Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion London: C. J. CLAY AND SONS, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, AVE MARIA LANE. Glasgow: 50, WELLINGTON STREET. [Illustration] Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS. New York: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. [_All Rights reserved._] Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion by JANE ELLEN HARRISON, HON. D.LITT. (DURHAM), HON. LL.D. ABERDEEN, FELLOW AND LECTURER OF NEWNHAM COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. Cambridge at the University Press 1903 Cambridge: PRINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. ARTURO ET MARGARITAE VERRALL HUIC AMICAE MEAE CONSTANTISSIMAE ILLI ET AMICO ET MAGISTRO HUNC LIBRUM DEDICO INTRODUCTION. The object of the following pages is to draw attention to some neglected aspects of Greek religion. Greek religion, as set forth in popular handbooks and even in more ambitious treatises, is an affair mainly of mythology, and moreover of mythology as seen through the medium of literature. In England, so far as I am aware, no serious attempt has been made to examine Greek ritual. Yet the facts of ritual are more easy definitely to ascertain, more permanent, and at least equally significant. What a people _does_ in relation to its gods must always be one clue, and perhaps the safest, to what it _thinks_. The first preliminary to any scientific understanding of Greek religion is a minute examination of its ritual.