Religion and politics- the conclusion.

In these past weeks, if I’ve learnt anything it’s that religion in ancient Greece was embedded deeply into the people’s lives. There wasn’t a notion of ‘religion’ as we see it today. This means that its relationship with politics is something completely different to what we would expect. I started to explore this way back in week one, lightly touching the surface of such a fascinating subject. And I think it is quite fitting that my final post will be investigating this in further detail.

In modern society religion and politics still arguably go hand-in-hand. The Catholic pope can go on either a religious or state visit, the Islamic religion has a moral sharia law and the US president is always a practising Christian. These relationships show that the ‘church’ (representing religion as a whole) and the state still use one another to manipulate the masses. Look at the uproar when America thought Obama was a Muslim.

Athens was a mono-centric city, meaning the key cult and key political buildings are both situated in the centre of the city. This contrasts with a bi-polar city such as Argos, which has the key political central and the major sanctuary in the countryside. Athens was atypical and unusual to be mono-centric. Perhaps this is why we see the acropolis and therefore Athens to be the epitome of Greek religion? A vital event regarding the rise of Peisistratus is significant in showing the relationship between religion and politics.

Herodotus (perhaps unreliably) tells us that after Peisistratus was ousted from power, he came across Phye.

  “In the deme of Paiania, there was a well-formed woman called Phye, who was nearly six feet tall, whom they fitted out in full armour, and put in a chariot.  Getting her to pose in a way to generate the greatest spectacle, they drove into the city, where messengers who had proceeded them were already proclaiming, as they had been instructed, that the people should welcome Peisistratus, because the goddess Athena herself was showing him exceptional honour, and was bringing him back to her own Acropolis. They spread this message around, and soon the report reached the demes.  Believing that the woman was Athena herself, the people worshipped this person, and welcomed Peisistratus” (Herodotus 1.60.4-5)

This is a clear example of manipulating religious for political benefits.

Firstly, why Athena? Well Peisistratus already has tied with the cult of Athena, before this event he is accredited with the reorganisation of the Panathenaia, which marks Athena’s birthday. Peisistratus made it a much bigger and extravagant event, introducing the Panathenaic games. This festival not only elevated Athena’s role to the whole Greek world but that of Athens too. Peisistratus drew from this festival by using Athena and elements from the festival (procession through Athens) however; the Panathenaic procession didn’t contain any images of Athena, as she didn’t need to be ‘taken’ to her own acropolis. So by using Athena’s image, Peisistratus is showing how Athena is taking him to the acropolis. He isn’t being impious. Along the same lines of Athena leading Peisistratus to the city centre, he is also calling upon her as a Pompos conveyor/helper of heroes. As Athena has ‘chosen’ to help him, he is getting the same treatment and other heroes, such as Theseus, Hercules and Odysseus. Peisistratus (by not dressing up as one of the said heroes) isn’t being impious once again, he is being clever and putting himself on the same level as the heroes that are known and loved by the people of Athens.

Why the chariot? Erichthonios is attributed as the Panathenaic festival founder, as well as the creator of chariots alongside Athena. He is her protégé and as Peisistratus re-invented the games and rode in a chariot, he is showing himself to be an equal protégé. It is also important to note the role of chariots in processions. On vases it is often the gods that travel in a chariot and in real life mortals that are using chariots do so in order to elevate themselves. For example, a newly wed couple, game victors or departing warriors. It is blurring the boundaries of the immortals and the mortals. Setting them apart from the rest. And so Peisistratus entered Athens in a way that transcends other humans in the masses.

Why the people believed this is another thing. It can be argued that they didn’t literally believe the Phye was Athena, but they acted as though it was. This is because of how the audience participates in worship. Ritual involvement was active rather than passive. The people in the masses are also elevated. This is not dissimilar to Christian mass, where the bread and wine become the body and blood rather than just being symbolic. There is a distinct shift between symbolism and realism. The worshippers are elevated and taken to participate in the late supper. And so this means that it wasn’t just Athena on earth in this procession- all of the audience are elevated and taken to a place where gods and mortals can interact. The Athenians are known to be rational people, but they are also known to be very devoted. This act demonstrates piety and the relationship of Athena as patron. It confirms and solidifies the religiosity of Athenians.

The story is packed with divine messages. On one hand the people are being tricked by Peisistratus’ manipulation of religious activities and on the other hand they are allowing themselves to be tricked by him. As they would when other people impersonate the gods on stage etc. The ‘actors’ become the embodiment of the gods.

I feel like this is a good end to my little journey through Greek religion. A story of how a politician used religion to elevate the gods, himself and the masses. I'm not sure if I believe the story fully, but for the sake of this blog I do. I think that perhaps our Christianised goggles should be embraced when we are trying to understand how the culture differed and perhaps it is just easier to forget about the problem of 'what is a god?' I will be added further posts to this blog in the future and don't forget to check out my bibliography at the top of the page to see a list of all the books that I've used to form my arguments. 

