
Many of the beings in this book - Cheiron,
Pan, Acheloos, the Sirens and others - will
be familiar from the narratives of Greek
mythology, in which fabulous anatomies
abound. However, they have never previously
been studied together from a religious
perspective, as recipients of cult and as
members of the ancient pantheon. This book is the first major treatment
of the use of part-animal - mixanthropic - form in the representation and
visual imagination of Greek gods and goddesses, and of its significance
with regard to divine character and function. What did it mean to depict
deities in a form so strongly associated in the ancient imagination with
monstrous adversaries? How did iconography, myth and ritual interact
in particular sites of worship? Drawing together literary and visual material,
this study establishes the themes dominant in the worship of divine
mixanthropes, and argues that, so far from being insignificant curiosities,
they make possible a greater understanding of the fabric of ancient
religious practice, in particular the tense and challenging relationship
between divinity and visual representation.
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