Résumé
Modern scholars discuss the foundation of cults in human terms, often through the opposition of public and private, city and individual. The Greeks themselves could also speak in this way, but on other levels – and not only that of myth – they represented cult institution as something initiated by a god. In this paper, I explore the three-cornered relationship between deity, polis and individual in narratives of cult foundation, as conceptualised in myth, in public/civic discourse and in lived religious experience. There are numerous variables, both within and between the three terms. Among human individuals, both insiders and outsiders, citizens and non-citizens, may play a role; the polis may negotiate with supra-polis structures in the form of oracles; while deities both belong to and transcend the city.
