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The application of the modern concept of "religion" to ancient cultures has been questioned as anachronistic. [1] The ancient Greeks did not have a word for 'religion' in the modern sense. Likewise, no Greek writer known to us classifies either the gods or the cult practices into separate 'religions'. [2]
Modern democracies owe a debt to Greek beliefs in government by the people, trial by jury, and equality under the law. The ancient Greeks pioneered in many fields that rely on systematic thought, including biology, geometry, history, [1] philosophy, and physics. They introduced important literary forms as epic and lyric poetry, history, tragedy ...
Greek philosophy was influenced to some extent by the older wisdom literature and mythological cosmogonies of the ancient Near East, though the extent of this influence is widely debated. The classicist Martin Litchfield West states, "contact with oriental cosmology and theology helped to liberate the early Greek philosophers' imagination; it ...
Epicureanism is a system of philosophy founded around 307 BCE based upon the teachings of Epicurus, an ancient Greek philosopher. Epicurus was an atomist and materialist, following in the steps of Democritus. His materialism led him to religious skepticism and a general attack on superstition and divine intervention.
Religion intermingled with the daily life of citizens, who performed their personal religious duties mainly with sacrifices to various gods. [128] Whether Socrates was a practicing man of religion or a 'provocateur atheist' has been a point of debate since ancient times; his trial included impiety accusations, and the controversy has not yet ...
Serapis, a Greco-Egyptian god worshipped in Hellenistic Egypt. The concept of Hellenistic religion as the late form of Ancient Greek religion covers any of the various systems of beliefs and practices of the people who lived under the influence of ancient Greek culture during the Hellenistic period and the Roman Empire (c. 300 BCE to 300 CE).
The earliest urban civilizations of Europe belong to the Bronze Age Minoans of Crete and Mycenaean Greece, which ended around the 11th century BC as Greece entered the Greek Dark Ages. [9] Ancient Greece was the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to 146 BC and the ...
Some academics use the term 'ancient Greek religion' as a catch-all term in Greece, in order to differentiate it from the Orthodox religion which is also sometimes presented as the 'national religion'. [6] Followers of "ancient Greek religion" in Greece argue that the term "ancient" is not appropriate, as they claim their beliefs have been ...