KCV - 3 period

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Table of contents

Ex Subjects Page

Introduction 1

1 Definition of modern-day religion 2

1 Definition of religion as seen back then 3

1 Holy did (not) exist 5

1 What was the Panathenaia like 6

1 How did the Greek feel about religion 8

1 How did the Greek feel about the Panathenaia 9

2 Samenvatting 10

Log 11

Sources 12

Introduction

The Panathenaia was a Greek festival celebrated in honour of the Greek goddess
Athena. Religion plays a big role when it comes to honouring in ancient Greece, this
was however seen quite different as nowadays. Religion was completely different
submerged into the society back then; which raises the question; What was so
religious about Panathenaia?

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Definition of modern-day religion

The word ‘religion’ comes from the Latin word religio. Cicero stated that the word
religio comes from re (again) and lego (read). Lego is more considered as ‘go over’,
‘choose’ or ‘consider carefully’. However, in the modern-day, it is argued that religio
comes from religare, which means binding or connecting again. There are way more
opinions on where the word religion comes from, no one can say for sure.

Today, religion has a lot of different meanings for

different groups of people. There are a lot of different
religions, you can see a few of their symbols in the
picture. The most known religions are Christianity,
Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. There are
more than 4000 different religions in the world and
although they vary a lot from each other, many of
them can be categorised as forms of either
monotheism or polytheism. Monotheistic religions
believe that there is only one God or deity.

Examples of monotheistic religions are Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Polytheistic

religions say there is more than one God or deity. An example of a polytheistic
religion is Hinduism. Ancient Greek people also practised a polytheistic religion, I will
elaborate on that later on.

Religion has a wide range of purposes. People try to give meaning to their life
through belief and every religion does this in its way. Another reason people believe
is to reason about the existence of the universe and life. Every religion also has
‘rules’ people have to follow. In almost every religion people are obligated to pray.

This is done in a lot of different ways. For example in Islam Muslims must pray 5
times a day. They communicate with Allah through their prayer and ask what their
heart desires. Christian prayer is a bit different, they do not pray five times a day, but
the concept is very similar. Jews pray 3 times a day, in the morning, afternoon and
evening. The ancient Greeks also prayed to their Gods, they did this differently.

You can divide the different religions into two other groups, Abrahamic religions, and
Indian religions. Examples of Abrahamic religions are Christianity, Islam, and
Judaism. Indian religions are Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism. Christianity is the
world’s largest religion, it has more than two billion followers all over the world.

Christians believe in Jesus and they base their life on his teachings. The religion is
approximately 2000 years old. Christianity itself is also divided into many groups

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such as the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Churches, and the
Protestant churches. Its sacred text is the Bible.

Islam is the second most practised religion in the world with 1.8 billion followers
throughout the whole world. The religion started in Mecca and was spread by the
Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). The holy book in Islam is the Quran, the
Quran is the word of Allah (God) written down. In Islam there are a lot of groups as
well, the biggest two being Sunnis and Shias.

Hinduism is the third largest religion in the world, but it probably is the oldest. It is
practised primarily in India, Nepal, and Indonesia. There is not a lot known about the
founding of this religion. Hinduism is a polytheistic religion, just like the ancient
Greeks.

There are a lot of similarities and differences between modern-day religions and the
ancient Greeks. I will tell you all about the religion of the ancient Greeks in the
following paragraph.

Definition of religion as seen back then.

Religion back then was a bit different from the religion we know nowadays. The first
thing to get out of the way is that Greek religion is not the same as Greek mythology,
as many people confuse these two. They do have a lot to do with each other but are
not the same thing. Although the Greeks were quite religious people, they did not
have a word for religion. This, however, will be referred to later in holy did (not) exist.

Although atheists existed, the Greek religion made the Greeks a community. People
did not take the time to pray daily or weekly and there were no churches, mosques
or synagogues. Instead, there were temples with images of their Gods. In the picture
down below you can see the remains of a temple. The temples are said to be in the
sacred spaces where public rituals would be performed. This differs from most of the
religions we know nowadays. The religion that has the most similarities with the
Ancient Greek religion is Hinduism.

There are a lot of different opinions on how the Greek religion started because there
is not a lot known about the origin. People think that in the course of the 2nd
Millenium BC there was a fusion of the pre-Hellenic religion and the religion that the
ancestors of the Greek people brought with them from the North. It is also said that
the Greek religion arises from Greek mythology.

