In a description of Greek life it is impossible entirely to pass over the many customs connected with the worship of the gods, and their importance in the life of individuals. Greek religion did not appoint any fixed ceremonies to be observed every day, as the Jewish or Mahometan religions do; but still it placed a believer in connection with the Deity, and thus gave occasion for some religious act every day. There were also some special occasions which led them to turn to their gods, and it is, therefore, natural that religious worship should have played a very important part in the life of the Greeks, especially as it was only in rare cases that they required to resort to the mediatory help of a priest; as a rule, any Greek might perform the various religious ceremonies himself. It is a disputed question whether Greek natural religion in its first beginnings was acquainted with temples, images of the gods, and priests as a separate class; in any case, in the oldest literary monument of Greek life, the Homeric poems, worship was chiefly in the hands of laymen, and service in the temples and priesthood generally played a very subordinate part in the life of mankind.

Greek religion was unacquainted with regular worship returning on certain appointed days, for which priests and laymen assembled together in the House of God. It is true the temple was regarded as the dwelling of the god; but the believer, as a rule, only entered it if he had some special prayer to make, and otherwise performed his religious duties at home in his own dwelling. This he could generally do without the help of a priest; the priest existed, in the first place, for the sake of the god, and only in the second in order to facilitate the intercourse between god and man. The gods desired worship and sacrifice, and, as it could not be left to chance whether some one person would supply these, since there must be no interruption to the worship, it was necessary to have a class of men whose work in life was the performance of these duties towards the divinity. It was probably this idea which led them to appoint a priestly class; and it was only as a consequence of this that laymen sometimes called upon the help of the priest, especially in important cases, since these men, who were in constant intercourse with the gods, were assumed to have the most accurate knowledge of the forms well-pleasing to the divinities. Consequently, as the development of civilisation made greater claims on ordinary people in their professional activity, such as military service, politics, studies, etc., and thus drew them away from divine things, it became commoner to make use of the mediatory assistance of the priest, and thus the influence and importance of the priestly class continued to increase. There was another reason which led the laymen to make use of the priests. According to Greek belief, the gods revealed their will to mankind by various signs and visions; it was not everyone, however, who knew how to interpret these signs; a deep knowledge of the divine nature and will, as well as a rich treasure of experience were required, and it was, therefore, natural that they turned for this purpose to those who had devoted their whole life to discovering the will of the gods. These were the seers or interpreters who were closely connected with the priests, though they must not be identified with them.

When we speak of a priestly class among the Greeks, we must not take it in the literal sense of the word; the Greek priests did not constitute a class in our modern sense of the word, since there were no preliminary studies required for the office. Greek religion possessed no dogmas; the priest’s duty was only to perform certain rites and ceremonies, and these were easily learnt. Consequently, the priesthood in Greece was limited to no age and no sex; boys and girls, youths and maidens, men and married women could perform priestly functions for a long or short period. The essential requirement was legitimate birth and participation in the community in which the priestly functions had to be performed; bodily purity and moral character were also required; members of ancient and noble families were especially privileged, and sometimes bodily strength and beauty were regarded in the choice. Generally speaking, however, the requirements made differed not only according to the gods in whose service they were to stand, but also according to local or other accidental circumstances. Thus sometimes priestesses were required to be virgins, if not for their whole life, at any rate for the duration of their priesthood; in other cases, however, married women might undertake the priestly functions. The same held good for the men. Although, as a rule, priests entered for their whole life, yet it sometimes happened that their priestly functions were only performed for a time, as for instance, in the case of boys or girls who entered the service of the temple until they attained their man or womanhood, or in other cases where citizens were made priests for one or several years, and, when the time was up, retired again and let others take their place.

There were various modes of appointing priests. They were either elected from among several candidates, in which case the right of election lay with the citizens or their representatives, or else by lot, or the right was given from birth. Certain priesthoods were hereditary in families; either the first-born was appointed as such, or else the lot had to decide between the various members of a family; sometimes, if disputes ensued, a legal decision might even be given. Consequently, it is clear that the priests in Greece did not form a special caste, and as they very often retired again to private life, their influence was not extensive or very important.

