2011, No. 1-2 (1), Preliminaries

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Bogdan Burliga
Homo Venans. The Religious Dimension of Hunting in Ancient Greece According to Arrian from Nicomedia

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Keywords: hunting, animal, sacrifice, sacred, ritual, killing

Abstract:
The article is devoted to the question in what sense can we legitimately speak of the religious character of the ancient Greek hunting. Relying mainly on the treatise of the famous Greek historian and committed hunter, Arrian of Nicomedia (whose floruit falls on the first half of the second century AD), I argue that hunting was regarded as an activity that remained under the careful guidance of the gods, above all - of Artemis, so in this, general respect it may be justified to maintain that it was seen as ‘holy’. This assumption, nevertheless, cannot be used as a proof in thinking that hunting, trapping, pursuing, chasing and, lastly, killing animals was ‘sacred’ in this sense as it was Greek sacrificial ritual, known from the classical times (Vth – IVth centuries BC). Occasionally, similiarities were seen between the two ways of killing animals but essentially the ancient Greeks were perfectly aware of the different contexts in which hunting and ritual slaughtering occurred. The main reason for such claiming is the fact that it was the time after a successful hunt when a special kind of sacrifice to the god was performed – the so called aparkhai.

About Author:
BURLIGA BOGDAN – historian and classical philologist, Assistant Professor in the Classical Philology Department at the University of Gdańsk. Contact email: filbb[at]ug.edu.pl

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