Impiety Or Pollution

Question 1

What is the Greek word for pollution ?

Answer 1

Miasma

Question 2

What are the 9 key ways an individual could be considered polluted by Greek society ?

Answer 2

• women after any Birth
• Being physically dirty
• not correctly honouring the gods on the correct days
• disrespecting ancestral laws of burial
• disrespecting Xenia
• sexual intercourse
• attending a funeral or being in the presence of a dead body
• murder
• entering the home of a women who has just given birth

Question 3

How could an idnvidual purify themselves ?

Answer 3

Following specific rites according to how they came polluted for example
- if you are dirty then bathe or sprinkle some water in a basin at the entrance of a sanctuary
- murder had to undergo a ritual of purification where populated couldn’t attend sacrifice, libation or contests in honour of the gods

Question 4

Why did the state have responsibility to uphold purity and avoid miasma ?

Answer 4

To uphold these standards
Example: in 443 Decree was passed providing the public prosecution of those ‘who did not believe in the gods’ Plutarch