Thanks for reading!  

Olympian vs Chthonian

Can our ideas of Olympians be modern ramblings? 

Todays posting will be a little different. As I’m focusing on the two groups that are meant to split Greek deities, I won’t be focusing on Athena. Olympian gods are the twelve deities that reside on mount Olympus. In contrast chthonian are gods of the earth. This appears quite clear cut, until you begin the slice into it a little more. For example Zeus, king of the god’s offers two extreme sides depending on his form, being worshipped as both by the Greeks. In this case, can all gods be both Olympian and Chthonian. I don’t believe they can. Surely thinking of Apollo, the god of the sun, some deities must be solely one or the other where as others can interchange beneath the two. That is not the recipe for defining categories. It is the recipe for unnecessary confusion.

Hades is surely the epitome of a chthonian deity as he literally resides below the earth, but does this make him solely chthonic? He arguably still has Olympic connections as the brother of Zeus. What is it that makes an Olympic deity? Is it birth or lifestyle (so to speak)? Perhaps the idea of chthonic gods could be a distinct category but to determine which deities are Olympians is arguably too loose. Perhaps the notion of dividing the gods into two groups is far too simplistic. One thing we have learnt over the past weeks is that the gods are far from simple- whether that is understanding polytheism or what is a gods true form- the gods are always complex. It seems to me that we have created these divisions in order to try and create some kind of order to a messy topic.

As you grow up you only hear of ‘majestic’ Greek gods such as Athena, Zeus and Poseidon. This is true of schooling and often also in popular culture (I certainly grew an initial interest in Greek gods thanks to Disney’s Hercules!) So when you delve deeper into the subject and you come across a vast amount of ‘new’ deities, you automatically see them as lesser gods…when they just aren’t. It is interesting to think about how much we buy into an idea of Greek religion that WE want to have, rather than what it actually was. We somehow add Christianised views into Greek religion, for example we satanise Hades as the god of the underworld, which is absolutely unnecessary. (Once again in popular culture, Hades is depicted to be like Satan, with fire hair and demons are helpers) By trying to create a clear divide, are we subconsciously creating the idea that Olympians are good and chthonian bad? This is of course a ridiculous notion.

Disney's Hades with yellow eyes, sharp teeth and fiery hair
was the villain in their adaptation of Hercules. 

A traditional view of approaching this topic was to look at sacrifice. Broadly speaking the two distinct groups, were worshipped and sacrificed for in two distinct ways:

Olympic	Chthonic
Rituals in sunlight	Rituals at night
White victims	Black victims
Sacrifice on high alter	Sacrifice on low hearth/pit
Victims throat up to the sky	Victims throat directed downward
Burning of bones, consuming meat	Consuming everything
Music and good moods	Silence and sombreness
Libations for gods/worshipers	Libations poured into the earth

This appears to create a clear-cut distinction, which would open me to the idea of these two groups, if this notion of two ways of worship hadn’t been contested in recent years (the Oresteia refers to an alter being used for both groups.) There is increasing evidence of the two blurring together. And so if you can’t have Olympian/chthonic sacrifice divisions…can you have Olympic/chthonic god divisions? Parker says, “…the divine world does not fall into two unconnected halves.” (p.39)Which is by far supported by all of my previous posts discussing how the Greek world of deities was a connecting network. This idea of a complex system of intertwining gods cannot be challenged by such a simplified and Christianised view that is far too neat. 

Anthropomorphism

An owl with it's own darting/gleaming
eyes, is this Athena in true form?

Anthropomorphism is a fascinating topic; cultures have been partaking in humanising gods well before the Greeks. But why would we depict something that we consider a superior and in-human being…as human? The notion seems absurd. Yet it is undeniably a truth that most people (including myself) might make that mistake to envisage the Greek gods in humanised forms. I am fully aware that Ares is not only the god of war…but he also embodied war as a concept. And this is the same with many of the gods and their simplified attributes- Hades as the underworld, Nike as victory, Zeus as thunder. Yet I still picture them in their human counterparts. Is this the same for the Greeks? And what are the gods ‘true forms’ if they even exist? These are questions I want to try and answer in this posting.

Gods and goddesses can be portrayed in many ways; these different depictions tend to serve different contexts. They can embody an attribute (as above) or they can be personified in a weapon (Zeus as a thunderbolt, Poseidon as a trident etc.) and even as an animal in zoomorphism (Zeus as a swan/eagle, Diana as deer.) In the latter, these animals can be portrayed with the deity or as the deity. And so is this animal an agent for the god, or is the god an animal? We know that when a deity takes human form, they have human attributes (such as lust and hate) so when they are zoomorphised are they simply impersonating this beast or do they literally become the beast? This is addressed in the myth of Leda and the swan. Zeus, in swan form, seduces/rapes Leda, which leads to her laying eggs, a truly bird thing to do! It could be argued that if Zeus were simply acting as a swan then his offspring would be birthed normally. How can we ever know which is the correct form? In which case, do the gods have no true form?