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The Ancient Greek religion was polytheistic, meaning
they worshipped more than one God. They actually
believed there were a lot of Gods and Goddesses. They
had a God or Goddess for everything in life. For
example, Poseidon was the God of the sea and Zeus
was the God of the sky, in the picture you can see a
statue of what they believed Zeus looked like. Just like
this every God or Goddess has a task of their own. There
are 12 main Gods and Goddesses, these are the Gods of
Olympus. Olympus is the highest mountain of Greece
and the Ancient Greeks believed that the 12 Gods and
Goddesses lived here.
The poet Hesiodos believed that these Gods were descendants of Cronus and
Rhea. The poet Homerus called the mountain ‘the house of the gods’. The mountain
plays a part in a lot of mythological stories.

Another way of showing their love for their Gods was by organising festivals. An
example is the Panathenaia, which we will come back to later. Another well-known
example is the Olympic games. The Olympic games were held in honour of Zeus
and it was a series of athletic games. The Greeks also performed theatre
performances in honour of the Gods. This way, religion was associated with
amusement. Lastly, they made sacrifices for their Gods and served the food to the
people. In this picture, a sheep is being sacrificed to a God.

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Holy did (not) exist back then.

When further investigated something quite special comes to light. The literary
research paper by Károly Kerényi called Religion of Greek & Romans states that
back in the day there was no Greek word or phrase to describe holiness or religious
experiences. In his book, he states ‘There is no Greek word or phrase for religious
experience as a special experience or for the attitude produced by it as a special
attitude’ and ‘God is not seen as holy’. This explains the fundamental ideology in
which the Greek society was living.

God(s) were seen as the reason for almost everything. Did the harvest fail, did you
get into an accident or did your wife leave you? Most of the time everything would be
supported by the ideology that the Gods decided. If you upset them, they acted on it.
That is how it was, and how it should be; no further reasoning was necessary.
Therefore it was a common thing to do to support events with celestial doing and
was seen as an ordinary thing, which explains the lack of words or phrases for holy
or religious experience.

However, it needs to be mentioned that there were words as ὁσιος & ἱερος which
do mean holy or pious but meant in a different way than you might think. Words like
these are used to describe celestial things as in a place or happening. Kerensyi
meant something different with his statement. He meant something along the lines of
saying that there was no word to describe it from a person’s perspective. There was
no such word for being a member of the religion.

Modern-day greek uses the word evlavia to refer to religion. This finds its origin in
the ancient Greek language, yet there the meaning of the word was meant the
opposite. Eulabeia from which evlavia originated means no special experience. This
expresses a universal attitude, of defining human life.

This ideology is fundamental for understanding how religion was seen back then.
When people do not see religion as something special, but rather as something quite
common, it changes society. However, there was a festival in honour of the goddess
Athena. How do these quite special beliefs still make up for a festival in honour of a
goddess, was it really in honour of or was it just a festive festival?

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What the Panathenaia was like

The Panathenaia was a Panathenaic festival, which was the most important festival
in ancient Athens. Panathenaic means ‘all-Athenian’. According to myths, the festival
was first called Athenaea, but after the synoikismos by the legendary figure of
Theseus, the festival was renamed Panathenaea.

The Panathenaic Festival was the most important religious celebration and the
second oldest celebration in the region. During the festival inhabitants of Attica and
some other parts of the empire honoured goddess Athena Polias’s birthday and
Erechtheus. The inhabitants believed that Athena was the city’s protector, so the
whole festivity had great religious and political significance. Every Athenian could
take place in the festival, except for slaves.

The festival was traditionally celebrated in the month of Hekatombaion, which was
the first month of the Athenian calendar. If it was still celebrated, it would be
celebrated around July. It is not clear how long the festival was celebrated for, but
estimates say that it was celebrated for a week to twelve days long.

There is a difference between the Lesser Panathenaia and the Great Panathenaia.
The Lesser Panathenaia occurred every year, but the Great Panathenaia was held
every four years. The Great Panathenaia was more magnificent and extended than
the Lesser Panathenaia. Both the Great Panathenaia and the Lesser Panathenaia
included a range of contests, performances, a procession, and prizes. The program
of the Panathenaia consisted of different parts.

During the very first festivals of the Panathenaia,

the Athenians went in procession to the Acropolis.
They sacrificed 100 oxen and gave offerings to
the goddess Athena in the Parthenon temple.
Among the years athletic and musical contests
were added to this festival. Estimates say that this
was influenced by the popularity of the Olympics
at that time. The program started with musical
competitions. The musical competitions were only
held during the Greater Panathenaia. This
competition included four different events. The
different events are often illustrated in vase
paintings.

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 The four events were the kitharidis, aulodes, solo kithara
playing, and solo double-pipe. The kitharodes included
singing and playing the kithara. The singing was divided
into a men's and a boys' competition. The aulodes
included singing to a double-pipe accompaniment. The
other two events were the solo version of playing the
kitharidis and the aulodes. The prizes for the kithara
competitions were over three times as valuable as those
for the double-pipe.
In addition to musical competitions, athletic competitions were also held. The musical
events were divided into two age categories. However, the athletic events were
divided into three age categories. Many studies by scholars show that the
competitions are divided into boys aged 12 to 16, boys aged 16 to 20, and men aged
20 or older.

