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Some notes I laid out in a recent chat:
The ancient Greeks didn't have anything we would today recognize as "faiths" (i.e. creed-based religious doctrines). Rather they had many different local cults, and these were based on ritualism and place-based folklore, not beliefs or abstract ideals. And none of these myriad cults were mutually exclusive with one another; people could partake in the rites of as many or as few cults they wished. The only compulsory "belief" was simply to partake in the ritualism of whatever local area you were in or to adhere to the ancestral customs of your particular family, city-state, kingdom, ect.
Having said all of that, ancient Greece was supremely tribal and xenophobic and this was all based on one's ethnos (or city-state of birth) rather than anything religious. The Greece world did shift to a cosmopolitan and universal paradigm once the culture shifted from agrarianism and honor-based values to urbanism, commercialism and philosophy.
The ancient Greeks didn't have anything we would today recognize as "faiths" (i.e. creed-based religious doctrines). Rather they had many different local cults, and these were based on ritualism and place-based folklore, not beliefs or abstract ideals. And none of these myriad cults were mutually exclusive with one another; people could partake in the rites of as many or as few cults they wished. The only compulsory "belief" was simply to partake in the ritualism of whatever local area you were in or to adhere to the ancestral customs of your particular family, city-state, kingdom, ect.
Having said all of that, ancient Greece was supremely tribal and xenophobic and this was all based on one's ethnos (or city-state of birth) rather than anything religious. The Greece world did shift to a cosmopolitan and universal paradigm once the culture shifted from agrarianism and honor-based values to urbanism, commercialism and philosophy.