Athena Tetradrachm. 
Athens, approx 450 BC. British Museum

Aniconic images are particularly holy in ancient Greece. These simple images were thought to have fallen from heaven and so were sacred, they were thought to depict the ‘true’ divinity. One example is the Xoanon, or the wooden Athena. It was thought to be the crude image of Athena, but also Athena herself. Is this her true form? Often the gods represented animals or objects that they were meant to symbolise. Athena was often accompanied by an owl, as was she often depicted as such. Both Athena and the owl are known to be wise. They embodied the same qualities. She is frequently described in literature as Athena Glaukopis, which roughly translates into darting/gleaming eyes. This image is of an Athenian Tetradrachm. It depicts Athena on one side and an owl on the other. It is interesting to see that the humanised depiction has similar attributes to the animal counterpart- large ‘darting’ eyes and a beaked nose. These animal representations show the gods known traits. In a further example, Deacy discusses how Hera is described as Bo-Opis (Doe-eyed) advocating modesty and femininity.

One thing to consider is how the Greeks took myth. Did they truly believe them in the literal sense? This is once again connected to Christianity; do they believe that the bible is full of truth, or more of a metaphor? This is something that can arguably never be fully discovered nor understood from the Greeks.

However, one thing for certain is that human forms are much more accessible to humans beings. By anthropomorphising Athena, it makes her far more familiar, attainable and understandable. Humans fear the unknown and having a physical and ‘constant’ image of a deity allows them to recognise features and attributes on vases and paintings and thus allows them to worship not only the deity, but also their image.  It is also key to note that as Lefkowitz discusses, many Greeks traced their ancestry back to the gods (the Spartans to Hercules) and by anthropomorphising them; it makes this claim far more realistic.

By depicting Athena and her fellow deities in a human form, it allowed the Greeks to have a much greater scope of deities and their powers. Their gods had an essence or particular energy about them that couldn’t only be shown with anthropomorphism. It makes the divine dangerous.

It is also very important to point out the convenience of having humanised gods; it is the same in Christianity. As I said earlier, it is familiar and easier to make gods in the form of humans in certain situations. It creates a binary opposition of reachable human depictions versus the ‘other’ unknown and dangerous depictions. It shows that Greek gods can be inferior and superior (breaking human laws such as incest yet they are divine.) This sets them apart from our Christianised God, who is omnibenevolent, yet still in human form. Anthropomorphism is not Greek deities true form in my opinion. Xenophanes in the 6^th Century even claims the absurdity of anthropomorphism as a concept, stating that ‘if oxen had gods, they would be in the forms of oxen’. They are familiar and convenient. Yet it isn’t always for convenience as we have previously discussed. The gods had varied representations for varied reasons. 

My next topic of discussion will be the Olympic gods vs. the Chthonian gods.

Polytheism

Today’s topic is very interesting. I say this because I think we often take it for granted that the ancient Greeks worshipped many deities. What I mean by this is that we don’t think about it as a complex and confused network, instead we think of each deity as a single being. Of course each deity has their own attributes, flaws and personality and looking at each individually may help you to understand them better. But you can never fully understand how a certain deity works and fits in Greek society until you look at them in the centre of a vast system.

The image I’ve used today is a picture I took of the whiteboard in the lecture. You can see how messy and disordered it is! It is meant to be a representation of the Olympic gods. Our first task was to list all of the twelve Olympians that we could remember…easy right? Wrong! It was much harder than I expected to list the gods that we talk about in every lecture and once you have named them, putting them in any kind of order is almost impossible! This proves the complexity of the Greek gods discussed above.

Firstly I want to discuss how polytheism is on the surface a very alien concept to a monotheistic Christian society. In previous posts we have thought about how this needs to be cast aside in the journey through Greek religion but in this instance it is a curious pathway to delve down. In Christianity we worship one god, God. Yes? I’m not so sure. I believe that within Christianity there are many figures that are ‘worshipped’. We have the angels- protectors and deliverers of divine messages. Virgin Mary is often in the receiving ends of prayer, as is Jesus Christ. Even Saints are arguably worshipped; St. Christopher is on sovereigns across the world as a symbol for safe travel (this is not totally dissimilar to Hermes, god of travel.) Yes they are all worshipped in different ways to God, yet they are still looked upon as sanctified beings. Mortals with human flaws: looked at and worshipped for differing attributes. This sounds a lot like our network of Greek gods. A more apparent comparison would be the religion of Hinduism. They worship many gods in a very similar fashion to the Greeks, as well as having ‘minor gods’ in the form of spirits. These gods have different roles and different forms, some even personify what they represent in a similar way that Hades is the underworld and also the guardian on the underworld and Nike both the representative and personification of victory. In this respect Hinduism is arguably a better counterpart to Greek polytheism. Unfortunately for my research, I know less about Hinduism than I do about the ancient Greeks! But the bare bones of the argument show that polytheism does still exist, perhaps strangely in Christianity as well as Hinduism. It is also worth noting Buddhism. Buddha was a human being, a mortal man that accomplished enlightenment to the highest level. This is very fascinating as this somewhat parallels the Greek gods and how they had limitations and other mortal attributes. It also has a small connection with Hercules who (although the son of Zeus) has his own journey to becoming a god himself (whether Hercules is a hero or god is an entirely different blog!)