Like the musical events, the athletic competitions consisted of individual and group
contests. The athletic competition began with individual gymnastic activities. These
were footraces, which were named stadion, diaulos, dolichos, and hippios according
to their distances; wrestling; boxing; pancratium, which was a combination of both
boxing and wrestling; pentathlon; four-horse and two-horse chariot races; javelin
throwing from horseback and apobatai. Later on the team contests started, which
included a moch combat with cavalry (anthippasia); euandrion, which was a beauty
competition among athletes; the pyrriche, which was military dancing; and as of last
a regatta, which was a series of boat races.

Furthermore, the Panathenaia included a procession. The procession was the

collective escorting of a gift, which was offered to a god, to an altar. The procession
started at the Dipylon Gate in the Kerameikos district. The procession crossed the
Agora on the way to Akropolis. Sometimes people from all over Attika, escorting
hundreds of cows with thousands of people, joined the procession to worship
Athena. All the people who participated was an enormous amount of people, so the
procession was divided among several lines who marched together: such as Attic
demesmen, groups of representatives of Athenian allies, groups of ephebes and a
group of Athenian girls who headed the procession while carrying baskets with
sacrificial paraphernalia.

To end the Panathenaic festival, a ceremony was held. During the ceremony, prizes
were awarded to the winners of the competitions. The award ceremony included the
giving of the Panathenaic amphora. These are very large ceramic vases that were
filled with olive oil that were given as prizes. Depending on which competition you
won, you were given a certain amount of vases filled with olive oil.

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For example, the winner of the chariot race received 140 Panathenaic amphorae full
of olive oil. The amphora was often decorated with an image of Athena on one side
of the amphora and on the other side, one of the competitions was illustrated.

How the Greeks felt about religion.

To understand how the Greeks felt about religious festivals we could take a look at
the Great Dionysia. This festival was held in Thebes in honour of the great Dionysos,
or Bacchus as he was in Latin. Dionysos was known for his love for wine, alcohol
and a festive lifestyle. King Pentheus did not recognize Dionysos as a real god, due
to his character and origin; he was the son of Zeus and Semele, instead of Hera.
Although that was quite common, Hera still did not particularly like it.

This festival was in honour of Dionysus; god of the grape harvest, winemaking,
orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, as
google states it. It is mostly the last part that made King Pentheus doubt if this was
the way to go. As people went to ‘celebrate’ the Great Dionysia, they all gathered to
party and drink a lot.

This also had a downside. People thought they were asked to go out and start
ripping animals apart. This is in order of Dionysos as if he commanded them to do
so.

Σπαραγμος is the Greek word for this deed, signifying the existence of this practice.
People were claimed to be beyond themselves and by drinking the alcohol became
more of Dionysos. This was called ekstasis. Ekstasis means being carried away by
overwhelming emotion, this in this case to the point where you are distant from
yourself. It emphasises not being in control and being completely overtaken by the,
in this case, wine of Dionysus; making him reliable. Ekstasis, the origin of ecstasy, is
derived from this event. The people became closer to Dionysos and less of
themselves; which made them in ecstasies.

However this story would raise an interesting question, it is not done yet. Although
this story was widely known it is a myth. There is, historically speaking, not nearly
enough evidence to back this up. Matthew Dillon wrote in his book Girls and Women
in Classical Greek Religion (Routledge, 2002), p. 142-143 that there was not enough
proof to show that the women actually ripped those animals apart or ate them at all.

So if it did not actually happen, this would make it a myth rather than a
religious-historical event. That does not conclude our story however. Because the
people that knew about this story would know it via the theatrical play rather than the
actual event -which did not actually happen- people saw it as a normal play. The part
of the extasis was completely ignored for those just seeing the play as normal
citizens.

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For most people, it was just a mythical story. There was a distance between the
actual myth and the telling of the story with a theatrical play. The way of storytelling
was similar to what we tell our children with fairytales. A story with a moral to
educate them about what is right and wrong.

This concludes that religion, even in a story like this, was not playing that big part of
a role. The Greek gods were worshipped, and everyone knew about them but
making a religion out of it similar to what we would nowadays define as a religion
was not happening.

How the Greeks felt about the Panathenaia.

It is important to understand how religion was seen before understanding how the
Greeks felt about the festival. As said before, the Greek language showed us how
there was no need nor a word to describe a holy experience from the human
perspective. This shows people thought differently about the whole aspect of religion
within their lives.

