Religion und Kult als politische Faktoren im Peloponnesischen Krieg

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of Classical Greek religious phenomena on the events described in the historical account of Thucydides, which describes the prehistory and course of the Peloponnesian War. First, the current state of research and the historiographical method of Thucydides, as far as it is deemed relevant to the topic chosen, will be outlined. Subsequently, the complex interaction between the political and religious spheres will be examined on the basis of numerous case studies from the primary work, which will be sketched and interpreted, as well as typologized phenomenologically, according to the respective politically relevant cultic-religious aspects. In this context, it becomes apparent that religion and cult are partly used with remarkable pragmatism as political tools, but partly also represent politically powerful mechanisms when adhering to traditional religious ideas and practices. Furthermore, the range of incidents in which religious phenomena become politically relevant extends from spatially and personally very limited cases to interstate disputes of the greatest magnitude. Moreover, there are noticeable differences in the way the main belligerent parties of the Peloponnesian War deal with religion and cult. The Greek religion thus emerges as an almost omnipresent political factor in the historical work of Thucydides.