Greek Religion and Cults in the Black Sea Region
Greek Religion and Cults in the Black Sea Region
This is the first integrated study of Greek religion and cults of the Black Sea region, centred upon the Bosporan Kingdom of its northern shores, but with connections and consequences for Greece and much of the Mediterranean world. David Braund explains the cohesive function of key goddesses (Aphrodite Ourania, Artemis Ephesia, Taurian Parthenos, Isis) as it develops from archaic colonization through Athenian imperialism, the Hellenistic world and the Roman Empire in the East down to the Byzantine era. There is a wealth of new and unfamiliar data on all these deities, with multiple consequences for other areas and cults, such as Diana at Aricia, Orthia in Sparta, Argos' irrigation from Egypt, Athens' Aphrodite Ourania and Artemis Tauropolos and more. Greek religion is shown as key to the internal workings of the Bosporan Kingdom, its sense of its landscape and origins and its shifting relationships with the rest of its world.
- Opens up a key and yet little-known area of the ancient world, primarily for Greek culture, but also other cultures
- Expands our understanding of key deities in Greek religion by adducing much new data and offering a case study of a colonial environment
- Embraces Greek culture from the archaic to the Byzantine era, including the Roman Empire in the East
Product details
May 2018Hardback
9781107182547
329 pages
234 × 159 × 19 mm
0.67kg
22 b/w illus. 2 maps
Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction: aims, contexts and connectivity
- 1. Crimean Parthenos, Artemis Tauropolos and human sacrifice
- 2. Crimean Parthenos in Greece, Anatolia and the Mediterranean world
- 3. Artemis of Ephesus in the Bosporan Kingdom
- 4. Bosporan Isis
- 5. The 'Mistress of Apatouron': Aphrodite Ourania and the Bosporan Apatouria
- 6. Epilogue: Artemis, Aphrodite and Demeter.
