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In Hosios: A Semantic Study of Greek Piety Saskia Peels elucidates the semantics of the Ancient Greek adjective hosios and its cognates. Traditionally rendered as ‘piety’, hosios was a key notion in Classical Greek religion and reflected a core value in Athenian democracy. Since antiquity, its meaning and usage have puzzled many. This study sets out to resolve various scholarly debates on the semantics of hosios by focusing on the idea of lexical competition. It illuminates the semantic relationship between hosios and its near-synonyms eusebês and dikaios, and the connection to the notion of the ‘sacred’. Using insights from modern linguistic theory, the book also aims to improve methods for research into the lexical semantics of a dead language.
Price: $189.00
Pages: 298
Publisher: Brill
Imprint: Brill
Series: Mnemosyne, Supplements
Publication Date:
15 October 2015
ISBN: 9789004294639
Format: Hardcover
"Saskia Peels’ informative book (...) freshly reassesses the semantics of the Greek adjective hosios, a key lexeme for understanding ancient Greek mentalities and ritual practices. It is a product of what I would call the Dutch School, which is creating groundbreaking work on social history(...) The novelty of Peels’ method lies in her use of the latest developments in linguistics and cognition, and in this respect she sets a model for future research. Her book offers new and convincing solutions to vexed questions, and it has already established itself as the point of reference for explaining the meaning of hosios and cognates with substantial implications for the history of religions."
Irene Salvo in BMCR 2018.12.17
Irene Salvo in BMCR 2018.12.17
Saskia Peels, Ph.D. (2014, Utrecht), is a postdoctoral researcher at the Université de Liège. Her work focuses on different aspects of Greek religion in literature and inscriptions. She is co-author of A Collection of Greek Ritual Norms (Université de Liège 2016).