Module CLAS2991: Religion in the Greek World

Department: Classics and Ancient History

CLAS2991: Religion in the Greek World

Prerequisites

• None

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• To introduce the major practices, beliefs, and institutions that shaped religious life in the ancient Greek world from the Archaic to the Hellenistic periods, with a strong emphasis on the interpretation of literary, epigraphic, archaeological, and visual evidence.
• To explore the variety of religious experience, from state festivals and sacrifice to oracles, healing cults, mystery cults, and private ritual.
• To approach religion as a system of belief and action, and analyse how religious activity was organised within the polis and how it shaped civic, social, and regional identities.
• To examine the main categories of evidence for Greek religion, which may include literary texts, inscriptions, archaeological sites, ritual objects and visual representations.
• To develop critical awareness of contradictions and ambiguities within the evidence for ancient religion and the interpretive problems posed by ancient conceptual categories.
• To introduce key scholarly debates and methodologies, which may include polis religion, structuralism, anthropological, cognitive, and gender-focused approaches.
• To give students a firm understanding of the diversity of Greek religious thought from the Archaic to the Hellenistic periods, and how practices changed over time and across communities, including non-elite practices and marginalised perspectives.
• To examine the relationship between religious and civic authority and encourage comparative reflection between ancient polytheism and modern religious systems.

Content

• This module offers a thematic and evidence-driven exploration of ancient Greek religion. It highlights the diversity of Greek relationships with the supernatural (both physical and metaphysical), the complexity of the evidence, and the interpretive challenges posed by a religious system without an authoritative text, uniform doctrine, or universal practice.
• Religion is presented as a dynamic system shaped by political, economic, and social change, including interactions with non-Greek religious traditions. Students develop skills in interpreting how Greeks conceptualised divine power, approached the gods through ritual, navigated the limits of acceptable practice, and understood death, fate, and the afterlife. They do so through engagement with a wide “archipelago” of evidence (literary texts, inscriptions, coins, and archaeological material).
• The module is organised around thematic sessions that introduce key aspects of Greek religious life and the main categories of evidence. Each week introduces a key aspect of Greek religious life through a specific source (e.g. a curse table, sacred calendar, Homeric hymn, sanctuary landscape, ritual furniture).
• Students engage with ancient religion as a central aspect of social, political, and cultural life, and shows how religion structured civic identity, social bonds, moral expectations, and personal experience, and mediated relationships between individuals, communities, and the divine from household practice to interstate diplomacy.
• The module introduces major scholarly approaches (from the ‘polis religion’ model to structuralist, anthropological, and cognitive perspectives), giving students a grounding in current debates and methods. It also highlights underexplored perspectives, which may include non-elite practices and marginalised voices.
• Specific subjects covered may include topics such as: gods and heroes – Olympian and chthonic power; myth and ritual – rites of passage; polis religion – festivals and sacred laws; private religion – magic and crisis; sanctuaries and sacred space – votives and ritual landscapes; divination and oracles – Delphi and Dodona; mystery cults – Eleusis and Orphism; religion and authority – offices and regulation; religion and politics – diplomacy and warfare; religious mobility – pilgrimage and Panhellenic networks; cross-cultural contacts – syncretism; Hellenistic transformations – ruler cult.

Learning Outcomes

• A strong understanding of the major practices, institutions, and beliefs of ancient Greek religion from the Archaic to the Hellenistic periods.
• Familiarity with the principal bodies of evidence and the methodological challenges involved in interpreting them.
• Awareness of major scholarly approaches, their history, and their interpretive strengths and limitations.
• Understanding of how religion shaped Greek civic life, social structures, personal identities, and interstate relations.
• Insight into the limits of modern terminology and the problems posed by applying contemporary religious categories to ancient systems.
• Awareness of Greek religion within wider Mediterranean religious and cultural contexts.

• Analyse and compare a range of primary sources, assessing their context, value, and limitations.
• Critically assess scholarly arguments and methodological approaches to Greek religion.
• Produce clear, well-structured, evidence-based written arguments.
• Use reference tools, academic bibliography, and digital resources effectively.
• Identify central themes in ancient and modern discussions of religion and engage with them critically.
• Apply comparative perspectives where appropriate.

• The ability to analyse and evaluate arguments, interpret a wide range of ancient and modern sources, and reach evidence-based conclusions.
• Skills in independent research, which may include locating, selecting, and synthesising information from literary, archaeological, and epigraphic materials, with effective use of digital and library resources.
• The capacity to engage critically with modern scholarship and deploy secondary literature effectively in support of an argument.
• Clear and coherent communication of ideas in both seminar discussion and structured written work.
• An awareness of different methodological approaches and the ability to think and write critically within varied interpretive frameworks.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Weekly lectures will introduce the main frameworks for studying Greek religion, the key evidence, and the major thematic issues that structure the module, providing students with the analytical frameworks necessary for understanding Greek religion.
• Five seminars will focus on close study of case studies and specific bodies of evidence and will support structured discussion and critical engagement. Students will prepare readings in advance and contribute to discussion.
• Summative assessment will be by one 4000-word research project (or equivalent): students will select a theme, body of evidence, or scholarly approach encountered during the module and develop it through independent research. The assessment tests source criticism, argumentation, and the ability to contextualise religious practices within Greek society.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

■ Students who do not attend monitored activities shown under Teaching Methods and Learning Hours, or who fail to complete the summative or formative assessment(s) specified above, may be subject to the Academic Progress procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University.