Religion and Society in Ancient Thessaly

Abstract

Thessaly’s fertile plains stretch south from the shadow of Mount Olympus. Its numerous small cities were home to some of the richest men in Greece, their fabulous wealth evident in innumerable flocks and slaves. With its strict oligarchic government, its reputation for indulgence and witchcraft, but also its dominant position between Olympus and Delphi and a claim to some the greatest Greek heroes, like Achilles and Hellen himself, Thessaly emerges as both the cradle of many aspects of Greek civilization and a challenge to the dominant image of ancient Greece as moderate, rational, and democratic. The area is a testing-ground for the question of what it is to be Greek. This book struggles with the issues of regionalism in Greek religion and the relationship between religion and society, as well as the problem of thinking about these matters through particular bodies of evidence. It discusses in depth the importance of citizenship and of other group-identities in Thessaly, and the relationship between cult activity and political and social organization. It explores the Thessalian particularities of the evidence and the role of religion in giving to the inhabitants of this land a sense of their identity and place in the wider Greek world, as well as the role of Thessaly in the ancients’ and moderns’ understanding of Greekness.

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