GREEK RELIGION [FIRST EDITION]. [This entry focuses on Greek religion during the Archaic and Classical periods, from the eighth to the fourth century BCE. Other religious systems of the ancient Mediterranean region are treated in Aegean Religions, which discusses the earlier cultures of Cycladic, Minoan, and Mycenaean peoples, and in Hellenistic Religions, which surveys the later history of religions in the Greek-speaking world.]

The Greek religion of the Archaic and Classical periods (eighth–fourth century BCE) presented several characteristic traits that should be borne in mind. Like other polytheistic cults, Greek religion was a stranger to any form of revelation: it knew neither prophet nor messiah. It was deeply rooted in a tradition in which religion was intimately interwoven with all the other elements of Hellenic civilization, all that gave to the Greece of the city-states its distinctive character: from the language...