- [<] Status Log - created:: 2021-06-10 - status-updated:: 2022-03-18 - current-status:: #articleseed - [S] Marketing - purpose:: [Tweeted](https://twitter.com/EleanorKonik/status/1403187332975562764) 2021-06-10 to support [[Ancient Priests]] - [b] References - [[non-religious uses of Greek temples]] - [[Ancient Mesopotamian epidemics lecture by Troels Arboll]] THREAD START I always feel super validated whenever I come across an example of ancient priests acting in an expert capacity or a temple / church that is used for something other than ritual and prayer. The talk I attended the other day by @PankTroels was a great example. --- The ancient & classical world has tons of examples of priests who doubled as healers, or advisors, or therapists, or whatever. It wasn't all pleading with the Gods, demanding sacrifices, and castigating sinners. --- My favorite examples of "non-standard uses for temples" come from Greece, though. Apparently, some temples served as banks: "the Athenians formed a new alliance, the Delian League, with its treasury in the temple of Apollo on the island of Delos." --- Also, I can't get over this: "The Syracusans no longer came out to oppose [The Athenians] at sea and on land they limited themselves to raids from the temple." I can't think of any other examples I've ever come across of using a temple as a staging ground for military raids. --- I mean, I'm sure it's ever happened in history, a burned out church has probably ever been used for a staging point for fighting during urban warfare in the medieval or modern era, but it's still sort of strange to think about the ancients waging war from inside a temple. --- Syracusans using a temple to stage raids is no weirder than the "Latin Church" directing Crusades, or the existence of military orders like the Knights Templar, it's just one of those things that feels strange to me when I come across it in a historical text. --- Still, I love reading — & writing: https://eleanorkonik.com/ancient-priests-practical-impact/ — about ways religious leaders and organizations in history failed to "stay in their lane," because war and money and medicine has always been the priestly lane. --- The dividing lines between economics, politics, sociology, history, religion, culture, etc are never as neat as our society makes them out to be. Temples as banks, priests as physicians, prophets as advisors — none of it is unique to our time. THREAD END