The Gods of Ancient Greece: Identities and Transformations

by Jan N. Bremmer (Editor), Andrew Erskine (Editor)

Overview

This collection offers a fresh look at the nature and development of the Greek gods in the period from Homer until Late Antiquity The Greek gods are still very much present in modern consciousness. Although Apollo and Dionysos, Artemis and Aphrodite, Zeus and Hermes are household names, it is much less clear what these divinities meant and stood for in ancient Greece. In fact, they have been very much neglected in modern scholarship. Bremmer and Erskine bring together a team of international scholars with the aim of remedying this situation and generating new approaches to the nature and development of the Greek gods in the period from Homer until Late Antiquity. The Gods of Ancient Greece looks at individual gods, but also asks to what extent cult, myth and literary genre determine the nature of a divinity and presents a synchronic and diachronic view of the gods as they functioned in Greek culture until the triumph of Christianity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780748683222
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	03/14/2013
Series:	Edinburgh Leventis Studies
Pages:	552
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.30(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jan Bremmer is Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Groningen.

Andrew Erskine is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Edinburgh.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction: The Greek Gods in the Twentieth Century, Jan N. Bremmer

1. What is a Greek God?, Albert Henrichs
Systematic Aspects: 2. Canonizing the Pantheon: the Dodekatheon in Greek Religion and its Origins, Ian Rutherford
3. Gods in Greek Inscriptions: Some Methodological Questions, Fritz Graf
4. Metamorphoses of Gods into Animals and Humans, Richard Buxton
5. Sacrificing to the Gods: Ancient Evidence and Modern Interpretations, Stella Georgoudi
6. Getting in Contact: Concepts of Human/Divine Encounter in Classical Greek Art, Anja Klöckner
7. New Statues for Old Gods, Kenneth Lapatin; Individual Divinities and Heroes
8. Zeus at Olympia, Judith M. Barringer
9. Zeus in Aeschylus: the Factor of Monetisation, Richard Seaford
10. Hephaistos Sweats or How to Construct an Ambivalent God, Jan N. Bremmer
11. Transforming Artemis - From the Goddess of the Outdoors to City-Goddess, Ivana Petrovic
12. Herakles between Gods and Heroes, Emma Stafford
13. Identities of Gods and Heroes: Athenian Garden Sanctuaries and Gendered Rites of Passage, Claude Calame; Diachronic Aspects
14. Early Greek Theology: God as Nature and Natural Gods, Simon Trépanier
15. Gods in Early Greek Historiography, Robert L. Fowler
16. Gods in Apulia, Tom H. Carpenter
17. Lucian's Gods: Lucian's Understanding of the Divine, Matthew W. Dickie
18. The Gods in the Greek Novel, Ken Dowden
19. Reading Pausanias: Cults of the Gods and Representation of the Divine, Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge
20. Kronos and the Titans as Powerful Ancestors: A Case Study of the Greek Gods in Later Magical Spells, Christopher A. Faraone
21. Homo fictor deorum est: Envisioning the Divine in Late Antique Divinatory Spells, Sarah Iles Johnston
22. The Gods in Later Orphism, Alberto Bernabé
23. Christian Apologists and Greek Gods, Lautaro Roig Lanzillotta
24. The Materiality of God's Image: Olympian Zeus and Ancient Christology, Christoph Auffarth
Historiography
25. The Greek Gods in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century German and British Scholarship, Michael Konaris

Epilogue, Andrew Erskine
Index of names, subjects and important passages.

What People are Saying About This

Scholars and others will hugely welcome the reappearance, now in its paperback form, of the fifth in the invaluable series of Edinburgh Leventis Studies. The renascence of theoretically sophisticated research into the often desperately foreign world of ancient Greek polytheism is perfectly captured by this deeply learned, far-shooting and richly various collection.

Paul Cartledge

Scholars and others will hugely welcome the reappearance, now in its paperback form, of the fifth in the invaluable series of Edinburgh Leventis Studies. The renascence of theoretically sophisticated research into the often desperately foreign world of ancient Greek polytheism is perfectly captured by this deeply learned, far-shooting and richly various collection.

Editorial Reviews

Scholars and others will hugely welcome the reappearance, now in its paperback form, of the fifth in the invaluable series of Edinburgh Leventis Studies. The renascence of theoretically sophisticated research into the often desperately foreign world of ancient Greek polytheism is perfectly captured by this deeply learned, far-shooting and richly various collection.

Paul Cartledge

This is a very rich collection of papers which no one interested in ancient Greek religion can afford to miss.

BMCR - Frederick Naerebout

This volume is essential reading for all those interested directly or indirectly in ancient Greek religion…as it offers an overview of the progress of research in this area.

Kernos - Gabriella Pironti