Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

216 Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks
Conclusions
Religion had a highly cohesive effect on Greek society. The major
state festivals, such as the Panathenaia and the City Dionysia in
Athens, were occasions when virtually the entire citizen body came
together to honor the gods. It also drew together persons with similar
backgrounds and of similar social status, because they would
tend to worship the same gods. Similarly, each Athenian deme
held festivals in which the entire deme population participated. A
shared religion was, in fact, a hallmark of Greek identity. The historian
Herodotus (8.144.2) tells us that, in 480 b.c.e., when a Spartan
embassy arrived in Athens, fearful that the Athenians were going
to side with the Persians at the time of the Persian invasion, the
Athenians defined “Greekness” as, among other things, observing
the same religious rituals.
The fortunes of individual deities ebbed and flowed according
to necessity and need. Cults came and went, and, in extreme cases,
sanctuaries were leased out to new gods—or sold altogether. A new
cult was accepted into the city’s pantheon typically when the Greeks
won a spectacular military victory; experienced a natural disaster
such as drought, famine, or plague; or redefined their social and
political identity. In other words, war, catastrophe, and social or
political unrest were the main catalysts of change within a system
of belief that was constantly in flux.
It is sometimes thought that Greek polytheism was no match
for Christianity and that it went into terminal decline from the
first century c.e. onward. In fact, polytheism endured long after
the rise of Christianity. The Delphic Oracle was still issuing pronouncements
in c.e. 267, when a barbarous people called the
Heruli destroyed the sanctuary. In c.e. 395, Athens was saved from
Alaric and the Visigoths by an epiphany of Athene and Achilles,
who appeared, fully armed, astride the city walls. Not until c.e.
529 were the old gods officially laid to rest, when the Byzantine
emperor Justinian forbade any pagan to teach philosophy in Athens.
Even long after that, however, there are likely to have been
pockets of resistance.
ECONOMY AND TRADE
Although the word economy derives directly from oikonomia,
which means literally “regulation of the household,” the Greeks
did not have a concept of economics comparable to our understanding
of the word. Certainly there is no evidence to suggest that