Besides the language, another understanding is essential for the way the festival felt.
The difference between myths and religion is quite important to understand how the
Greeks saw the Panathenaia. When looking at the Great Dionysia we saw how
sparagmos and omophagia was part of the mythical telling in the theatrical play. This
does not conclude that Greeks did or did not see this as something which had
happened. It only shows the way they handled the situation.

Nowadays the first thing we think of when talking about the Panathenaia is a big
competitive festival. Yet it originated as a festival in honour of the goddess Athene.
This simmered over time, and later on, we do not even know if the Greeks
themselves put the goddess first. There were parades showing the wealth of Athens,
rather than the goddess Athena. Making it questionable if the Greeks were that
aware of the goddess Athena.

It can not be said nor denied whether the Greeks felt that associated with the religion
within the festivals. Mythology always played a big role in ancient Greece, whether
this is comparable to what we nowadays define as religion is quite difficult to answer.
Due to the lack of words and the entire story about the Great Dionysia, it is not likely
to say that it was even similar to our modern-day definition of religion. We are not
sure how the Greek civilization felt about religion -if we can even call it religion-. All
we can do is make our assumptions based on what we do know. Therefore I would
say that based on our research the Panathenaia is not considered a religious festival
in terms as we would nowadays describe it.

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Samenvatting

Om te begrijpen hoe de Grieken zich voelden over het festival met betrekking tot
religie moet je eerst begrijpen dat religie destijds anders gedefinieerd werd dan dat
wij dat nu doen. De Griekse taal laat ons bijvoorbeeld een van de fundamentele
verschillen zien in de religieuze griekse samenleving. Het gebrek aan woorden voor
een ervaring die als religieus bestempeld kan worden duidt aan dat griekse taal
destijds alleen met heilig doelde op de plekken en personen, in plaats van de
ervaring.

Toch waren festivals als de Grote Dionysia en de Panathenaia ter ere van een god.
Dit lag echter complexer dan je misschien in eerste instantie zou denken. Alhoewel
de god in het begin een grote rol leek te spelen, was het ten alle tijden meer een
mythe dan als dat wat wij als religie zouden omschrijven. De Grote Dionysia
bijvoorbeeld stond bekend om de wilde vrouwen die in ekstase raakten van de drank
van Dionysos, waardoor ze dieren uit elkaar zouden trekken en opeten. Echter is
hier geen historisch bewijs voor en wijst alles erop dat dit een mythe zou zijn.

De destijdse religie viel meer onder mythes dan onder de religie zoals wij die
hedendaags kennen. Al met al kunnen je dus stellen dat op basis van ons onderzoek
de Panathenaia niet als religieus festival gezien kan worden met de huidige definitie
van religie.

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Logs
Below are the topics and who wrote them listed in chronological order.

Exercise one
Hawin Define modern-day religion
Hawin Define religion as seen back then
Max Holy did not exist back then
Anja What was the Panathenaia like
Max How the Greek felt about religion.
Max How did the Greek feel about the festival

Exercise two
Max Sum up of the religious side of the Panathenaia

Our time table

Max Hawin Anja

10-2-2022 Dalton period Read about subject Read about subject

Hagendoorn

17-2-2022 Created a document, Started writing the Started writing about

started writing how definition of religion, what Panathenaia
holy did not exist. modern and past. looked like.

24-2-2022 Continued holy did Continued on past & Continued What was
(not) exist modern-day religion Panathenaia like

3-3-2022 Spring break

10-3-2022 Finished up holy did Continued on past & Continued on What

(not) exist, started modern-day religion was Panathenaia like
How the greeks felt
about religion & the
festival, and started
exercise two

17-3-2022 Finished up How the Finished up past & Finished up What

Greeks felt about modern-day religion was Panathenaia like
religion & the festival,
exercise two, lay-out,
grammar, missing
features.

24-3-2022 Deadline

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Sources
The following sources have been used for our research paper.

Religion of Greek & Romans p. 94-96

Written by C. Kerenyi

Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion (Routledge, 2002), p. 142-143

Written by Matthew Dillon

https://www.hellenic.org.au/post/panathenaic-festival

https://www.theoi.com/Festival/Panathenaia.html

http://earlyworldhistory.blogspot.com/2012/02/panathenaic-festival.html

http://ancientolympics.arts.kuleuven.be/eng/TB014EN.html

http://www.athens-greece.us/panathenaea/musical-contests/

https://pure.rug.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/13650849/dissertatie_Wijma.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion#%22Religio%22

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Greek-religion

https://www.dictionary.com/e/monotheism-vs-polytheism/

https://www.verywellmind.com/religion-improves-health-2224007#toc-purpose-of-reli
gion

https://www.greelane.com/nl/geesteswetenschappen/geschiedenis--cultuur/what-was
-greek-religion-120520/

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