This study investigates the reception of contemporary religion in Hellenistic poetry and analyses the treatment of the cult of Artemis--taken as paradigmatic--in Theocritus' second Idyll and Callimachus' Hymns. Both Theocritus and Callimachus display a lively interest in contemporary religion in all its facets and each dwells upon an aspect of the cult of Artemis absent in earlier poetry: Theocritus depicts her as a goddess of magic, and Callimachus as a city-goddess. These are precisely the features of her cult that gained prominence in the Hellenistic period. The monograph...

Explores dialogue between Archaic and Classical Greek epigrams and their readers and argues for their often-unacknowledged literary and aesthetic achievement.

Was Ancient Greek religion really "mere ritualism?" Early Christians denounced the pagans for the disorderly plurality of their cults, and reduced Greek religion to ritual and idolatry; Protestant theologians condemned the pagan "religion of form" (with Catholicism as its historical heir). For a long time, scholars tended to conceptualize Greek religion as one in which belief did not matter, and religiosity had to do with observance of rituals and religious practices, rather than with worshipers' inner investment. But what does it mean when Greek texts time and again speak of purity of mind,...

This book explores dialogue between Archaic and Classical Greek epigrams and their readers, and argues for their often-unacknowledged literary and aesthetic achievement.