Saint Margaret   w/ the dragon
Saint Barbara   .   w/ the tower
Saint Catherine    w/ the wheel
those are the three  holy maids.

Saint Margaret              w/ the                                 dragon
Saint                                            Barbara
                                                 w/ the tower
                  Saint                          Catherine ­                                        w/ the wheel
          those are the                       .                          three holy maids.

Ruins of a hero-shrine b      
                  or heroon at Sagalassos,                       Turkey

Hero cults                                               were one of the most distinctive
features                of ancient                                                          ­   Greek religion.
In Homeric Greek, "hero"                       (ἥρως, hḗrōs)
         refers to a man who                                      was fighting on either side
during the already                  archaic                          Trojan War.                             By the historical                                          period,      ­            
h
owever, the word came to mean specifically
a dead man,                                venerated & propitiated at his tomb
                                 or at a designated shrine,
                            because his fame during life
                  or unusual manner                                of death gave him power
to support & protect the living.
A hero                                   was more
than human but less than a god,
& various kinds
                                                   of supernatural figures
came to be assimilated          to the class of heroes; the        distinction between a        
                              hero & a god was less than certain,
especially in the case of Heracles,
            the most prominent,
                                              but atypical hero.

                                                          ­   The grand ruins      & tumuli remaining
                      from the Bronze Age                                                        gave the pre-literate
       Greeks of the 10th & 9th centuries BC
                                       a sense of a
                  grand & vanished                                   pre-Bronze Golden Age
reflected in                             .                 the oral epic tradition,
which would be                                         crystallized in the Iliad.
Copious renewed offerings begin to be
represented, after a hiatus, at                                     sites like
                                                           Lefkandi,    even though the names of the
grandly buried dead were hardly remembered.

"Stories began to be told to individuate the
persons who were now believed to be buried
in these old and imposing sites," observes
                                              Robin Lane Fox /

The term                                 cult identifies                    a pattern of ritual
                 behavior in
                                 connection w/                                      specific objects,
w/in a                             framework of spatial and temporal
coordinates. Rituals would include
                                                       (but not necessarily be limited to)         prayer,
                                                   sacrifice, votive offerings,        
                           competitions,
processions                                     & construction of monuments.
Some degree of recurrence in place &
   repetition over time of                                  ritual action is necessary  
for a cult to be enacted,                                                  
                                                                ­                         to be practiced