Religious Authority And Where It Lay Flashcards
Why it so hard to differentiate between religious and civic power ?
Individuals who held a religious post or had religious authority often also had authority in other spheres of civic or domestic life
Where does the religious authority in the household lie?
Make head of the house- most senior or eldest man presided over the domestic religious rites
Where did religious authority lie in Athens legally speaking V
The people/ the demos( basically the men) however it was organised, supervised and carried out by a range of personal
What defined the gender of a priest or priestess ?
Serving in the worship of the gods and goddesses meaning if you were a male you served a god and a female a goddesses ( not a hard a fast rule)
Where there exceptions to who priests or priestesses served ?
Yes, priestesses at Pythia serving Apollo at Delphi
Dodona with female priestess
What did priests do ?
- oversaw rituals including sacrifice and libation whilst taking care of the sanctuary of the god they were assigned to
- included looking after the cult statue, temple and other cult buildings and were also responsible for finance of the sanctuary and the safety of worshippers inside it
- sometimes paid but there was no priestly class and priests do not do the killing that’s a specialists role
What was the king archon ?
- main religious authority of the Athenian state
- Role: responsibility over the calendar, judicial authority over religious matters and responsible for all sacrifices ongoing ancestral cults such as the Eleusinian mysteries
- heavily reminiscent of the role of the father
What was the eponymous archon ?
- Had authority over the civic festivals such as the City Dionysia in honour of Dionysus
- during this annual civic festival dramatic completions took place including premieres of Aristophaneses’ and Euripides’ work
What was the polemarch ?
War archon
- in charge of cults relating to military affairs
- Artemis Agriters to whom sacrifices on the battlefield were made
- Ares the public funeral in honor of the Atheniannear dead
- a festival commemorating Athenian victory over Persian at Marathon in 490
Who were the epimeletai (overseers)
Individually appointed in Athens for particular festivals such as the Panathenaia originally paying for the processions but by the late 4th Century BC this was state funded
What were the roles of the epileletai at the Eleusinian mysteries ?
Four Epimelatai were appointed for the Eleusinian mysteries two of whom were from the priestly families who had hereditary responsibilities for the cult of Demeter and Persephone the descendants of Eumoplis and heralds
What was their role in the worship of Athena Parthenos ?
Had a mostly financial jurisdiction
Why does mitropolous say it’s difficult to figure out who held religious authority
It was dealt amongst a variety of people with priests and priestesses having jurisdiction over their specific cults and sanctuaries however civic officials often supervised festivals in honour of such gods
Who said that religion ‘impregnated each and every civic activity’
Louis Bruit Zaidman
