* See Foucart, Associations Religieuses, p. 98, and Appendix, No. 16; ef. 10 and 11. : ; :
+ This term must indicate the Phrygian rites with the sacred objects displayed to the worshippers in Phrygia.
+ Nic, Damase, 53,
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reception of the native Anatolian ritual into Miletus is connected with the straits of a political party during a serious dissension in the city. Similarly, the introduction of the worship of the Dioscuri at Rome and the building of their temple in the forum was coincident with the struggle against the tyranny of the Tarquins, the Etruscan intruders, when the Twin Brethren aided the young republic. Arte
(3) Manner in which foreign religion entered Greece.—As to the way in which these foreign gods came to be adopted by the Greeks, no clear information has come down to us about the very earliest times, though myth and legend on the subject can be interpreted by comparison with later historical facts. But the facts quoted as typical in the last few paragraphs are taken from a comparatively early period, and they agree in general with the fuller evidence that survives with regard to the later centuries (which will be stated in the following paragraphs). From all these sources of evidence, it results that nothing like intentional spread of religious belief by the ad- herents of any of those foreign cults occurred ; that each body of worshippers rather desired to keep to itself its own gods, and was unwilling to extend the circle except for some distinct present advantage to themselves and their worship; that the spread of a cultus was connected with migra- tion or colonization, both because the migrating people carried their gods with them and because settlers adopted also the gods of the land in which they settled; the adoption of a new god was fre- quently connected with and suggested by some calamity, which was attributed by popular super- stition or by Oracular authority to neglect or contempt of the god in question.
The Oracle was often consulted in such cases of calamity, and often recommended that a novel worship should be introduced. Such was the way in which Rome adopted the Phrygian Cybele in B.C. 204, and Athens in 430. But the Oracle in these cases (as is always probable and in some cases certain) simply confirmed the popular im- pression, that the new deity if properly invoked would be able to help ; and this popular impression was produced by seeing the worshippers of the deity in question, and by the superstitious fear that that deity was very powerful (which the worshippers attested) and was being outraged by neglect.
The religious history of Athens in later times is
better known than that of any other Greek State, and may be taken as typical. Athens showed itself more hospitable to foreign cults than any other city, but it was also more hospitable to foreigners. There came into existence in Athens a bewildering multiplicity of gods; but the same process of multiplication went on in all Greek cities more or less, and the increase was greatest in those cities where the largest number of foreign visitors or residents was found. ; There was, of course, in Athens (and doubtless in Greece everywhere) a formal law (in some less civilized places, perhaps, only a general principle and ‘unwritten law’), confirmed at first by, and indeed originating from, a strong popular feeling, which forbade the introduction of strange or new gods. The penalty was death. The formal per- mission of the State was necessary before any new god could be introduced. But this law and this originally strong popular feeling were, in practice, far from effective. The following were the usual circumstances.
Commerce and intercourse brought to Athens the Pirseus, and other great trading centres large numbers of foreigners. As these foreigners con- duced to the increase of trade, the city which
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desired to become a great trading centre was forced to encourage them ; otherwise, in the keen compe- tition of Greek trading cities, they would have been driven away to more hospitable places. Those strangers naturally desired to practise their own peculiar worship; and, obviously, a State which encouraged them must tolerate their practice of their rites. As early as the legislation of Solon this necessity was recognized by the law which is attributed to him. A body of foreigners who desired to conduct their native worship in Athens might form a religious society (Giacos); and the State granted to the society permission for the rules which it might lay down for its members, and toleration for its rites, so long as its aims and regulations did not conflict with the public law or tend to subvert peace and order in the city. The constitution of those religious societies was modelled on that of the State. The assembly (éxkAycia) of members (sacra) framed rules, elected priests and other officials, who were responsible to it, and inflicted fines on disobedient members; the fines could be enforced by action before the legal tri- bunals of the State. New members were welcomed to these societies, not from the desire to affect the life or conduct or belief of the outside world, but because increase in numbers increased the wealth and influence of the body.
In strict legal effect the Athenian State merely tolerated, but did not encourage, the rites of the religious societies (A@laco). Special leave was re- quired from the Athenian Assembly (’Exx\yoia) before any such society could build a sanctuary for itself. As regards the rites celebrated by the societies, if these seemed to the State to be unsuit- able or disorderly, the primary law came into force prohibiting the introduction of new deities on pain of death. The ritual was permitted only to the foreigners who constituted the society ; and when, as occasionally happened, an alarm was raised that Athenian citizens were going after those strange gods, the primary law was lable to be brought into operation, and the offending society with its gods expelled. Thus in B.c. 430 the strolling priest (unrpayvprys) who had initiated Athenian women into the rites of the Phrygian goddess was executed. But when the plague immediately afterwards broke out, owing to the overcrowding of the city due to the invasion of Attica by the Peloponnesian armies, an alarm arose, and the Delphie Oracle (which was consulted) attributed the epidemic to the wrath of the goddess at the murder of her priest, and ordered the State to atone by building her a temple. In consequence, the temple of the Mother-Goddess (Métroén) was built at the Pireeus.