Publisher's Synopsis
This edition of Gilbert Murray's renowned examination of how religion evolved in Ancient Greece, includes all of his original notes.
Murray was a renowned scholar of Greek classics, who used his academic background as grounding for this astonishingly detailed book on the topic of the Olympian Gods. How the pantheon of Gods was conceived, and grew to eventually define large aspects of Ancient Greek culture, form the topics at hand.
The book begins by examining the earliest surviving religious texts of Greek, identifying the first indications of the Gods in the lore. The increasing prevalence of writing among Greece's educated citizenry sparked a growth in the number of Gods and Goddesses, and the stories relating to them. However, Murray is careful to note that there is no single event or turning point. Hellenic polytheism was, we discover, defined by a gradual and steady evolution over centuries.
For a scholarly work, Five Stages of Greek Religion is of modest length. This attribute defines it as a superb introductory primer to aspects of Olympian religion. Composed in answer to scholars who placed higher value upon the art, literature and poetry of Ancient Greece, as opposed to the religion which guided and inspired many of these greatest works, Gilbert Murray's insight remains authoritative profound to this day.
