Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

RELIGION
6
THE PUBLIC SPHERE
Religion was at the center of daily life in ancient Greece, in both
its domestic and public aspect. Just as the household comprised a
religious community (see p. 133), so did the phratry, the genos (or
noble kin group), the deme, the tribe, and the polis as a whole.
And so, too, did temporary affiliations, including fellow drinkers
at a symposium or soldiers preparing for battle or an audience at
a dramatic production. Yet religion was something for which the
Greeks, who had a word for most things, did not have a word.
What we identify as religion was not regarded by them as something
distinct and separate from other departments of life. On the
contrary, the secular and the profane were constantly overlapping
and intersecting with one another. The gods were everywhere and
in all things. They were in the home, in the crops, in the city, on
the battlefield, in the body, in the birthing room, in the weather,
and in the mind. There was hardly any human activity or undertaking
that was not susceptible to divine influence, and religion
permeated every aspect of daily life, public as well as private.
The Greek gods, however, were not mind readers. They were not,
therefore, the least interested in whether their worshipers were,
to use a Christian expression, “pure of heart.” Much of what we