The third period of Greek religion may conveniently include the fifth century and that part of the fourth that ends with the downfall of the system of civic autonomy at the battle of Chaironeia. For the history of Greek religion as of Greek culture, it is of the highest interest, being the richest in respect of religious monuments and literature and the most forceful and momentous in regard to the influences at work. In the sphere of external history it witnessed such world-crises as the struggle of Hellenism against barbarism, the rise and fall of the Imperial City-State, and the emergence of Macedon as a world-power; in the sphere of culture it witnessed the culmination of the greatest art of the world, the bloom and maturity of the Attic drama and Pindar’s lyric, the diffusion of education and the spirit of enquiry through the activity of the Sophists, and the higher development of philosophy and science. To show how the religious practice and theory of the higher and lower members of Hellenic society were affected by the great events and achievements of this greatest period of human history is a necessary but a difficult task. _Fifth-century religion contrasted with the Homeric_.--If we take Athens as the typical religious community of the fifth century and compare the {93} structure and forms of her state-polytheism with those of the old Homeric world, we find the personalities of the prehistoric pantheon still worshipped and cherished; no prehistoric cult of that epic world has as yet fallen into desuetude; nor had the most civilised city of Hellas discarded the immemorial rites of the simple peasant religion, the worship of rivers and streams, nor some of the most naïve practices of animism. And it is clear that this conservatism was no hieratic convention, but a living faith, expressing a religious intuition of the people, who were as yet untouched by the cooling influences of science and philosophic scepticism. In fact, for the greater part of the fifth century, the life of the polytheism was probably stronger than it had been ever in the past. It was strengthened by the admission of a few new figures and by the development of some of the old.[93.1]