Sanctuaries and the Sacred in the Ancient Greek World. By JOHN PEDLEY. 
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. xviii + 272. 
Paper, $26.99. ISBN 0–521–00635–X.

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CJ Online Exclusive: 2008.12.01

Divided into 14 chapters which together offer a coherent 
progression of topics and case-studies, John Pedley’s Sanctuaries and the 
Sacred in the Ancient Greek World presents a clear and readable 
introduction to the subject. The book was written with classroom use in 
mind and could easily provide the basic structure for an undergraduate 
course on ancient Greek sanctuaries and religion. Because of the intended 
audience, P. must often present the evidence or its interpretation somewhat 
dogmatically or in a greatly simplified manner, but he does not shy away 
from alerting readers to difficulties and scholarly disagreements where 
appropriate. The writing style tends toward the conversational (e.g. 
contractions are ubiquitous), presumably in an attempt to increase its 
accessibility. Bibliography, located at the end of the book but keyed to 
the individual chapters, allows topics of interest to be pursued further; a 
glossary of terms, also located at the end, should provide help with most 
unfamiliar words. Overall, the book is well illustrated with numerous 
site-plans and photographs of objects, generally to the point. I personally 
found a number of details with which to take exception, as presumably will 
many readers. But viewed as a whole P.’s book succeeds admirably as a 
text for use in the classroom and as such can be wholeheartedly 
recommended.

After three short chapters (“Introduction,” “Setting the 
Stage,” “Growth and Variety”) that provide a point of entry to the 
student unfamiliar with basic concepts of Greek religion and sanctuaries, 
P. turns to the locations in which sanctuaries are found. He distinguishes 
between those that are interurban, urban (treating suburban and extra-urban 
sanctuaries under separate headings) and rural; the importance of this 
division is explored via a simplified but essentially accurate account of 
the work of de Polignac. While not everyone will agree with the utility or 
importance of understanding sanctuaries this way, the gain is twofold: the 
student is given a framework, followed throughout the remainder of the 
book, for distinguishing types of sanctuaries and is introduced to 
relatively recent scholarly developments and conceptual models.

The book falls into two discrete halves of seven chapters each. 
After the introductory material noted above, P. proceeds to three chapters 
outlining architecture, rites and rituals, and offerings. In all these 
chapters the arrangement of topics is sensible and works well to recreate 
the experience of visiting a sanctuary and participating in a religious 
festival. Thus, for example, in Chapter V (“Architecture for the Gods: 
Sacred Building”), P. discusses individually the various architectural 
features (temenos wall, propylon, altar, temple, etc.) often found in 
sanctuaries, but structures the discussion to correspond to the order in 
which a visitor might encounter them when entering a sanctuary. The 
building types are illustrated with examples drawn both from the sites 
chosen as case-studies in the second half (see below) and from other sites 
throughout the Greek world.

The second half of P.’s book consists of five case-studies 
(Olympia, Delphi, Samos, Poseidonia and the Athenian Acropolis) followed by 
two concluding chapters. The case-studies are reasonably well chosen for 
illustrating the types of sanctuaries distinguished by P. at the outset, 
although to cover them all Poseidonia must do rather heavy duty. More 
importantly, the inclusion of examples from the west and the east breaks 
out of the usual Athens-Olympia-Delphi nexus; the juxtaposition of familiar 
and unfamiliar leaves the student with a better impression of the 
geographical range of the Greek world. The sites P. has chosen allow for 
useful comparison and discussion of the categories of evidence available 
and how one might interpret that evidence; in a manner that may be 
eye-opening to students, P. raises the issue of practicalities, 
particularly in the case of Poseidonia, that can hinder archaeological 
exploration, and thus the extent to which these realities can affect our 
knowledge and collection of evidence.

Less successful are the final two chapters, which cover Greek 
sanctuaries from the Roman period to the present day, although P. is to be 
commended for including this material at all. Understanding the advent of 
the Romans as a major turning point in the life of a sanctuary may make 
sense in the case of Poseidonia, but works less well for the non-western 
sanctuaries. P. falls into the all too common trap of failing to 
distinguish adequately between a purely chronological as opposed to a 
cultural use of the term “Roman” as applied to Greece; whatever the 
case in the west, sanctuaries and the activities that occurred in them 
continued on much as before in Greece and the Greek east until well into 
the Imperial period. At the close of the final chapter, somewhat in the 
nature of an epilogue, P. comments on the often tense and conflicted 
relationship between archaeology and tourism. His sensible remarks on this 
issue contain much of value but may seem out of place to readers, despite 
the attempt to place them within the context of the afterlife of the 
sanctuary.

A few points of detail. The illustrations are frequently taken 
from handbooks, which on occasion leads to incongruities or even outright 
error. For example: fig. 24, the Archaic perirrhanterion from Isthmia, is 
said to be housed in the Corinth Museum (it has been in the Isthmia Museum 
for the past 30 years), and the illustration depicts the old reconstruction 
(for the current reconstruction, see M. Sturgeon, Isthmia IV. Sculpture I: 
1952–1967 (Princeton, 1987), p. 17 and pl. 1); on p. 59 the propyla at 
Eleusis are discussed but not marked on the accompanying fig. 25; the small 
naiskos within the north colonnade of the Parthenon is mentioned on p. 69, 
but is shown neither in the accompanying fig. 34 nor in any of the other 
plans which include the Parthenon. Similar discrepancies abound. 
Characterizing Macedonian hegemony merely as a force that put “an end to 
th[e] squabbling among Greek states” and thus allowed Athens, “now free 
of the expenditures of war…” to “turn its revenues to more peaceful 
endeavors” seems naive at best. The bibliography is generally sound and 
up to date, but some gaps remain, e.g. Ulrich Sinn’s publications on 
Olympia, some of which have even appeared in English translation. 
Typographical errors are rare, and so the reader must wonder whether the 
reference to “the death of certainty” (p. xv) is one of the few 
examples or instead an ideological statement.

B.W. MILLIS
American School of Classical Studies at Athens


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