The duties of the priests consisted, in the first instance, in performing those acts of worship to the divinity which might also be performed by any layman—viz., prayers and sacrifices; and in the second, those which belonged to the worship of the particular divinity, and recurred at certain fixed periods, and particularly those which they undertook at the request of others. Besides this, there were various duties connected with the care of the temple and divine images, the fulfilment of the various customs connected with the worship of each divinity, the performance of mysterious dedications and purifications, guarding of the temple treasure, etc. To this were due various ordinances concerning their mode of life, food, clothing, etc. Their persons were regarded as sacred, just as the sanctuary was, and they also received their share in the adoration paid to the gods, being regarded, in a measure, as their representatives. Very often they had a house in the temple domain, and received a share of its income, which had, in the first instance, to supply the means for performing the service of the god, erecting necessary buildings, statues, etc., but which often supplied the priests also with considerable profit; thus, the skins and certain parts of the sacrificial animals fell to their lot. In some of the sanctuaries the income derived from the temple property and the money lent out for interest from the temple treasure, was very considerable, and far exceeded the means required for the maintenance of the sanctuary and the service of the god. Another privilege enjoyed by the priests was the right of occupying places of honour in the theatre and at public meetings. They were usually distinguished by their dress from the rest of the citizens; they wore the long chiton, which had gone out of fashion for ordinary people; it was generally of white or purple colour, and they had wreaths and fillets in their long hair, and probably carried a staff as a token of dignity.

The priests were assisted in their duties in the temples by a large number of attendants and servants. Some of these only took part occasionally in a procession or sacrifice, and, as this was regarded as an honour, they gave their service without return. Some were permanent temple servants, who either performed for pay certain menial services connected with the worship and the care of the temple, or else were slaves and the property of the god. Among these were included the so-called “temple-sweepers” (?e??????), men and women whose duty it was to clean and care for the temple. There were also heralds, sacrificial servants, butchers, bearers of the sacred vessels, singers and musicians, etc., concerning whom inscriptions give us a good deal of information. Even these positions, so long as the services to be performed were not menial but honourable, were an object of ambition to citizens, or regarded as a valuable privilege inherited by certain families; thus, for instance, at Olympia, the descendants of Pheidias had charge of the statue of Zeus, which was the masterpiece of their ancestor.

The two forms in which the worship of the ancients chiefly consisted were prayer and sacrifice. Prayer, either to all the gods together or to some single one, consecrated the beginning and end of the day; combined with libations, it attended the beginning and end of the meals, and was, in fact, an essential part of every important action of daily life. These prayers were, of course, of a general character, but there were other occasions when special prayers were used, adapted to particular cases; thus it was a matter of course that in the assemblies of the people the blessing of the god should be invoked on the discussion. When they set out to war they called on the help of the god in the coming fight, and similarly private citizens asked for divine aid in their undertakings and help in difficulties, though some wiser men—and especially those who had had a philosophical training—could not disguise from themselves that it was a foolish hope to expect that their prayers should necessarily be heard, and they looked upon prayer rather as a religious consecration of human actions. Kneeling and folding the hands were unknown to the ancients. In praying they stood and stretched out their hands to the region which they supposed to be the dwelling of the godhead invoked; thus, they held them upward when praying to one of the Olympian deities, forward when praying to a sea god, and down to the ground if the prayer was addressed to one of the infernal deities, at the same time trying to attract his attention by stamping on the ground. The commonest position was towards the east; when they prayed in the temple they turned towards the altar and the statue of the god, and sometimes even embraced the altar. In fact, the worship of the temple statues led to a very sensual conception of prayer; they not only threw kisses to the god they were worshipping, but even touched or kissed his statue; while suppliants threw themselves on the ground before the temple image, or at any rate knelt down before it.

