Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual: Volume 47

"Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual" is part of a surprisingly long list of books by Walter Burkert, now Professor Emeritus at the University of Zurich, which have appeared in English translation, beginning with "Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism" in 1972. This is unusual in an age of supposedly declining interest in Greek and Latin, particularly since his books, while generally packed with information, also address theoretical issues, and are not always easy to understand. A number of them have been controversial, either for his own ideas, or for his challenges to the accepted wisdom. However, they are usually very interesting. The present book, one of his shorter works, is no exception. And it, too, makes demands on the reader. "Structure and History" forms Volume Forty-seven of the Sather Classical Lectures, an invitational series delivered by Visiting Professors at the University of California at Berkeley since early in the twentieth century, and shows every sign of being aimed at professional scholars. Like many of the other contributions to the lecture series (a surprisingly large number of which have found their way into paperback editions over the years), it keeps the really difficult material tucked away in notes, and the primary argument doesn't need technical knowledge to follow. (Evaluating it is another matter.) "Structure and History" picks up issues raised in Burkert's earlier, much longer, "Greek Religion" (in Britain, "Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical"), originally published in 1977, and translated in 1985. That is an engaging book which I found quite convincing, at least while reading it, as was the case with his shorter "Ancient Mystery Cults" (1987, originally the Carl Newell Jackson Lectures for 1982), with which it also has some overlaps. My reaction to Burkert's book on killing as a ritual act, "Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth" (1972, translated 1983), was that Burkert got off on the wrong track on several matters. As Ian Morris put it about one of them in "Death-Ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity" (1992), "Burkert's derivation of funerary rituals from hunting and sacrifice ... is ... unnecessarily limiting." But some of the ideas in "Homo Necans" appear in "Structure and History," in what I found a more modest and acceptable form. In fact, except for "Lore and Science," most of his books can be read as parts of a single investigation of ancient Greek religion in its various manifestations. And even "Lore and Science" deals with the Pythagoreans as a religious movement. "Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual" appears to be a short survey, but it is NOT for beginners. If you aren't familiar with at least a couple of roughly college-level surveys, you may find yourself lost. I've been reading the sources (Greek, Latin, and others) in translation) as well as studies, for several decades, and from time to time I foun