Greek Religion 1828-2017

the Contribution of Epigraphy

Abstract

This article illustrates the influence that the influx of epigraphic evidence has had on the study of Greek Religion in the period since the publication of the first full volume of Boeckh’s Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum. Most leading scholars of Boeckh’s day were already alert to the importance of inscriptions, but had little to work with. Material gradually accrued during the 19th century, but on a really large scale only with the excavations of the 1880s and 1890s. The article then shifts from a chronological to a thematic focus, and picks out six areas where very little of what could be said in 2017 was available to say in 1828: regional religion (outside Athens); the religion of sub-groups within the polis; foreign cults; the religion of individual choice (incubation, oracular consultation, ‹gold leaves›); ritual; post-classical religion. It is pointed out that, though histories of the study of Greek religion tend to be written in terms of changing theories and paradigms, there is also a history in terms of the evidence available, and that, crucially, the latter affects the former. It is not just a matter of paradigms changing through constant re-analysis of a static evidence base: new evidence opens new perspectives and makes possible new paradigms.