Abstract
The notions of polis-religionand civic religion were first used to characterize the specificity of Greek and Roman polytheistic experience in relation to Christianity. Recent criticisms have highlighted the importance of individual and collective practices both within and beyond the civic framework. However, these criticisms are based on an overly narrow conception of the city - tacitly viewed through the prism of the modern state. In particular, they overlook the scales of expression of civic identity, the variety of groups that weave the community space and the entanglement of their activities. What do we mean when we say that a cult is " administered " by the city ? What is involved in what is usually presented as the " takeover " by the city of a private or local cult ? I will focus on a number of configurations - mainly, but not exclusively, Athenian - in which the city's representatives appear to share the administration of a sanctuary with other communities.
