A Companion to Greek Religion

We are all familiar with Greek mythology, at least in its broader aspects, from the literary and artistic output of Greek culture since Homer, but we might have difficulty in explaining its place and function within a broad religious system, or rather a series of Greek “religions”. It is reasonable to distinguish between religion and mythology (the one a set of common beliefs, codified as ritual and religious law and informed by cultural traditions and personal experience, and the other the dynamic narrative that binds them together) and to ask whether the Greeks really believed in their myths in the...