Hellenistic religion
Change came from the addition of new religions from other countries, including the Egyptian deities Isis and Serapis, and the Syrian gods Atargatis and Hadad, which provided a new outlet for people seeking fulfillment in both the present life and the afterlife.
The worship of deified Hellenistic rulers also became a feature of this period, most notably in Egypt, where the Ptolemies adapted earlier Egyptian practices and Greek hero-cults and established themselves as Pharaohs within the new syncretic Ptolemaic cult of Alexander III of Macedonia.
The complex system of Hellenistic astrology developed in this era, seeking to determine a person's character and future in the movements of the sun, moon, and planets.
The systems of Hellenistic philosophy, such as Stoicism and Epicureanism, offered a secular alternative to traditional religion, even if their impact was largely limited to educated elites.
[1] The city-states would conduct various festivals and rituals throughout the year, with particular emphasis directed towards the patron god of the city, such as Athena at Athens, or Apollo at Corinth.
[1] Magic was a central part of Greek religion[2] and oracles would allow people to determine divine will in the rustle of leaves; the shape of flame and smoke on an altar; the flight of birds; the noises made by a spring; or in the entrails of an animal.
[4] Older surveys of Hellenistic religion tended to depict the era as one of religious decline, discerning a rise in scepticism, agnosticism and atheism, as well as an increase in superstition, mysticism, and astrology.
[14] The religion of Atargatis (related to the Babylonian and Assyrian Inanna and Phoenician Baalat Gebal), a fertility and sea goddess from Syria, was also popular.
[10] The religion following Cybele (or the Great Mother) came from Phrygia to Greece and then to Egypt and Italy, where in 204 BCE the Roman Senate permitted her worship.
These newly introduced religions and gods only had a limited impact within Greece itself; the main exception was at Delos,[9] which was a major port and trading center.
The island was sacred as the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis, and by the 2nd century BCE was also home to the native Greek religions that follow Zeus, Athena, Dionysus, Hermes, Pan, and Asclepius.
Another philosophy was Epicureanism, which taught that the universe was subject to the random movements of atoms, and life should be lived to achieve psychological contentment and the absence of pain.
All of these philosophies, to a greater or lesser extent, sought to accommodate traditional Greek religion, but the philosophers, and those who studied under them, remained a small select group, limited largely to the educated elite.
Until the Fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Byzantine, Sassanid and Arab conquests of the Eastern and Western Mediterranean Basin, the main centers of Hellenistic Judaism were Alexandria (Egypt) and Antioch (Turkey), the two main Greek urban settlements of the Middle East and North Africa area, both founded at the end of the 4th century BCE in the conquests of Alexander the Great.
