Olympic Games - and in doing so makes an important new contribution to a very old debate.

Singing for the Gods develops a new approach towards an old question in the study of religion - the relationship of myth and ritual. Focusing on ancient Greek religion, Barbara Kowalzig exploits the joint occurrence of myth and ritual in archaic and classical Greek song-culture. She shows how choral performances of myth and ritual, taking place all over the ancient Greek world in the early fifth century BC, help to effect social and political change in their own time. Religious song emerges as integral to a rapidly changing society hovering between local, regional, and panhellenic identities and between aristocratic rule and democracy. Drawing on contemporary debates on myth, ritual, and performance in social anthropology, modern history, and theatre studies, this book establishes Greek religion's dynamic role and gives religious song-culture its deserved place in the study of Greek history.