Religion in Ancient Greece

As civilization has expanded and improved it has gone through many different religions. These religions all have a different effect on the society in which they originate. Many religions, like Judaism and Christianity, are monotheistic, whereas religions such as Ancient Greek are polytheistic. The beliefs acquainted with each of these vary, influencing the society that follows it distinctly. Gods were seen as liberators in Ancient Greece, and every act by individuals was done so carefully to impress the gods. Ancient Greek society was based strongly around their religious ideologies. Evidence of this resides in symbols as blatant as temples in the middle of cities, and frequent rituals. Religion in Ancient Greek society was practiced so frequently it became an essential embedded part of the daily life of Greek individuals.

Greek religion played a central and daily role in the life of Ancient Greeks, and their worship was centred on the temple and cult sites (Boundless, 2015). The religious community was a broad sphere in terms of political, domestic and public aspects, with inevitable signs of religious significance throughout the households and town hearts of Greece. Greek religion was in fact practised anywhere, at any time, by private individuals in a very personal way. Not only temples but also the hearth in private homes was regarded as sacred (Cartwright, 2013). Religion in the home was significant enough that it was customary to say a prayer before consuming meals. Offerings were placed outside of the temples in hopes of the gods appreciating their gifts and therefore influencing their lives in a positive direction. Rituals and festivals were also often occurring events that Greeks took part in to impress the gods. In Ancient Greece it was important to honour a god properly if an individual wanted to be looked after, not only by the god but throughout life itself. They believed that in order to get something, first you had to give something- just like everyday life. (ABC, n.d.).

Herodotus states in his primary book Histories, “Indeed, wellnigh all of the names of the gods came to Hellas from Egypt. For I am assured by inquiry that they have come from foreign parts, and I believe that they came chiefly from Egypt.” Though a translated source, this information corroborates Ferguson (2015) in which it is says that Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greek share a lot of similarities when it comes to staple religious beliefs, and mentions the importance of city to religion. Within the cities of Greece were temples, which were acknowledged as being the residence of particular gods, much like the pyramids in Egypt. These evidently meaningless similarities provide indication that the ideologies behind the Ancient Greeks’ own beliefs were in fact influenced by the Egyptian religion. “…The Greeks learnt all this from them.” (Herodotus, 440BC). The temples in Ancient Greece were placed in the middle of cities to disallow any distraction from the worship of the gods as religion was also used for political manipulation and power. Religious systems typically served the political community; veneration of a hero bound the community together around a glorious past and it was here that the roots of families and cities could be identified (Cline, n.d.).

The Greeks in antiquity believed in many gods, each of whom had control over different aspects of the world and of human behaviour. The gods had favourite humans whom they liked to help, and others whom they decided to bully (Cline, n.d.). This secondary source from ABC news is reliable as although the text is provided on an entertainment-based website, there is a lot of corroborating sources that increase the reliability. The Ancient Greek people are known for their reliance on the gods for their day-to-day problems; explaining their devotion to them. It was believed that the gods could see all human activities, provide for all human needs, protect against danger and heal the sick (Adkins, 1997). This source corroborates the second book source, which is secondary, that states ‘The god’s presided over all aspects of daily life, including health and sickness, economic prosperity, the fertility of crops, livestock and humans, childbirth, warfare