Sanctuaries

From the eighth century at the latest, most Greek gods were worshiped in a temenos (from temnc), cut), a space set aside for sacred use. These sanctuaries were typically marked by a low wall (peribolos) or inscribed boundary stone (horos). At a minimum, they included a space set aside for sacred use, and an altar (bomos or eschara), the indispensable point of contact with the divine. Sanctuary altars were nearly always open to the sky rather than indoors. They varied from simple fire pits on the ground, to marble blocks the size of a piece of furniture, to elaborate stone monuments hundreds of feet long with sculpted relief decoration. The altar served as a platform on which to deposit and burn offerings: incense, cakes, blood and other liquids, or animal flesh. To the altar also came suppliants, outcasts seeking refuge within the inviolate boundaries of the sanctuary. Certain sanctuaries were renowned as places of asylum, and it was possible (though presumably not very comfortable) to live on their grounds for months at a time.13

The structures most often found in sanctuaries are the temple and the dining room or hestiatorion. Common meals taken in the sanctuary were central to many cults; usually the participants consumed boiled or spit-roasted pieces from sacrificial animals. The number of people who could be accommodated in such a dining room (or even a series of rooms) was quite limited, which suggests an inner circle privileged to partake of the food. Dining rooms of the Classical period typically had couches positioned against the walls, and might include kitchens and drains. Earlier examples, built before the introduction of reclining banquets, are more difficult to identify; recently, a number of early Archaic structures first classified as temples have been reinterpreted as dining rooms.14

Some Greek deities, such as Hermes, only rarely occupied a temple. Other gods like Apollo, Artemis, and Hera were temple deities from at least the eighth century, and cult statues played an important role in their worship. The Greeks had no regular word for “cult statue” but instead used a variety of terms such as agalma (delightful thing), xoanon (carved image), hedos (seated image). As substitutes for the deity, Archaic cult statues were bathed, clothed, oiled, garlanded, paraded about the city, and otherwise ritually manipulated. During the early Classical period, a new trend toward colossal cult statues emerged in tandem with the fashion for ever-larger and more elaborate temples.15 The temple (naos, Attic neos) was not a house of worship, but a dwelling place for the deity and a storehouse for the god’s possessions, to which access was often restricted. Many surviving inventories list the contents of temples: wooden furniture and sacrificial implements;

Armor and war booty dedicated to the deity; statues and figurines of the resident deity and other gods; caches of coins and jewelry; and valuable textiles.16

Over time, sanctuaries grew more and more crowded with votive gifts to the gods. Strictly speaking, a votive gift was offered to the deity in fulfillment of a vow made in a time of trouble: travelers caught in storms at sea and people who became ill promised a gift if the god provided assistance. In the broader sense, votives include all the items dedicated to a god. Visitors to large sanctuaries purchased clay, wood, or bronze votive objects from artisans who worked nearby. The most common gifts were ceramic vases and figurines, but almost anything could become a votive, from personal items such as rings to captured warships. Sculpted votive monuments of various types dotted most large sanctuaries, and because the property of the gods could not be discarded, excess or damaged offerings were deposited in pits inside the sanctuary.17

Around 700, people in central Greece and the Peloponnese began to allocate fewer gifts to tombs and more to sanctuaries, a change that roughly coincides with the advent of monumental temples. The increased investment of resources in sanctuaries, which were emblems of the emerging poleis, implies new ideals of citizenship and state-regulated, communal worship.18 Francois de Polignac’s work has given a further stimulus over the past two decades to the study of the relationship between sanctuaries and civic organization. De Polignac argued that sanctuaries, particularly those located on frontiers and political boundaries, played an important role in the development of the emergent polis, and suggested a “bipolar” model of interaction between an urban nucleus with a civic sanctuary (usually of Athena or Apollo) and a major rural sanctuary. Through extraurban sanctuaries such as the Argive Heraion or Isthmia, nascent poleis were able to assert territorial claims. More recent work in this area shows that sanctuaries developed in a variety of social and political contexts, yet confirms de Polignac’s insights about the important relationships between sacred and political space, and shows that early Archaic (and later) Greek religion and politics are difficult to separate.19