This subject may be considered with reference to the several subjects of
1. Temples.
2. Endowments (τεμένεα).
3. Groves.
4. Statues.
5. Seers or Prophets.
6. The Priesthood.
Troy and Greece as to Temples.
It has been debated, whether the Greeks of the Homeric age had yet begun to erect temples to the gods.
The only case of a temple, distinctly and expressly mentioned as existing in Greece, is in the passage of the Catalogue respecting the Athenians, on which there hangs a slight shade of doubt. But another passage, though it does not contain the word, seems to be conclusive as to the thing. It is that where Achilles mentions treasures, which lie within the stony threshold of Apollo at Pytho[353]:
οὐδ’ ὅσα λάϊνος οὐδὸς ἀφήτορος ἐντὸς ἐέργει,
Φοίβου Ἀπόλλωνος, Πυθοῖ ἔνι πετρήεσσῃ.
Though there may have been treasuries which were not temples, they could hardly have been treasuries of the gods: for in what sense could treasures be placed under their special protection, unless by being deposited in places which were peculiarly theirs?
In the Odyssey, Eurylochus promises to build a temple to the Sun, on getting safe to Ithaca[354]; and Nausithous[355], the father of Alcinous, built temples of the gods in Scheria. Now Scheria was not Greece; yet it was more akin to Greece than to Troy.
It is, on the other hand, observable that, though under these circumstances we can hardly deny that temples existed among the Greeks, yet we have no case in Homer of a temple actually erected to a purely Hellic deity.