Of course, ‘‘the Greeks’’ express differing views of the natural world in different times, places, and genres. One recurrent theme is a Hobbesian struggle between hostile natural forces and fearful humans. The natural world is inhuman and therefore without pity or compassion. We see this idea in the similes of the Iliad, which tend to focus on the fearsome aspects of nature, such as the terrible powers of stormy sea, fire, and flood, or the depredations of wild animals. Achilles’ battle with the river Xanthus is said to mythologize ‘‘the essential antagonism between man and nature’’ (Hurwit 1991:35). Yet this literary theme should be balanced by a look at Greek religion in practice, which takes the more hopeful view that the powers in the land, especially in one’s native land, are potentially dangerous yet willing to be appeased. Often they are celebrated as ancestors who guide the development of the community’s most important asset, the young. In Greek literature, the mention of a river evokes the affective ties between a hero and his homeland, and the gods of the land naturally favor and protect the native-born. For his part, Xanthus is eager to defend the Trojans against the pitiless invader, and offended at the slaughter of youths ( Iliad 21.1-161). Achilles’ battle against Xanthus can be compared to his relationship with the river of his homeland, Spercheus. Peleus vows that if Achilles returns home, he will sacrifice a hundred oxen and fifty rams, while Achilles will cut his hair, grown long for the purpose, and dedicate it to the river (Iliad 23.140-51). Spercheus is a powerful symbol of the homecoming Achilles will never enjoy.
Another important issue in the relationship between nature and Greek religion has to do with the environment of worship, the context in which people encountered their gods. While every city had its intramural sanctuaries, the Greeks never stopped visiting and building places of worship in the countryside, often in remote and inaccessible locations. The panhellenic construct of Olympus as the home of the gods existed in tension with cult practice, which located the gods in their sanctuaries and viewed the altar and the cult statue as the places where the gods were most predictably manifest and present. Yet the gods are present in the landscape even before an altar is built; the construction of an altar or sanctuary is conceived as a response to the pre-existent holiness of a place (Cole 2004:37-8). How did the Greeks determine which places were holy? Often, the holy places were the most beautiful. John Ruskin, among many others, contended that the Greeks lacked a strong aesthetic response to the natural world. While it is true that we find no Constables or Wordsworths in ancient Greece, the responses and emotions that fueled the art and poetry of the Romantics found different outlets in antiquity. In traditional polytheistic cultures, aesthetic appreciation of nature is inseparable from awareness of the sacred in the landscape; special beauty means that the spot is the abode of a god or gods (Motte 1973:27-8). Mountain peaks, groves, springs, caves, and other landscape features were often regarded as inherently sacred, and their symbolic fascination was closely bound up with their aesthetic appeal. Territorial and economic reasons for the placement of sanctuaries certainly existed, and strategic placement helps to account for the spectacular success of individual sanctuaries. Yet any comprehensive model of sanctuary development must take account of an irreducible, elusive, and subjective element: the apprehension of the sacred. Many sanctuaries, such as those on mountain peaks and in caves, were relatively inaccessible. Delphi is a good example of a stunningly beautiful yet rather impractical location. Its sacred aura was enhanced by mysterious intoxicating vapors, long considered fictional but now shown to be consistent with the geology of the place (de Boer et al. 2001).
Even where beauty in the landscape was not a top criterion, as in crowded urban areas, water for purifications, preferably from a running source, was always required in sanctuaries (Cole 1988). This meant that vegetation was likely to be abundant. In fact, the sanctuaries of both male and female deities were thought to be incomplete without a sacred grove or some other vegetation. Even heroes had their gardens. The grove of the Academy, shrine of a venerable Attic hero, became famous for its resident philosophers, and the Healing Hero, or Heros latros, had his garden in Athens. Apollo had a garden at Sunium, and Heracles had a garden on Thasos. Usually we only hear of these gardens when their leases are mentioned in inscriptions, but they were not exceptional. Of all the Greek deities, however, the nymphs were perhaps most closely associated with gardens.
World History
