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  • CHAPTER XL - THE RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS

  • Edited by I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, N. G. L. Hammond, E. Sollberger
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    18 September 1975, pp 851-905

  • Summary

    In order to complete the prolegomena to historical Greek religion, this chapter indicates what is known of the religion of the Minoan and Mycenaean peoples, and attempts an estimate of how far the religion of these times survived in the Homeric poems and in later Greece. Representations of Greek myth and belief have been eagerly sought in Minoan-Mycenaean art, but amount to little more than a probable Europa on the bull and a possible Zeus with the scales of destiny. On the other hand the mythological links connecting Greece with Crete are many and important. If the myths suggest an origin in the Mycenaean age, so does the cult, for often the same places retained an unbroken sanctity from Mycenaean to historic times. A cosmogonical idea preserved by Homer is that of the origin of all things from water. This is expressed mythologically by calling Oceanus, the river which encircled the earth's disc.