CHAPTER 11 Authority of the Polis

In an important study published in 1984 Robert Garland introduced the topic of what he termed “religious authority” in archaic and classical Athens, i.e., “an investigation about who has the right in the Athenian state to act authori- tatively both in the name of, and in matters of, religion.”1 It was the first study to look at the religious complex of Athens holistically, not at just one element as, for example, priests. I would like to build on that excellent study in a few ways: by extending it into the Hellenistic period; by extending it beyond polis cults to deme, genos, and the private cults of various types; and by contrasting “rights” to “actions,” that is, what the Ekklesia, Boule, and various officials actu- ally did in contrast to what they may have had the authority to do. Garland explicitly treats religious authority within the polis. In two papers Sourvinou-Inwood properly draws attention to the centrality of the individual polis in a Panhellenic context, to the fact that significant elements of Greek religion varied from polis to polis, and that we should therefore view the polis as a central organizing unit for Greek religion.2 This is quite different from religious authority within the polis, but Sourvinou-Inwood moves from one to the other, with the result that she concludes “that in the classical period polis religion encompassed, symbolically legitimated, and regulated all religious activity within the polis, not only the cults of polis subdivisions such as the demes, but also cults which modern commentators are inclined to consider private, such as, for example, oikos cults” (1990.322). Since Sourvinou-Inwood’s papers, scholars have been reasserting the supremacy of Athenian polis control over the religion within its borders.3 Those who make such claims depend on Sourvinou-Inwood, sometimes refer- ring to Garland’s article. But, in fact, Garland offers a much more nuanced and complex picture. He introduces his study by claiming that “Religious authority in archaic and classical Athens was not in fact the preserve of any single social

1 Garland, 1984, reprised in 1990. For an excellent modern survey of the topic, see Deshours, 2011.19–22. 2 Sourvinou-Inwood, 1990 and 1988, both conveniently reprinted in Buxton, 2000.13–55. 3 Horster, 2010.179: “It was the assembly of the (male) Athenian citizens that decided about all subjects concerning cult and religion.” Rhodes, 2009.13, “Every major aspect of religion in Athens was, or could be, controlled by the organs of the state.” For my study Rhodes’ “could be” clause is of major importance.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/9789004319196_014 190 CHAPTER 11 or political class, caste, or milieu. Its essence was complex and it had many sources and outlets” (75), and he concludes it with “religious authority . . . was the monopoly neither of the citizen body as a whole nor of any particular group of individuals within it. It was a discrete prerogative shared out among a number of corporations comprising amateurs as well as experts, clergy as well as laity” (p. 120). So, we need to decide whether, as Sourvinou-Inwood and others would have it, the Athenian polis encompassed and regulated all reli- gious activity in its territory, or, as Garland argues, that religious authority was fragmented, broken up among various legislative, administrative, priestly, and elected, allotted, or appointed individuals and groups. It is critically important to understand the nature, extent, limitations, and realities of polis “control” within the polis if we wish to understand further the Greek religious experience. What aspects of religion did the polis have the right or exercise the right to control and manage? Did it exercise control over only the polis cults, by which I mean those cults available to all citizens of Athens? Was it really, as Sourvinou-Inwood claims (1990.302), “the ordered commu- nity, the polis, which assumed the role played in Christianity by the Church?” Is it a fact that “polis religion embraces, contains, and mediates all religious discourse?” What was its relationship to deme, gentilic, household, and private cults? What would all of this mean in the religious experience of the individual citizens? Did they feel the presence or the authority of the polis in all their religious activities? Or in what aspects of them? Or, to throw the question in another direction, was Greek religion at Athens a carefully ordered, directed, and managed religious system, or was it a patchwork that developed from ad hoc situations at various times? And, in what ways was the “polis” itself a reli- gious agent, making prayers, sacrifices, dedications, and such things? How, when, and where did it express itself as a religious agent?

The Ekklesia and the Demos

The highest authority in Athens was, of course, the Ekklesia, the legisla- tive body including all citizens. It alone passed nomoi and psephismata that were in force for all living in Attica.4 Through these nomoi and psephismata it could have controlled every aspect of religion, but did it?5 It had the right, in

4 On the authority and powers of the Ekklesia and on their limitations, see Hansen, 1987, esp. 94–124. 5 If one looks only at what the Ekklesia could do, Parker (2005.88) is absolutely correct in this statement, “If we ignore here issues of influence and authority and look merely at the formal