Governed by Gods

In this new account of Athenian demokratia, the most significant human activities in the polis were not political deliberations or economic transactions but ritual engagements with gods, the non-human agencies who ultimately controlled the very conditions of existence. To a point, offerings to gods were like taxes rendered to maintain the infrastructure of the cosmos. Ritual actions were thus performed more or less continually, at a wide range of locations, from household shrines to major sanctuaries, by all inhabitants of Attica, male and female, young and old, Athenian and non-Athenian alike. As the chapter stresses, these actions are best understood as ecological transactions, rather than as purely “religious” practices. Indeed, in such circumstances, where gods were potentially everywhere and anywhere in experience, the modern category “religion” has little or no valence or meaning. The chapter also highlights the ritual contributions to the life of the polis that were made by females, who played literally vital ecological roles through their involvements in numerous divine cults.