The Pedagogical Function of Cult Associations in Late Classical Athens

Greek private voluntary associations have been considered in early twenty-century scholarship a by-product of the dismantling of the classical polis, since the majority of documents start to emerge in the Hellenistic period. Contemporary studies have reassessed this view, and recently the history of associations is receiving fresher treatment, with contributions investigating their legal status, financial rules, and social impact. This chapter aims to examine their role in the transmission of religious knowledge. Surveying a selection of Attic inscriptions dated mostly to the fourth century BCE, it tries to illustrate how these groups offered opportunities for pedagogy, especially religious pedagogy. Our sources show a picture of cult associations in which women and men, girls and boys, citizens, non-citizens, and foreigners were celebrating together rites and sacrifices sharing knowledge about the gods. Members of the family and the associative groups could act as teachers and learned figures. Pedagogical strategies included processes of experiential learning and socialization of moral and religious behaviour. Cult associations, then, provided a space where to transmit civic identities to younger Athenians and non-Athenians in a capillary way.