In order to ensure the efficacy of the prayer, those who offered it must be free from every bodily and moral taint and, therefore, if necessary, submit to purification. There were a number of occasions which rendered a man unclean and unfit for intercourse with the deity; such were birth and death, which required the purification of all those who had come in contact with the mother or the dead person, not only in order that they might appear untainted before the deity, but also to prevent their communicating their impurity to others, and to enable them once more to enter into intercourse with human beings. Even apart from these special occasions it was impossible to tell whether some accidental contact might have produced impurity, and on this account it was usual to precede the act of prayer by washing, or, at any rate, by a symbolical purification, such as sprinkling with holy water. For this purpose a vessel with holy water and a whisk for sprinkling were placed in the entrance of every temple for the use of those who entered the domain; similar arrangements were made in private houses, and preference was given to flowing water, especially sea-water, which was supposed to have special purifying power; for sprinkling they used a branch of some sacred tree, such as laurel. This purification was extended not only to the person of those who approached the divinity, but also to their garments and the utensils used for prayer and sacrifice, as well as the dwelling generally; consequently, purification by fire and smoke—especially by means of burnt sulphur—played an important part along with the washing. There were also certain plants to which a purifying power was ascribed; thus, it was customary to hang up a sea-leek over the house door.

Purification of this kind was, of course, even more necessary when some actual crime, such as a murder, even if an accidental one, had been committed, or any other action performed which would render a man unfit to come into the presence of the deity. In these cases an important part was also played by sacrifices, for it was an ancient belief—found also in the Jewish ritual—that sins could be laid on the victim, and in this way removed from the sinner. Special ceremonies were used on such occasions, such as purification by the blood of swine, since these animals were supposed to have a special lustral power. At Athens it was the custom to sacrifice sucking-pigs before the assembly of the people was held; the slaughtered animals were carried round the assembly, the seats sprinkled with their blood, and the bodies thrown into the sea. On a vase painting representing the purification of Orestes after the murder of his mother, Apollo himself holds a sucking-pig above the head of the murderer; a similar proceeding is represented by the vase painting Fig. 143, where the woman who is performing the lustral rites—probably a priestess—holds in her right hand a sucking-pig, in her left a basket with offerings, while three torches stand on the ground in front of her, the smoke of which also possessed purifying power. Similar ceremonies were observed by those who, according to a very common superstition, regarded themselves as bewitched, or who desired to protect themselves from the injurious influence of philtres or other witchcraft, or else to cure madness, which was traced to the wrath of the infernal gods; in these cases, Hecate was the goddess to be propitiated, and part of the curious ceremony consisted in carrying about young dogs.

Next to prayer, the commonest observance was sacrifice. The anthropomorphic conception of the gods induced the Greeks to try to win their favour,

as they would that of powerful princes, by means of gifts, in the belief that they would be more inclined to fulfil human wishes if they were propitiated by valuable presents. These gifts consisted in dedicatory offerings and also in sacrifices, and these had to be regularly offered in order to preserve the goodwill of the divinities. Generally speaking, any gift offered to the god might be regarded as a sacrifice; but, as a rule, this name was only applied to those offerings which were not to be a lasting possession of the god but were only given for momentary enjoyment, and must, as a rule, be destroyed, generally by means of fire. The idea underlying these sacrifices was the participation of the gods in the material possessions of men. The gifts included under the heading of offerings were not all of such a nature as to be destroyed at once; thus, first-fruits of the field, fruit, jars of cooked lentils, flowers, fillets, and other such things could not be regarded as real gifts, owing to

their transitory nature; and these were merely laid on the altar of the god, or else hung up beside it; sometimes there was a special table near the altar to receive these gifts. On the vase painting (Fig. 144) a table of this kind is represented near the altar; behind it we perceive the antiquated statue of Dionysus, on one side stands a woman with a goat destined for sacrifice, and on the right another woman is approaching carrying a flat dish, probably containing cakes. The offerings represented in Figs. 145 and 145 were probably also destined for Dionysus. A satyr, carrying in his left hand a branch, in his right a dish, probably containing cakes, is approaching an altar, on which similar gifts have already been placed; on the other side, near the table for offerings, on which lie fruit and cakes, a woman, probably a Maenad, is seated, holding in her right hand a branch, in her left a flat basket with little dedicatory offerings. Although these gifts were not immediately destroyed by fire, they were of so transitory a nature that they could not be counted among those destined to be a lasting possession of the gods. The Greeks called these gifts fireless sacrifices.

