Civic Rites: Democracy and Religion in Ancient Athens

Preface

preface x i i i the world is changing fast these days. During the time that I worked on the manuscript for this book, America faced two ongoing wars, crises in major financial and industrial institutions, and growing awareness of changes in the earth’s global climate. We also saw the election of the first African American president. In the meantime, rapid developments in what is called information technology modified how we communicate with each other on a daily basis, while providing a degree of access to images, videos, music, and publications of all kinds that was unimaginable only fifteen years ago. Americans revere progress—new and improved!—and they approach times of volatility as rare openings for growth. What might be experienced as a period of anxiety is framed instead as a desirable opportunity . This capacity to reimagine ourselves and our common future is one of our better qualities as a people. A society that idolizes progress can also marginalize the study of the past—especially stories from the ancient past of a society on the other side of the globe. Saying “That’s ancient history” is simply a way of dismissing an event and indicating a determination to move forward. “Ancient history ” for many people is history that has lost all relevance and no longer has any practical connection to the present. But as a teacher, scholar, and feminist committed to justice and education, I firmly believe that more of us can benefit from a better understanding of the Mediterranean societies of x i v p r e f a c e antiquity. The ancient world itself may be long gone, but our understanding of it is constantly changing. Archaeologists uncover new evidence; sophisticated new technologies help scholars retrieve additional information from fragmentary physical remains; new critical approaches developed by researchers in the social sciences and humanities encourage scholars of antiquity to reevaluate the ancient evidence. Like everything else in the modern world, ancient history does not stand still. It was the people of ancient Athens who fashioned the first democracy, and even coined the word from their Greek words meaning “people” and “power,” but the Athenians do not provide us today with a model of the exemplary democratic state. Some decisions made by the Athenians were far from admirable. Athenian society was highly stratified by class, and the economy would not have functioned without slave labor. The lives of women were severely restricted, and they had no role in the political process . The political process itself was flawed, and ambitious men sometimes led the voting public astray. But at the same time Athenian philosophers, poets, architects, and artists created works of lasting beauty, proportion, and grace. Their ideas infuse the modern world we inhabit, and their symbols steal into our dreams. The intellectual leaders in ancient Athenian society were members of a rich and sometimes quirky community, and they all lived and worked during a time of great change. In fifteen years of teaching and leading discussions in college classrooms , I have been repeatedly reminded that the ancient world is good to think with. Historians often say that we cannot know where we are going without an awareness of where we have been. I agree, and I would add to this that a deep and deeply practical understanding of the past enables us to better analyze the present, better evaluate possible options for change, and better plan for a viable and desirable future. The ancient Mediterranean was a complex place inhabited by diverse peoples and nations who tackled problems similar to the ones we face today. Power, ambition, and greed. Maintaining access to the material resources necessary for growing economies. Questions about the nature of justice, and appropriate ethical behavior. The changing place of religion in society. Conflicts with foreign peoples too frequently regarded as aggressive barbarians. Internal tensions and heated debates about whether a democratic state could, or even should, create and sustain an empire. Though ancient and modern democratic governance are topics that deserve our reflection, the subject of religion also warrants careful reexamination . Religion has always been a powerful factor in American society. But x v p r e f a c e the differences between ancient and modern religious practices are great, and we could easily disregard ancient religion, believing the gap between it and our belief systems to be so great that we can get...