During the Classical period, Attica had an impressive number of rural sanctuaries and presented a highly differentiated and consciously modelled landscape of worship sites, established shortly after the introduction of democracy. In the Imperial period, only a handful of isolated sanctuaries seem to have been in continuous use or to have been re- established. How is this change to be explained ? And how should one understand the religious and social role of these small cult places in the countryside ? With an analysis of several examples from the Classical, Hellenistic and Imperial periods, this study examines the archaeological data and evaluates the influence of the political structures on the devotional landscape of a polis outside of the main religious centers.