Sacrifices wore usually divided into two classes—bloody and bloodless. The bloodless seem to be the most ancient; they consisted chiefly in the first-fruits of the field and cakes, usually made of honey, which were regarded as a specially welcome gift by some of the gods. Very often cakes were used as a substitute for animals, since poor people, who could not afford the considerable expense of sacrificing real animals, fashioned the dough into the shape of oxen, swine, sheep, goats, geese, etc. In this class we may include smoke offerings. The custom of burning sweet-scented woods and spices probably came to Greece from Asia, where it had long prevailed. At first they made use of the products of the country, especially cedar wood; afterwards frankincense, storax, and other fragrant substances were introduced from foreign countries. These smoke offerings were often connected with animal sacrifices, since grains of incense were cast into the flames of the altar on which the flesh of the animal was burnt, in order to overpower the smell of burning meat. Libations, too, may be included among bloodless sacrifices. Just as the gods required a portion of the food of men, they desired also to share in their drink, for they were supposed to require food and drink as men did. Libations were therefore offered before partaking of wine after a meal, or drinking any other draught, and Socrates even wished to offer some of his hemlock to the gods. On other occasions too libations were offered, as for instance before public speeches, on the occasion of sacrifices for the dead, invocation of the gods for especial purposes, etc. The part of the wine or other liquid destined for the god was poured from a flat cup either on to the ground or into the flame of the altar, and words of consecration were spoken meantime. It was most usual to use unmixed wine, but there were some gods to whom no wine might be offered, in particular the Erinnys, the infernal deities, nymphs, Muses, etc.; to these they dedicated libations of honey, milk, or oil, either separately or mixed together, or with water. On these occasions there were certain fixed ceremonies to be observed, but these were not the same in all parts of Greece.

There are numerous indications in legends which show that the Greeks were not originally unacquainted with the custom of human sacrifices; but these are no longer heard of in the historic period, and wherever they had formerly existed their place was taken by symbolic actions, or the sacrifice of animals instead of human beings. The commonest victims were animals, and the choice of the particular victim depended on the god to whom the sacrifice was offered. Here, as in the case of the bloodless sacrifices, some gods rejected gifts which were well-pleasing to others, and special animals were offered to particular gods. It is not always easy to trace the origin of this choice, though in some cases it can be done; thus, for instance, goats were offered to Dionysus because they destroyed the vineyards, and swine to Demeter because they injured the corn-fields. Oxen and sheep were the commonest victims next to goats and swine, and very often several animals were offered in a common sacrifice. Horses were offered to Poseidon and Helios, dogs to Hecate, asses to Apollo, etc. Birds, too, were sacrificed; for instance, geese, doves, fowls, and, in particular, cocks to Aesculapius. Game and fish were very seldom employed for the purpose, probably because they were not much used for food in ancient times; for in most cases the standard of eating decided which animals should be used, though there were exceptions, too, among the classes already named.

It was originally the custom to burn the whole animal, with skin and hair, but though this extravagant mode of sacrificing was sometimes in use in later times, it became common to burn only the thigh bones and certain flesh parts of the animal, and to use the rest for a festive banquet. In consequence the number of victims was often calculated according to the number of persons invited to the banquet; in other cases it depended on the importance of the occasion, or the fortune of the sacrificers, and even in historical times it was not unusual for whole communities or very rich private citizens to offer a hecatomb (a sacrifice of a hundred oxen), or even several, on which occasions the sacrifice only supplied the opportunity for entertaining the people on a magnificent scale. As a rule, the animals sacrificed must be sound and healthy in every respect; but at Sparta, which was often reproached with excessive economy in sacrifices, diseased cattle were sometimes used. There were several other necessary conditions to be observed; thus, the animals must never have been in the service of man; the ox that drew the plough might not be sacrificed. The sex of the victim generally corresponded to that of the deity to whom it was offered. Even the colour was of importance; white animals were usually offered to the gods of light, black to the infernal gods. There do not seem to have been any fixed regulations with regard to age, except that the animals must have attained a certain maturity.

