The history of Greek religion, so much neglected in our country, is often mistaken for a discussion concerning its origins. The main scope of the present work is not the question of origin, but a survey of the most important texts and monuments that express the actual religious conceptions of the various Greek communities at different historical epochs. Such a study evidently concerns the student of the literature no less than the student of the archaeology of Greece, although the subject has been hitherto approached rather from the archaeological side. The question of origins may be put aside, although it may be true that one does not fully and perfectly know the present character of a fact unless one also knows the embryology of it. Yet this dictum expresses more the ideal of knowledge than a practical method of working. In dealing with so complicated a phenomenon as the religion of a people, it is surely advisable to consider separately and first the actual facts, the actual beliefs in the age of which we have history, rather than the prehistoric germ from which they arose. Again, this is the only aspect of the problem that directly concerns the student of the Greek world pure and simple, for the other line of inquiry, touching the birth of the nation's religion, can never be followed out within the limits of that nation's literature and monuments.