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Ancient Greek hero cult. Proceedings of the Fifth International Seminar on Ancient Greek Cult, organized by the Department of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History, Göteborg University, 21–23 April 1995

Edited by Robin Hägg

A collection of twelve papers, read at an international seminar in Göteborg, that deal with various phenomena of the ancient Greek hero cult, based on literary, iconographical and archaeological evidence. Among the special topics discussed are the hero cults in Early Iron Age Greece, the relationship between funerary ritual, the veneration of ancestors and the cult of heros, the Danaides of Argos as “ancestors”, the multilocality of heroes, patriotic heroes, the politics of the transferal of the bones of heros, the position of the Dioskouroi as Laconian heroes worshipped also in Attica, the origins of Greek hero cult in the context of overseas foundations, the heroon of Asclepius in Athens, the sacrificial rituals of Greek hero cults in Pausanias, the hero Melikertes-Palaimon at Isthmia, and the development of hero cults in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

Contents

Preface (p. 7)
Alexander Mazarakis Ainian | Reflections on hero cults in Early Iron Age Greece (pp. 9–36)
Robin Hägg | Funerary ritual, veneration of ancestors and the cult of heroes in Geometric Greece (abstract) (p. 37)
Christoph Auffarth | Constructing the identity of the polis: the Danaides as “ancestors” (pp. 39–48)
Jonathan M. Hall | Beyond the polis: the multilocality of heroes (pp. 49–59)
Uta Kron | Patriotic heroes (pp. 61–83)
Barbara McCauley | Heroes and power: the politics of bone transferal (pp. 85–98)
H. Alan Shapiro | Cult warfare: the Dioskouroi between Sparta and Athens (pp. 99–107)
Carla M. Antonaccio | Colonization and the origins of hero cult (pp. 109–121)
Jürgen W. Riethmüller | Bothros and tetrastyle: the heroon of Asclepius in Athens (pp. 123–143)
Gunnel Ekroth | Pausanias and the sacrificial rituals of Greek hero-cults (pp. 145–158)
Elizabeth R. Gebhard & Matthew W. Dickie | Melikertes-Palaimon, hero of the Isthmian games (pp. 159–165)
Dennis D. Hughes | Hero cult, heroic honors, heroic dead: some developments in the Hellenistic and Roman periods (pp. 167–175)
Programme and participants of the Seminar (pp. 177–178)
Abbreviations (p. 179)
Indexes (pp. 181–207)

Bibliographical information

Robin Hägg (ed.), Ancient Greek hero cult. Proceedings of the Fifth International Seminar on Ancient Greek Cult, organized by the Department of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History, Göteborg University, 21–23 April 1995 (Skrifter utgivna av Svenska Institutet i Athen, 8°, 16), Stockholm 1999. ISSN 0081-9921. ISBN 978-91-7916-037-1.

Reviews

Arys. Antigüedad, religions y sociedades 3, 2000, 320–324 (M. Valdés Guía).
Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2000.12.17 (Corinne Pache)
L’Antiquité Classique 70, 2001, 379–380 (Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge)