Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity: Seeing the Gods

The essays in this volume examine the range of pilgrimage practices in Graeco-Roman antiquity and the early Church. From healing to oracles, from collective civic delegations to individual pilgrims seeking salvation, from localized sacred topographies to empire-wide travel, this book shows the importance of pilgrimage in pagan antiquity and its ancestry to later Christian practice.
This book presents a range of case-studies of pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman antiquity, drawing on a wide variety of evidence. It rejects the usual reluctance to accept the category of pilgrimage in pagan polytheism and affirms the significance of sacred mobility not only as an important factor in understanding ancient religion and its topographies but also as vitally ancestral to later Christian practice.