Introduction

1. Beyond the ‘Animal god’ The Greeks did not have animal gods, and there is no real proof that they ever did. Fully theriomorphic deities are rare to the point almost of non-existence. But a significant number of Greek deities were imagined and depicted as partly animal in form – as anatomical combinations of human and non-human. These deities, and this mode of representation, are the subject of this book, which turns the spotlight on a group of beings who, despite being quietly pervasive in..