Book contents
- Essays on Ancient Greek Literature and Culture
- Essays on Ancient Greek Literature and Culture
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustration and Tables
- Places of Original Publication
- Preface
- Editions and Abbreviations
- Introduction to Volume II: Comedy, Herodotus, Hellenistic and Imperial Greek Poetry, the Novels
- 1 Who is Dicaeopolis? (1988)
- 2 Marginalia Obsceniora: Some Problems in Aristophanes’ Wasps (1990)
- 3 Wine in Old Comedy (1995)
- 4 Ionian Iambus and Attic Komoidia: Father and Daughter, or Just Cousins? (2002)
- 5 Socrates in Aristophanes’ Clouds and the Audience of Attic Comedy (2007)
- 6 Aristophanes’ Clouds: An Agonistic Note (2015)
- 7 The Lesson of Book 2 (2018)
- 8 Theocritus’ Seventh Idyll, Philetas and Longus (1985)
- 9 Frame and Framed in Theocritus Poems 6 and 7 (1996)
- 10 The Reception of Apollonius Rhodius in Imperial Greek Literature (2000)
- 11 Time and Place, Narrative and Speech in Philicus, Philodamus and Limenius (2015)
- 12 Greek Sophists and Greek Poetry in the Second Sophistic (1989)
- 13 Poetry and Poets in Asia and Achaea (1989)
- 14 Greek Poetry in the Antonine Age (1990)
- 15 Hadrian and Greek Poetry (2002)
- 16 Dionysius of Alexandria: A Greek Poet in the Roman Empire (2004)
- 17 Luxury Cruisers? Philip’s Epigrammatists between Greece and Rome (2012)
- 18 Doing Doric (2016)
- 19 The Novels and the Real World (1977)
- 20 The Readership of Greek Novels in the Ancient World (1994)
- 21 Philostratus: Writer of Fiction (1994)
- 22 Names and a Gem: Aspects of Allusion in the Aethiopica of Heliodorus (1995)
- 23 The Ancient Readers of the Greek Novels (1996)
- 24 Phoenician Games in Heliodorus’ Aethiopica (1998)
- 25 The Chronology of the Earlier Greek Novels since B. E. Perry: Revisions and Precisions (2002)
- 26 The Function of Mythology in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe (2003)
- 27 Metaphor in Daphnis and Chloe (2005)
- 28 The Construction of the Classical Past in the Ancient Greek Novels (2006)
- 29 Viewing and Listening on the Novelist’s Page (2006)
- 30 Direct Speech in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe (2006)
- 31 Pulling the Other? Longus on Tragedy (2007)
- 32 Links between Antonius Diogenes and Petronius (2007)
- 33 Literary Milieux (2008)
- 34 The Uses of Bookishness (2009)
- 35 Country Virtues, City Vices in Longus, Daphnis and Chloe? (2009)
- 36 Socrates’ Cock and Daphnis’ Goats: The Rarity of Vows in the Religious Practice of the Greek Novels (2012)
- 37 Caging Grasshoppers: Longus’ Materials for Weaving ‘Reality’ (2013)
- 38 ‘Milesian Tales’ (2013)
- 39 A Land without Priests? Religious Authority in Longus, Daphnis and Chloe (2015)
- 40 Poetic Elements in the Greek Novelists’ Prose (2017)
- 41 Captured Moments: Illustrating Longus’ Prose (2018)
- 42 Λέξεις Λόγγου (2019)
- 43 Animals, Slaves and Masters in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe (2019)
- 44 The Demotion of the Literary Cowherd (2019)
- 45 Callimachus and Longus (2019)
- 46 Silence in Chariton, Xenophon, Achilles Tatius and Longus (2020)
- Bibliography
- Index Locorum
- Index of Greek Terms
- General Index
36 - Socrates’ Cock and Daphnis’ Goats: The Rarity of Vows in the Religious Practice of the Greek Novels (2012)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 October 2023
Book contents
- Essays on Ancient Greek Literature and Culture
- Essays on Ancient Greek Literature and Culture
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustration and Tables
- Places of Original Publication
- Preface
- Editions and Abbreviations
- Introduction to Volume II: Comedy, Herodotus, Hellenistic and Imperial Greek Poetry, the Novels
- 1 Who is Dicaeopolis? (1988)
- 2 Marginalia Obsceniora: Some Problems in Aristophanes’ Wasps (1990)
- 3 Wine in Old Comedy (1995)
- 4 Ionian Iambus and Attic Komoidia: Father and Daughter, or Just Cousins? (2002)
- 5 Socrates in Aristophanes’ Clouds and the Audience of Attic Comedy (2007)
