FESTIVALS

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Like that of all Greek cities, Athens' year was divided into lunar months, with festivals determined by the phase of the moon. The lunar months were kept in the right position during the solar year by the occasional addition of intercalary months, and many of the festivals reflect the agricultural cycle. The Panathenaia comes in the month of Hecatombaion, in July, after the harvest of wheat. The Thesmophoria anticipates the ploughing and planting in the fall, and the Anthesteria commemorates the opening of the new wine in the spring. The Eleusinian Mysteries are associated with agricultural goddesses (Demeter and Persephone), and they celebrate the discovery of ploughing and sowing grain, but they come in late summer (Boedromion, in September), and are not timed to correspond with any particular agricultural activity.
The festivals obviously overlap mythological stories with ritual action, and, often, the mythological action is given an explanation by stories told during the festival. Unfortunately, very few of the cult hymns actually performed during Greek festivals (at Athens or anywhere else) survive, but most of the festivals were occasions where myths were recited verbally in songs and poetry, and also given expression in sacred actions.

The Panathenaia was Athenians' great celebration of the goddess that protected them. It was, essentially, a big parade to bring a new peplos (robe) to the goddess, in the form of her cult statue inside the Parthenon on the Acropolis. The day of the parade was preceeded by an all-night performance of hymns and sacrifices in honor of the goddess (a pannychia), and before the parade a torch-race was held to light the altar on the Acropolis. The parade itself put on display Athens' wealth (in the form of the animals to be sacrificed), its military prowess (in the calvary and chariot maneuvers), and its well-behaved, industrious women (who wove the new dress). The Greater Panathenaia included athletic, poetry, and musical contests open to all, and solidified Athens' position as a major city in the Greek world. By the 450s BCE, Athens began compelling its allies in the Delian league to make contributions to the Greater Panathenaia, the beginning of Athenian imperialism which would eventually lead to the Peloponnesian Wars (with Sparta, the much more conservative military power in the Peloponnese).

A map of Athens, showing the route of the procession up the Sacred Way to the Acropolis.

An artist's rendition of Periclean Athens.

Once the procession reached the Acropolis, it made its way alongside the Parthenon toward the Altar of Athena, at the far (east) end of the Parthenon.

A reconstruction in National Geographic of what the Panathenaia procession might have looked like as it made its way alongside the Parthenon. You can see the large statue of Athena, with its own altar, toward the bottom center, as well as the cult statue of Athene INSIDE the Parthenon. You can also see that the Parthenon was painted, and decorated with sculpture.

A view of the Parthenon as it is today. The metopes (the little rectangular areas of sculpture) depicted the defeat of Centaurs and Amazons--barbarian "Others" like the Persians, while the West and East pediments showed the contest between Athena and Poseidon for Athens, and the birth of Athena from Zeus' head.

Various reconstruction drawings of the East and West pediments.

An artist's reconstruction, from the 19th century, of the appearance of the Parthenon in the late 5th century BCE. It shows the East side, with the pediment depicting the birth of Athena.

A view as you step in between the columns and look up--the frieze is at the upper right.

The pieces of the frieze brought together in order: the frieze ran from west to east around both sides, culminating in the presentation of the peplos, being folded in the "presence" of the gods--the gods are bigger than the people, and sit talking to each other on the east side.

West and south sections of the frieze:

North and east sections of the frieze:

The next several slides pick out details from the frieze that you can recognize from the description of the Panathenaic procession in the chapter you read.

A side view of the frieze, showing its increasing depth of relief from bottom to top.

Oxen struggling as they are lead up to the feast. Among other things, the Panathenaia was looked forward to for the enormous quantity of meat divided up among the festival organizers and the people of Athens.

Charioteers, including an apobates, displaying his ability to leap off and on a moving chariot.

Procession of women, some carrying bowls and pitchers for the sacrifice, while the two pairs of women side-by-side are thought to represent the ergastinai, the daughters of the best families who had the high honor of weaving and decorating Athena's new dress.

One of the diphrophoroi, who carry couches on their heads--either for the ergastinai to sit on, or for the peplos of Athena to rest on.

Zeus and Hera share a rare relaxed moment as they watch the procession unfold.

Last but not least, the folding of the peplos, which takes place between the two seated groups of gods--who are "present" but don't seem to notice or interact with the human worshippers (look back at the overall views of the frieze).

Besides the procession to present the peplos, the Greater Panathenaia (every four years) also included poetry and singing contests (the winners won gilded olive crowns and cash), and athletic contests. The winners in the athletic contests received jars of olive oil in 5 to 1 ratios (e.g. 60 jars for the winner of the footrace, and 12 jars for second place). The jars have a depiction of Athena on one side, and a depiction of the event on the other.