The ceremony observed at sacrifices was much the same throughout the whole of antiquity, and remained such as it is described by Homer. The victim which had been dedicated to the god, was adorned with wreaths and fillets, and led to the altar by servants or attendants; Homer speaks of gilding the horns of bulls, and this was customary afterwards. If possible, they tried to induce the animal to go forward of its own free will, since violent struggling was regarded as an unpropitious omen, and sometimes led to the rejection of the victim. It was even customary to require the animal to give a sort of consent, by nodding its head; this consent of the victim was, of course, produced by artificial means, such as pouring water into the ears, etc. Hereupon all the participants in the solemn action were prepared by sprinkling with holy water, which was sanctified by dipping into it a firebrand taken from the altar, and they were exhorted to keep unbroken silence. The actual sacrifice then began by strewing roasted barleycorns, as the oldest food of their ancestors, on the animal, and in token of dedication they cut a bundle of hairs from its forehead and threw it into the fire, which was already burning on the altar. In heroic ages, the princes, as high priests, themselves killed the animals; afterwards this duty was undertaken by priests or attendants. They gave the animal a blow on its forehead with a club or axe, and then cut its throat with a sacrificial knife, and sprinkled the altar with the blood; in so doing they usually bent the head backwards; or, if sacrificing to the infernal gods, or the shades of the departed, they pressed it down to the ground. When the victim fell, the women who stood round uttered a low cry, and in the ages after Homer it was very usual to accompany the whole ceremony by the sound of the flute. Experienced attendants then flayed the animals and cut up the bodies, whereupon the parts destined for the gods, especially the thigh bones surrounded with fat, were burnt in the flames of the altar with incense and sacrificial cakes, and at the same time libations were poured out; the flesh was held in the fire by means of long forks. This is very often represented on ancient works of art. In the vase painting in Fig. 147 we see an altar on which wood appears to be regularly piled up; parts of the sacrifice are recognised in the flames. An attendant wearing a short garment round his loins kneels in front, holding a piece of flesh in the flames on a long pole or spit; on his left a man holds a cup for libations, into which a goddess of victory, flying over the altar, pours the liquid; on the right stands Apollo, with lyre and plectrum.

The flesh of the animals which was not used for the sacrifice was usually consumed at the feast which followed the ceremony; this custom was only departed from in the case of sacrifices to the shades of the dead or for purposes of propitiation, and then the flesh which was not burnt was buried or destroyed in some other way, and, in fact, on these occasions many of the ceremonies were of a different kind.

As a rule, another purpose was combined with the sacrifice; it was necessary not only to win the favour of the gods, or atone for some crime, but also to discover the will of the gods by interpretation of signs. Although prayer was called for from all men—from labourer as well as from priest—and sacrifices, though usually offered by priests, could also be performed by others, the interpretation of omens was an art which depended on ancient traditions and knowledge of ritual, and was almost entirely confined to the priests, though, in the nature of things, it could be undertaken by anyone. This mode of prophecy had existed in various forms since the most ancient times. The commonest, though unknown in the time of Homer, was the examination of the entrails, in which the structure, that is, colour, form, and integrity of the inner parts of the victim, especially the liver, gall, etc., were regarded as of fortunate or unfortunate omen. Some anatomical knowledge of the inner parts of animals was therefore indispensable, and in consequence it is natural that this branch of knowledge was kept in the hands of the priests. The older kind of prophecy described in Homer was of a different nature, since it depended on all manner of phenomena appearing during the sacrifice; whether the flame attacked the victim quickly or slowly, whether it burnt clearly, whether it rose upwards, whether it was not put out until the whole animal was consumed, whether the wood crackled loudly, what shape was assumed by the ashes of the victim and of the wood, etc.

Apart from sacrifices, prophecy and divination played a great part in the life and religion of the Greeks. A distinction made by the ancients themselves was between prophecy by art and without art. Prophecy without art was regarded as inspiration of a human being by the divine spirit, and was not dependent on external signs or on the interpretation of an experienced person. There were three kinds: ecstasy, in which the gift of prophecy was communicated to a human being without his own assistance by divine strength and power; dreams, in which the gods revealed directly to men their will or coming events; and thirdly, the oracles, which were of a somewhat different character, being connected with professional prophecy. They were also regarded as direct revelations of the will of the god, so the mode in which this was expressed differed a good deal according to the various oracles; but the questioner was not immediately inspired, as in ecstasy and dreams, but required a mediator, one who was alone able to interpret the revelations of the gods.

