This book makes an extremely important contribution to a number of fields. Most obviously, it fills a large gap in the study of Thessalian religion, providing Thessaly with its equivalent of Jost's work on Arcadia or Schachter's on Boeotia (though it is very different from both). The field has not been blank; in addition to a number of important articles on specific cults, one should mention Graninger's Cult and Koinon in Hellenistic Thessaly (2011). However, that monograph concentrates on regional cults from 196 b.c.; by contrast, M.'s book goes back to the start of the Classical period and is far more ambitious in its thematic scope. M.'s book also adds significantly to our wider appreciation of the place of cult in ancient societies. Finally, it constitutes a step forward in the understanding of the Thessalian ethnos, its meaning and its composition. M. is right to observe (e.g. on p. 216) that when discussing Thessaly we have tended to focus on formal political structures to the exclusion of other forms of collective thinking and behaviour; her book certainly supplies a rich new array of material to help us understand what it meant to be a Thessalian in the Classical or Hellenistic period.
However, she is also – perhaps chiefly – interested in what it meant to be a Larisaean, a Pheraean, a Pharsalian: in other words, she uses religion to explore the polis experience in Thessaly, and to break away from the regional (or even federal) preoccupation of past historians. She is absolutely right to assert that, for most individual Thessalians, the polis was the dominant sphere of social and religious life. In placing the emphasis thus, she is helping to dispel an already beleaguered notion: that in Thessaly the polis was a weak and late-developing institution. One may wonder whether invoking the name of Sourvinou-Inwood, and the concept of ‘polis religion’ (as on pp. 6–7), is even necessary to justify such a demonstrably sensible approach. Still, it is striking how little attention has been paid in the past to a systematic consideration of the place of religion within the social structures and practices of individual Thessalian cities, and the chapters which do this, 2 and 3 especially, are in my opinion the best in the book.
After an introductory Chapter 1, ‘Three Questions for a Regional Study of Religion’, carefully establishing methods and evidence, Chapter 2, ‘Oligarchic Constitution and Religion in the Thessalian Polis', breaks Thessalian polis society down into various groups and various manifestations of citizenship, examining the religious participation of each. It is supported in this by Appendix 3, a ‘Catalogue of Social/Religious Groups Attested in the Epigraphic Record’. The nuanced picture given in Chapter 2 banishes the crude model of a Thessaly in which serf-rich barons dominated communities and suppressed civic life. Chapter 3, ‘Polis Cults’, moves from an emphasis on social groups to one on the placement of sanctuaries, dividing sites according to their locations and their associations with place (on the acropolis, in the agora and around the walls). Important trends are identified in how Thessalian societies worked within built and natural landscapes, which is useful in contextualising some of the ‘old chestnuts’ (such as Enodia and her association with roads) within a larger and subtler consideration of sacred and civic space.
M. is averse to regional generalisation, however, and the next chapter (4, ‘Thessaly through the Kaleidoscope’) divides the region further according to time and place. The reader is taken on a periegesis round major sites and settlements, each of which is treated to a detailed consideration of known cults and their history. This chapter, along with the Appendices, especially Appendix 2, ‘Site-summaries of Excavated Thessalian Sanctuaries’, provides a massively useful resource for all students of Thessalian religion, from undergraduates upwards. The collation of textual and material evidence is impressive in its quantity, and displays M.'s expertise (evident also in the compendious Appendix 1, ‘Thessalian Inscribed Dedications’).
Having broken Thessaly up into its parts, M. then puts it back together again in Chapter 5, ‘Panthessalianism and Religion’. The analysis of individual cults and sanctuaries in this chapter is very convincing; in particular, it avoids undue fixation on sites of panthessalian congregation, acknowledging the importance also of cults which made reference to regional religious themes while operating on a more local level. The contribution made by the chapter to our understanding of Thessalian identity is considerable. However, the refusal to consider the region's political unification creates a certain unease. The existence of a regular system for co-operative decision-making between the major Thessalian cities really would have major implications for religious life on the regional level. This does not mean that Philia would have to be designated a ‘federal sanctuary’ – this label would certainly be limiting and simplistic. Rather, it would help to create a backdrop of interaction and collective behaviour in Thessaly, against which worship could usefully be viewed. Some readers of the book will share M.'s knowledge about Thessalian regional politics and their development; many, however, will not, and for them it would have been useful to have some statement of probability (of course, certainty is impossible!) about what kind of situation prevailed at various points during the period covered.
The final chapter, ‘The Land Rich in Herbs’, is the least effective, though it does add some important elements to the picture. It brings in the influential dimension of the outside perspective, of non-Thessalian views of Thessaly. Some of the discussion is convincing, in particular the detailed analysis of Thessalian eschatology and the interrogation of such clichés as the Thessalian witch. However, the opening round-up of Thessalian characterisation (horses, wealth, gluttony, etc.) feels superficial. There is no real attempt to sift the external perspectives into different stages of development, or according to place; in fact, as I have tried to show elsewhere (‘Friends in High Places: the Stereotype of Dangerous Thessalian Hospitality in the Later Classical Period’, Phoenix 66.3–4 [2012], 247–71), attitudes changed markedly at various points in time, especially with regard to the topos of luxury. It is also hard to understand the significance of aspects of the ancient stereotype such as horse-production, without an investigation of their historical veracity: yes, literary sources stress pastoral over arable abundance, but does this reflect actual Thessalian practices, or is it pure outsider fantasy? At various points underlying realities are hinted at, and we are given glimpses of a dynamic relationship between internal and external perspectives: were the Thessalians in fact picking up on their presentation by other Greeks and incorporating it into how they viewed and projected themselves? Did outsiders’ views actually shape how the Thessalians ‘did’ religion? Or is the stereotype just something to be detached so that it does not distort our historical understanding?
In fact, there are other moments in the book when I should have liked M. to explain more precisely the relationship she perceives between the imaginary Thessaly and the real; at times the ‘mirage thessalien’ even seems to shape her views of cult sites and activity. For example, on p. 175 the literary cliché of heavy-drinking Pharsalians is evoked in connection with a dedication to Dionysus, but it is not clear exactly what form of connection is being suggested. In general, Chapter 4 sometimes allows its consideration of archaeological evidence to be too strongly led by the literary record; for example, on pp. 174–5 the questionable claim by Aristotle that Pharsalus was faction-free is rather forcibly aligned with a dedication to Aphrodite Peitho to suggest that the latter evoked political harmony. Readers of a strongly archaeological perspective may wish to encounter less mediation from the literary record in the consideration of sanctuary remains. On a far more minor level, small errors may be identified here and there. P. 176 discusses the cult of Themis, for example, but as far as I can see that should be Thetis (the two figures were sometimes conflated by the Greeks, but in this case the sanctuary in question is the Thetideion). Greek and Latin name-spellings are oddly mingled (Dionysus Karpios; Lycourgos; etc.).
However, I should end by stressing that the criticisms here raised do not detract from the importance and overall value of this book, which should be read by anyone with an interest in Thessaly, ancient religion, or the articulation of regional identity in the ancient world.
