Summary:

Marika Rauhala, Immortals in the Centre and on the Fringes: A Divine Perspective on Space in Ancient Greece

For the ancient Greeks, gods were both distant and ubiquitous and were an inextricable part of all human activities. The gods also played an important role in the Greek definition of space including the demarcation of centre and periphery. The Hellenes considered that the Greek-speaking area was the centre of the world and, respectively, foreign cultures epitomized the margins. On the other hand, Greek culture was centred in the cities during the Classical period (ca. 480‒330 B.C.E.), whereas both the surrounding countryside and the wilds represented outer reaches. 

The Hellenes did not draw a line between Greek and foreign gods but considered that all the deities were basically manifestations of the same immortal beings. Hence, the Greeks often sought to adjust themselves to new environments and foreign peoples through familiar divine forces:  they adopted foreign cults, when abroad they sought to form a connection with the local gods, and they drew genealogical links between foreign peoples and Greek mythological characters. Yet, the connection between foreignness and otherness was never completely abolished. For instance, divinities that represented alien experiences, such as loss of self-control, were perceived to arrive from foreign lands, and foreigners might be depicted as distorting the proper worship of gods.

In the Greek world, the division of land was negotiated through cults. Firstly, the well-being and protection of cities, as well as all urban activities, were the domain of certain gods, who often embodied law, order and civic principles. Secondly, the countryside with its interrelated concerns of fertility was crucially important to city welfare and, accordingly, the festivals celebrating its principal deities largely dominated religious calendars. Thirdly, the pasturelands, wilderness, as well as the sea were fields of precarious divine forces which often required appeasement.

Even though gods were frequently associated with a certain space they were also able to overcome the limits of space both physically and metaphysically. Deities could introduce their signature space to various surroundings, and a single god could have a range of manifestations which ruled different environments. The gods could also create a link between the centre and periphery, here and there, now and then. By turning to the gods, the Greeks hoped not only to come to terms with the surrounding world and its occasional hostility, but also to receive assistance with various perilous transitions in space and time.