Of these three classes, the least important during the historic period is ecstasy; the seers in the real sense of the word, whom we so often meet with in legends, had no importance later on. The second kind, the dream oracle, is of far greater importance. The idea that dreams were communications from the gods, no less than other oracles and signs, was so universally adopted that it not only took firm root in the popular belief, but was shared by educated men, even by those who had more or less discarded the old belief in the gods. The ancient writers give us numerous accounts of portentous dreams; unlucky dreams were averted by religious ceremonies, sacrifices to the gods who could turn away ill fortune, sprinkling with holy water, etc. It was usual to pray for prophetic dreams, and, as we have already seen, these were specially produced by sleeping in the temple of Aesculapius, though they often required interpretation afterwards at the hands of the priests. It is a very old belief that dreams reveal the will of the gods, not directly and immediately, but in the form of parables or images, which require special comprehension and secret knowledge, and thus the interpretation of dreams became an especial art, which led to a whole literature of dream-books (remains of which have been preserved to us; in particular the dream-book of Artemidorus, dating from the second century A.D.), and to the profession of interpreters, who, although not held in especial honour, were yet greatly sought after by all classes of the community.

The influence of the oracles was even more important. In Greece and Asia Minor there were several hundred places where oracles were given; this much is common to all of them, that it was not a divinely-inspired human being, but the god himself who announced his will by special tokens, while the priests were only the interpreters of the god’s will; the signs and methods of interpretation differed considerably. The oracles of Apollo were far the most celebrated, since he was specially the god of prophecy; among these, the oracle of Delphi surpassed all others in importance. Here the medium through which the god revealed his will to mankind was the holy priestess called Pythia; a vapour which rose from a cleft in the earth produced ecstasy in the Pythia, who had previously purified herself by chewing laurel leaves and drinking from the sacred spring, and clad in rich garments with a golden head-dress, long flowing robes, and buskins, and had taken her place on a tripod over the cleft. In this condition she uttered the oracles, which were, as a rule, incomprehensible to ordinary people. It was then the duty of the priests who were present during the ecstasy with the questioners, to discover the real meaning and sense of the senseless sounds, and arrange the answer in poetic form, usually in hexameters, which were, as a rule, cunningly arranged so as to have a two-fold meaning. At first this took place only once a year, but when the reputation of the oracle increased, and thousands of people came every year to Delphi, or sent messengers with questions to the temple, it became the custom to supply answers all the year round, and, in consequence of the great numbers, two Pythiae had to mount the tripod alternately, while a third was at hand to take their place occasionally. Only a few days in the year were regarded as unlucky, and then no oracles were given. At the time of the Empire, when the influence of the Delphic oracle had considerably diminished, it was only accessible once a year. The order in which the suppliants were to enter was generally decided by lot; in some few cases it may have been determined by rank. Prayer and sacrifice of course preceded the sacred ceremony; goats were chiefly offered, because, according to the legends, the discovery of this miraculous vapour was due to a goat.

At the other oracles of Apollo the proceedings were different: at Hysiae, in Boeotia, the prophet sought his inspiration in a well; at Argos, in the blood of a victim; at the Clarian temple of Apollo, at Colophon, a priest descended into the sacred cave and drank holy water, whereupon the gift of prophecy was granted to him; at the sanctuary of the Branchidae, at Didymae, near Miletus, the oracles were given by a priestess, who moistened the hem of her garment and her feet at a well, and then let the rising vapour act upon her. At other oracles the god revealed his will or the events of the future by signs instead of words, which the priest then had to interpret. This was the case with the oldest and most sacred of all the Greek oracles—that of Zeus, at Dodona in Epirus. These signs were of various kinds: sometimes it was the rustling of the branches in the sacred oak, sometimes the murmuring of the spring at its foot, sometimes the sound given by a brass bowl. The excavations lately undertaken at Dodona have supplied some information about the nature and variety of the questions, though not about the mode in which the oracle was given. Those who desired an oracular answer had to hand in their question in writing, usually on a tablet of lead, on which it was scratched. This was laid in a vessel and placed in the sanctuary, so that the priestess might learn what the question was; the answer was then given on a similar tablet, sometimes the same on which the question had been written. The examples found of these tablets show that these questions were not always of political import, and sent by whole communities or princes, but that even private affairs were sometimes made the subject of a question. Thus, on the tablet represented in Fig. 148, a certain Lysanias inquires whether the child which his wife is about to bear him is really his own; another inquires whether

Fig. 148.