The Eleusinian Mysteries were, by the 5th century BCE, open to any Greek speaker, man, woman, or slave, citizen or not of Attica. Warfare was (ideally, but not always) suspended for the period of the initiations, which took 7 days. The action was split between Athens, the port of Piraeus, and Eleusis, a town about 15 miles southwest of Athens. The map below shows the relation between these places. Two days before the Mysteries began the "holy things" were brought in baskets to Athens by the ephebes, young Athenians in military training (red dots). On the 15th, the initiates gathered in Athens and met their mystagogus (a person already initiated who helped them through the process). On the 16th, the initiates took little piglets down to the sea, bathed with them, and purified themselves with blood of the sacrificed piglet ("Seaward Initiates"; blue dots). The initiates spent the next two days indoors at Athens--doing what, we are not too sure, but perhaps sacrificing privately to Demeter and Persephone, and performing what we might call meditation. Then on the fifth day (the 19th), they made the long march with the "sacred things" back to Eleusis (purple dots), where the sacred things were revealed in the Telesterion on the 20th. This was followed by plemochoai on the 21st, the last day, on which two odd-shaped vessels filled with water were tipped out to the east and west by each initiate, who uttered a mystical phrase...which has not been recorded.

The piglet was obviously important as the animal used to purify the initiates, who aimed at a better afterlife. Here is a statue of piglet dedicated by one initiate, and now at the museum at Eleusis.

After the long march to Eleusis, the initiates arrived in the evening of the fifth day in the sacred precinct of the two goddesses, Demeter and Persephone. The next day, a huge offering of grain is made to Demeter and Persephone, but the initiates themselves fast until evening, when they drink a pennyroyal mixture called kykeion. This red-figure vase shows the major female figures in the myth (Persephone, Demeter, Hecate, and Iambe, from left to right), with Hercules (the most famous mythological initiate) at upper left and Iacchos/Dionysus at upper right. In the center in Triptolemus, the mortal child of the king of Eleusis, to whom Demeter gave the gift of agriculture, and in the left center, a priest of the Eumolpidae, an aristocratic family of Eleusis which provided the "hierophant," the "shower of the sacred things." He carries two torches...the manipulation of light inside the dark Telesterion was apparently part of the mystical experience.

A closeup of the priest.

The Telesterion itself was unlike any other Greek temple. Its seats were cut into the rock itself, and it was designed to hold the large number of initiates in the darkness until they experience the "things said, things done, and things revealed." Consequently the Telesterion does not have the columns and sculpture we associate with Greek sacred architecture. Inside the Telesterion was the Anaktoron, a chamber that only the Hierophant was allowed to enter, and from which, at some point, he spectacularly emerged. The following pictures show a plan of the site at Eleusis, a view looking into the sacred precint, and a view of the Telesterion itself as it is now.

Here is another plan of the Telesterion, with an artist's reconstruction of its appearance during the late 5th century.

The new wine festival of Anthesteria (in the month called Anthesterion, roughly our February) was divided into three days: Pithoigia, Choes, and Chytrai. The second day, Choes, featured most of the ritual actions we know about: the procession of Dionysus (evidently, a masked actor) into the city from the sea, the marriage of the Basilinna to the "god" (either the king archon, or an effigy of the god), and the drinking of one's chous, the wine pitcher that gives this day its name.
This Attic red-figure stamnos (c420 BCE), shows women as maenads pouring libations and beating a drum in front of a Dionysus mask on a post. This may give an indication of what the Basilinna actually got married to.

This red-figure skyphos, many think, shows the Basilinna being led by a satyr to the shrine of Dionysus for the "hieros gamos," the "holy marriage." She is veiled like a bride, and he carries two torches, common items in marriage processions.

A child's chous showing a boy plucking on a lyre. One of the interesting things about these vases is their attempt to show children's bodies; a little dog runs in front of the boy, and even he has a little choes pitcher on his back.

The last day of the festival, Chytrai, feature the pots of beans and vegetable boiled for the dead. It also featured the practice of pushing virgins on swings to commemorate the death of Erigone--the virgin who hung herself after discovering the body of her father, Icarius...who was killed by local Attic farmers after he gave them the gift of wine. You guessed it, the Athenians were struck by a plague until they consulted the oracle at Delphi, who commanded them to put masks up in trees and have their maidens swing during the Anthesteria to atone for the murder of Icarius and the suicide of Erigone. This girl has the good fortune of being pushed by an obedient, and remarkably restrained, satyr.

Well, unfortunately, there are not many pictures to be discovered of the Thesmophoria. It is a women's festival, and it was apparently sacrilegious to depict what they did. The one representation I did find is on a stone calendar from Attica, which represents the figure of Demeter carrying a basket (kiste) on her head, evidently a reference to the Thesmophoria, after the festivals of Pyanepsia (the boy carrying the branch) and Theseia (Poseidon leaning against a rock). I'm still trying to find out what the weird tadpole-like creature with six legs is.