                 

Confronting polytheism is as complex as my accompanying picture. It seems only natural to take each god or goddess separately and this is a reasonable approach as each god has clear and defined qualities. However, this is deeply problematic. It totally removes the idea of polytheism. As we have discussed, these gods are a part of a group, a network. You can’t detach one god in order to understand them better. This is over-simplifying polytheism with a Christian mentality. To understand any of the gods, you must understand where he/she fits into this system or pantheon of gods. You can’t look at a god in seclusion. This is truly depicted in the tale of Hippolytus, a man that refuses to revere Aphrodite in favour of Artemis. The story ends with Hippolytus’ death. A somewhat severe metaphor on how not to confront polytheism. 

The pairing example used in class was that of Hermes and Hestia. On the base of the statue of Zeus at Olympia, each of the gods is paired including these two apparently opposite deities. But upon inspection it is a sure example of how god pairings can compliment each other and bring forth each other’s attributes.

                 Hermes= the moving outside messenger…change.
                 Hestia= the fixed space of the interior hearth…constant.

This is a small example of how the gods fit together and how they accompany and overlap each other perfectly.

With that said I want to try and begin to confront the diversity of the gods, specifically Athena. All of the major gods held several functions and our modern perception of them is somewhat simplified (the idea of Ares as the god of war and Poseidon as the sea god etc. perhaps we can blame Disney for this?) Athena is particularly diverse and therefore has many epithets that show her roles in the Greek world:

Epithet	Meaning
Athena Polias	City protectress.
Athena Promachos	Champion.
Athena Parthenos	The Maiden.
Athena Hygieia	Promoted health.
Athena Nike	Victory.
Athena Polymetis	Cunning in many ways.

That is just a small collection of her many manifestations. Deacy states, “Who was Athena, we will consider: a unified being with numerous specialised qualities? Or is her diversity the point of her nature?” (p.5) This is something that is difficult to answer. Athena is so diverse she almost pairs and compliments with herself, as Hermes and Hestia do with each other above. She possessed characteristics that appose each other, such as war and women’s work. And when you do pair her with other gods, her varieties of qualities are amplified even further! Deacy further examines this:

As a power of technology she had affinities with her fellow craft deity Hephaistos. 

As a power of war, she complemented Ares. She supported Zeus, meanwhile, in his 

role as guarantor of divine and human justice…As the virgin warrior…she is on one

 level the opposite of Aphrodite, the power of sexuality and love. But in certain 

contexts…she possesses traits characteristic of that goddess.” (p.6)

This alone shows how hard it is to pinpoint Athena as a deity. Due to her vast qualities she contrasts and shows unity with each god you consider. Poseidon shows anger and brute force compared with her intelligence and skill, yet they both have connections with the horse (Poseidon Hippios and Athena Hippia.) Even working as one in myth, with Poseidon birthing Pegesos and Athena giving Bellerophon the ability to ride him. Parker says “It can be argued…that the two gods relate to horses in different ways: Poseidon symbolises the raw power of the mighty beast, Athena the technological skill needed to master that power…” (p.389) He then goes on to say that this connection can be nullified as other sources say Poseidon was the first to tame a horse.  But either way, this shows that everyday human life involved many different gods adding their own skills and qualities. Looking closer at Athena, Deacy goes on the explain that one way to attempt to seek out Athena’s true nature is to look at her manifestation of Athena Polymetis, metis or cunning. This is perhaps a vehicle to decipher why she is ever changing. And that perhaps trying to label Athena with absolute statements is going against everything that she is meant to represent. She is cunning and therefore she can fit into any necessary situation, or as Deacy puts it, “…her cunning. But rather than enabling us to sum her up, it shows us that the point of Athena was that she was ever ‘on-the-move’.” (p.6-7) Perhaps the very point of Athena is that she is unexplainable. She is connected to each of her fellow deities in the network with both opposing and complimenting characteristics. She is a convenient instrument in both myth and modern day explanations.

I fear this is a topic that could have an entire dissertation written on, a small blog post doesn’t do it justice! Next week we will be studying anthropomorphism.