- 6 Aristophanes’ Clouds: An Agonistic Note (2015)
- 7 The Lesson of Book 2 (2018)
- 8 Theocritus’ Seventh Idyll, Philetas and Longus (1985)
- 9 Frame and Framed in Theocritus Poems 6 and 7 (1996)
- 10 The Reception of Apollonius Rhodius in Imperial Greek Literature (2000)
- 11 Time and Place, Narrative and Speech in Philicus, Philodamus and Limenius (2015)
- 12 Greek Sophists and Greek Poetry in the Second Sophistic (1989)
- 13 Poetry and Poets in Asia and Achaea (1989)
- 14 Greek Poetry in the Antonine Age (1990)
- 15 Hadrian and Greek Poetry (2002)
- 16 Dionysius of Alexandria: A Greek Poet in the Roman Empire (2004)
- 17 Luxury Cruisers? Philip’s Epigrammatists between Greece and Rome (2012)
- 18 Doing Doric (2016)
- 19 The Novels and the Real World (1977)
- 20 The Readership of Greek Novels in the Ancient World (1994)
- 21 Philostratus: Writer of Fiction (1994)
- 22 Names and a Gem: Aspects of Allusion in the Aethiopica of Heliodorus (1995)
- 23 The Ancient Readers of the Greek Novels (1996)
- 24 Phoenician Games in Heliodorus’ Aethiopica (1998)
- 25 The Chronology of the Earlier Greek Novels since B. E. Perry: Revisions and Precisions (2002)
- 26 The Function of Mythology in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe (2003)
- 27 Metaphor in Daphnis and Chloe (2005)
- 28 The Construction of the Classical Past in the Ancient Greek Novels (2006)
- 29 Viewing and Listening on the Novelist’s Page (2006)
- 30 Direct Speech in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe (2006)
- 31 Pulling the Other? Longus on Tragedy (2007)
- 32 Links between Antonius Diogenes and Petronius (2007)
- 33 Literary Milieux (2008)
- 34 The Uses of Bookishness (2009)
- 35 Country Virtues, City Vices in Longus, Daphnis and Chloe? (2009)
- 36 Socrates’ Cock and Daphnis’ Goats: The Rarity of Vows in the Religious Practice of the Greek Novels (2012)
- 37 Caging Grasshoppers: Longus’ Materials for Weaving ‘Reality’ (2013)
- 38 ‘Milesian Tales’ (2013)
- 39 A Land without Priests? Religious Authority in Longus, Daphnis and Chloe (2015)
- 40 Poetic Elements in the Greek Novelists’ Prose (2017)
- 41 Captured Moments: Illustrating Longus’ Prose (2018)
- 42 Λέξεις Λόγγου (2019)
- 43 Animals, Slaves and Masters in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe (2019)
- 44 The Demotion of the Literary Cowherd (2019)
- 45 Callimachus and Longus (2019)
- 46 Silence in Chariton, Xenophon, Achilles Tatius and Longus (2020)
- Bibliography
- Index Locorum
- Index of Greek Terms
- General Index
Summary
This chapter explores the religious practice of characters in the five ‘ideal’ Greek novels, arguing that despite these works’ overall presentation of a world that is in many ways ‘realistic’, their representation of religion diverges from ‘reality’. At one end of the spectrum the behaviour of the rustic couple Daphnis and Chloe is almost hyper-religious, and it is only in Longus’ novel that we find a full range of traditional religious practices, including vows and libations. In the other four many features correspond to behaviour in the ‘real’ world – prayers, offerings, sacrifices, feasts and festivals: but libations are sometimes not poured when they might be expected; rituals associated with marriage or burial are omitted or played down; and, most strikingly, the practice of making a vow to a god at critical moments to secure help or rescue, a practice documented in the ‘real’ world by epigraphy and literature from the archaic period down to at least the third century AD, is wholly absent. Possible reasons for this absence are briefly discussed: is it simply a generally soft-focus and elliptical account of religious behaviour, or is it the avoidance of a device which, if deployed, would risk short-circuiting characters’ tension-creating peril in cliff-hanging situations?
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- Essays on Ancient Greek Literature and Culture , pp. 696 - 742Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023