Search results
Hero cults were one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion. In Homeric Greek, "hero" (ἥρως, hḗrōs) refers to the mortal offspring of a human and a god. By the historical period, however, the word came to mean specifically a dead man, venerated and propitiated at his tomb or at a designated shrine, because his fame ...
An interest in the Greek idea of the hero, and in the cults established in Greek states to historical or legendary figures endowed with this status, has for long been one of the chief concerns of research into Greek philology and religion. But it is only through the gradual accumulation of archaeological evidence of Geometric and Archaic date ...
Greek hero cult has been extensively discussed by both archaeologists and philologists. This paper con-siders two current hypotheses: one links the develop-ment of hero cult in the eighth century B.C. with the circulation of Homeric poetry; the other views hero cult as a transformation of ancestral veneration in the context of the emergent polis.
back Ellen Bradshaw Aitken Introduction [1] In the Greek and Roman worlds, the veneration of those called “heroes” and specifically of dead heroes was a highly localized religious phenomenon. Centered on tombs or other burial sites, the cult practices of devotion to a hero draw our attention to the highly localized character of much traditional […]
A Greek hero had been a living character, either in myth or reality, but only once dead did his career as a cult recipient begin. After death the hero could interact with the living, help and grant requests, or become angry and dangerous and be in need of appeasement. Heroes could even manifest physically among the living and, in this sense, a ...
441. THE ORIGIN AND MEANING OF GREEK HERO CULTS Heretofore the Greek hero cults have lacked adequate treatment in modern literature, but this defect is now made good by the publication of Farnell's Gifford Lectures for the year 1920.'. Readers familiar with this scholar's previous work will readily appreciate the worth of his new book when they ...
People also ask
Are Greek hero cults heterogeneous?
What is a hero cult?
Is a hero cult based on an ancestor?
What is a heroon cult?
Are Greek hero cults based on clan based ancestor worship?
What role did heroes play in Greek cults?
This study questions the traditional view of sacrifices in hero-cults during the Archaic to the early Hellenistic periods. The analysis of the epigraphical and literary evidence for sacrifices to heroes in these periods shows, contrary to the traditional notion, that the main ritual in hero-cults was a thysia at which the worshippers consumed the meat from the animal victim.
