Greek Hero Cults

Personal Heroes
In order to answer the question of how the “hero cults” enrich the religious lives of the Greeks, it is important to identify what a hero cult meant to the Greeks. These cults were thought to have originated with the works of Homer due to the nature of his tales portraying humans committing great acts so as to set themselves apart from the ordinary. Now even though they may have been worshiped they were not gods, they were said to have descended to the underworld and their rituals were more like Hecate’s or Persephone’s. There were two exceptions and that was Hercules and Asclepius. They are told as to have a place in heaven with the gods themselves.
The role these hero cults would play in the lives of the Greeks was very personal because
This would be vital for Cleisthenes when coming against his rival for power Isagoras. Herodotus tells about an event where Cleisthenes rearranged the tribes from 4 to 10 and changed their names so that they were closer to his heritage as an Alcmaeonid.
These two were rivals for power, and Cleisthenes, who was getting the worst of it, took the people into his party. He the changed the number of Athenian tribes from four to ten, and abolished the old names (Herodotus 5. 66) .
This was obviously a play to show the people that they were obliged to side with his decisions due to the link in his tribe with those of the people and in a disingenuous way make himself part of the founding fathers of these cities.
Hero cults were a means of not only honoring the Greeks ancestry, it was shown to also be a means of enforcing loyalty. These cults were seen as more of chthonic in worship and were believed to hold sway for the outcome of situations related to the characteristic of these heroes. This was just another form of how the Greeks sought to improve life through religion, yet on a more personal