Greek Religion and Key Term Definitions

Documents on Brightspace, Pomeroy Textbook

What does it mean to be polytheistic?

To worship multiple deities

Who was the most important god for Greeks?

Zeus, who was the king and father or brother of all other important Greek gods and goddesses

From where does Greek religion have its roots?

The earliest levels of Greek and Indo-European culture → Mycenaean Greeks worshipped similar gods and goddesses

What were Greek temples meant for?

Housing a statue, called an idol, of a god where one could pray and offer sacrifice 

What were the two main levels of gods for Greeks?

The Olympians (Zeus, Hera, etc.) and the lesser gods (Pan, Muses, etc.)

Who were the Greek heroes?

Dead men (sometimes women) who lived exceptional lives and were worshipped after death → not gods but now spirits

Who are some heroes?

Heracles, Perseus, Achilles, and Agamemnon

Did the Greeks continue to use Linear B after the Mycenaean downfall?

No, they remained illiterate for at least 400 years

How did poetry and storytelling continue in an illiterate society?

Oral tradition where bards would remember many tales and deliver them in song

What proportion of tales are about gods versus heroes?

1:5

Why did mythology favour stories of heroes?

They used them to explain the very present ruins of Mycenaean civilisation and mythologised the Mycenaeans 

When Greece was depopulating in the Dark Ages, where are some places they settled?

Achaea, Arcadia, Crete, Palestine, and Cyprus

What were Protogeometric vases like?

They used advanced techniques to shape the vases, compasses for perfect circles, rulers for lines, and had a more lustrous glaze due to higher firing temperatures

How were iron tools different than previous ones?

They were harder than those made of bronze and kept their edge better

What is the village of Nichoria?

An early Dark Ages village in the southwestern Peloponnese with many archaeological sites and chieftain’s houses

What does basileus mean?

It is a Greek term that refers to the paramount figure heading a town or village 

What is Lefkandi?

An early Dark Ages settlement on the island of Euboea that was wealthier than Nichoria where large burial shafts were found

What was the Geometric Style?

A style with new shapes and decorative features with angular motifs

Who was Homer?

The composer of the Iliad and the Odyssey who was a bard from Ionia and may have been blind

What is oral poetry?

When bards perform memorised poems without writing and would create long, complex narratives

What is the story of the Trojan War?

Paris seduces and brings Helen to Troy causing Menelaus and Agamemnon to gather Achaean warriors and sail to Troy, destroying the city after a ten-year siege

Who is Paris?

The son of King Priam of Troy

Where is Troy?

Asia Minor

Who is Helen?

Wife of Menelaus

Who is Menelaus?

Ruler of the Spartans

Who is Agamemnon?

Brother to Menelaus and wanax of Mycenae

What is a demos?

A territory as well as the people that inhabit it

What is the oikos?

The household which is the centre of a person’s existence → denotes the house, family, land, livestock, and all other property and goods

How did the oikos work?

Greek society was patrilineal and patriarchal with lineage going through men, although women were given a part of the wealth through their dowry

What was a klēros?

An allotment which was a family’s main economic resource and ancestral

What was the institution of xenia?

Guest-friendship was when individuals from separate demoi provided each other entertainment, lodging, gifts, protection, and diplomatic aid

Who was Hesiod?

An ancient Greek poet active around the same time as Homer

What is timē?

One’s value and worth, respect and honour permeated by competition in which winning is the highest good

What is Theogony?

A work by Hesiod that gives a genealogical “history” of the gods where creation was the separation of an originally undifferentiated mass into its component forces, conceived as deities and sparking a generational war among deities with the Olympians finally taking control

Who were the Phoenicians?

The first eastern Mediterranean sailors who forged new trails to the west in the ninth century to the Atlantic coast of Spain, Mediterranean Spain, and the coast of North Africa

Where did the Greek alphabet come from?

Borrowed letters from the Phoenician alphabet to represent the sounds of Greek consonants and changed the value of other consonant signs

What does panhellenic mean?

Pertaining to all of the Greek world

What was an important feature of Greek religious festivals and sanctuaries?

They were panhellenic

What is a chiefdom?

A territory ruled by a single chief, such as those illustrated by Homer

What are the Homeric epics?

The works of Homer, specifically the Iliad and Odyssey