Miasma : Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion, Paperback / softback Book

Miasma : Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion Paperback / softback

Part of the Clarendon Paperbacks series

Paperback / softback

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Anyone who has sampled even a few of the most commonly read Greek texts will have encountered pollution.

The pollution of bloodshed is a frequent theme of tragedy: Orestes is driven mad; Oedipus brings plague upon all Thebes.

In historical texts we find cities intervening in the internal affairs of others to `drive out the pollution', or making war on account of it.

Political orators represent their opponents as polluting demons.

Purity is a constant concern in ritual texts, and any Greek underwent many small purifications in his everyday life.

Certain abnormal religious movements of the archaic age made `purification' the path to felicity in the afterlife.

First published in hardback in 1983, Miasma is the first work in English to treat this theme in detail.

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£105.00

£104.00

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