Hieros Anthropos - An Inquiry Into The Practices Of Archaic Greek Supplication

This article examines the earliest literary evidence of ancient supplication practices in the archaic Greek Homeric epic tradition. It does so from a philological, linguistic, ritualist and theoretical perspective without however separating these elements as distinct and it aims to articulate a non-legalistic approach to the earliest evidence, as well as a hypothesis with regard to the sacredness of suppliants in archaic Greece before supplication became juridically regulated in Classical Greece by certain forms of law.