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Abstract
Different sorts of sacred groves, and the literary, epigraphical, and archaeological evidence available for them are introduced. Post-antique authors preserved a literary sense of the sacred grove, but scholars have studied them only briefly or without using the full range of extant evidence, such as the written sources presented in the Appendix.
Sacred groves were common in the Greek landscape, urban and rural; every major deity and many heroes had at least one. Apollo possessed the most, perhaps because his character combined a regard for vegetation with a widespread control over legal (and political) aspects of community life. Gods who controlled a narrower range had fewer groves.
Comparison with religions of the Near East and European forests shows that northern influence was apparently greater than that from the East, where the single tree seems to have been more important than the grove.
A few archaeological sites have evidence for groves. Rock-cut planting pits at the Hephaisteion (Athens), the Asklepieion in Korinth, and Kourion, plus earth-dug pits at Nemea and in the Athenian Agora are discussed.
Abundant literary evidence from Homer and Hesiod to the end of antiquity shows that an(' )(alpha)(lamda)(sigma)(omicron)(sigma) was first a wooded area, sometimes enclosed, and usually intrinsically sacred, or a divinity's habitat. In lyric and pastoral poetry, tragedy, and scientific writings,(' )(alpha)(lamda)(sigma)(omicron)(sigma) becomes a metaphor for natural expanse and sacred territory, and is used for non-sacred woods and a part of the natural environment. Numerous references to(' )(alpha)(lamda)(sigma)(eta) in Strabo and Pausanias may imply increased interest in groves in a world becoming less wooded. Generally, an author's use of one of the broadened meanings of (alpha)(lamda)(sigma)(omicron)(sigma)(' )suits his usual subject and style. Inscriptional evidence for maintenance and protection of groves is also discussed.
In everyday life, groves functioned as asyla and retreats, legal and philosophical, and as ties with the past; they also provided shade and produce. An examination of (kappa)(eta)(pi)(omicron)(sigma), (pi)(alpha)(rho)(alpha)(delta)(epsilon)(iota)(sigma)(omicron)(sigma), and other terms for greenery shows how(' )(alpha)(lamda)(sigma)(omicron)(sigma) was distinguished from these. The combination in sacred groves of practicality and mystery, and sacred past time and present, reveals one way in which Greeks joined sacredness and secularity.
