Hellenistic Religion

Continuity

• Olympians still worshipped
• Civic cult: Panathenaic Festival etc.
• Ritual, sacrifice continue
• Continued temple-building
• Oracles (Delphi etc.)

• Ruler worship
• Egyptian gods: Isis, Sarapis
• Cybele & Attis
• Tyche: Luck/Fate
• Magic: love-spells, curses etc.
• Astrology

Stoicism (< stoa ‘colonnade’)

• Zeno (335-263); Chrysippus (280-207)
• Universe run by logos (fate/order)
• Goal: align oneself with logos
• Stress on virtue, control of emotions

• Epicurus (341-270)
• Universe random (atoms & void)
• Gods exist, but do nothing
• Goal: Tranquillity (ataraxia)
• Lathê biôsas ("live to be forgotten")
• Herculaneum papyri

Cynicism (kyn- "dog")

• Antisthenes (disciple of Socrates)
• Diogenes (400-320)
• Travelling preachers/beggars
• Goal: individual virtue
• Equality, nature: "cosmopolitanism"