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Ancient Greece: Festivals and Religion

Gillian Shepherd The ancient Greeks did not have a holy book like the Hebrew Bible or the Koran or the Zoroastrian Avesta. Indeed there was no a catechism of uniform and authoritative doctrines, nor was there a concept of incorrect doctrine or heresy. The Greeks certainly told stories about their gods, we know these stories as , but this body of traditional tales was constantly changing.

Greek religion was not matter of believing but of doing. Religion was a matter of honouring the gods through ancestral customs: festivals, rituals and dedications. Communication with the divine occurred through , and signs.

2. there was complete integration of what we would call sacred and secular; the government funded public worship and enforced laws that demanded that citizens participate in religious festivals and observances for the good of the community.

Image source: https://www.boundless.com/art-history/ancient-greece/the-greek- civilization/religion-and-sacred-spaces/ Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License Sanctuary of at creative commons. Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Delphi_Composite.jpg The ancient stadium Nemea.

Creative Commons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nemea_Stadion_2008-09-12.jpg Hekatombaion- ( and ); Synoikia (? and ); Panathenaia (Athena). summer

Metageitnion-Heracleia (); Eleutheria ()

Boedromion-Gemesia/Nemesia/Nekysia (); Marathon (); Boedromia ( Apollo); Charisteria (Athena ?); Eleusinia ( and ); Asklepeia, () autumn

Pyanopsion- (Apollo); Oschophoria (Apollo); Theseia (); (Demeter and Persephone); Apatouria (Zeus Phratrios and Athena); Chalkeia (Athena and )

Maimakterion

Poseidon-Country (); Haloia (Dionysus) winter

Gamelion-Epilinaia (Dionysus; Theogamia (Zeus and )

Anthesterion-Anthisteria (Dionysus); Lesser Mysteries (Demeter, Persephone, and Dionysus); Diaisia (Zeus ). spring Elapebolion-City Dionysia (Dionysus); (Zeus)

Mounychion-Delphinia (Apollo); Mounichia (Artemis); Olympieia (Zeus)

Thargelion- (Apollo); Bendideia (Artemis Bendis); Kallynteria (Athena); Plynteria (Athena). summer

Skiraphorion-/Skiraphoria (Athena); Dipolia/Disoteria (Zeus Polieus). Sacrifice of a young boar, Attic red-figure cup, ca. 510 BC–500 BCE.

http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/LX/ SacrificeBoarLouvreG112.jpg Athene’s victory over From a statue group depicting the Gigantomachy (the battle between the Olympian gods and the ) , ca 525 BCE.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2115/ 2239021642_af05809558_z.jpg?zz =1 Image source: http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/arth209/parthenon_gallery.html https://sites.google.com/site/publicprocessiongallery/home/athens/the-panathenaic-procession/the-ancient-agora-and-panathenaic-way Reconstructed Peplos kore. Staatliche Antikensammlunge n und Glyptothe

Image source: http://upload.wikimedia.or Attic red figure , g/wikipedia/commons/9/9 Chiusi, Penelope Painter: Penelope 3/NAMABG- Peplos_kore_as_Athena- and Telemachos, ca . 430 BCE Artemis.JPG

Image source: http://www.utexas.edu/courses/introgreece/penelope_weaving.jpg

Image source http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Erechtheum1.JPG commons Women engaged in wool working , ca. 550– 530 BCE.

Image source: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/31.11.10 Parthenon (northwest)

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ancientcivilizations/2214554375/sizes/o/in/set- 72157603781923290/ License All rights reserved by Journey to Ancient Civilizations Parthenon Freize

Image source: http://gallery.nen.gov.uk/asset73083_1158-.html Image source: http://repository.parthenonfrieze.gr/frieze/retrieve/1633/n47_LARGE_NUM.jpg

So-called Ergastinai (“weavers”) block, from the east frieze of the Parthenon in Athens. c. 445–435 BCE currently in the .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Egastinai_frieze_Louvre_MR825.jpg. Public domain. Peplos scene? Parthenon freize 445 BCE

GNU Free Documentation License, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Peplos scene_BM.JPG (left) two maidens carry diphroi (stools) on their heads; one in frontal stance, the other moving toward the centre. These may be the arrephoroi, girls aged 7 to 11 who took part in beginning the weaving of the goddess’ peplos with the ergastinai. The women receiving the stool from the second girl may be the priestess of Athena.

The man behind the priestess may be the archon-basileus. He is folding or unfolding Athena’s peplos, aided by a boy. On the right side of block V the goddess Athena (36) sits with her back to the peplos scene, beside her is a bearded god whose walking- stick identifies him as Hephaistos.

http://www.ekt.gr/parthenonfrieze_text_version/images/east/E5.jpg Greater Panathenaia: Hecatombaion 23-30. (sunset to sunset)

Hecatombaion 23-27: days 1-5 agones, or games: athletic contests: races over various distances, javelin, discus, pankration, jumping, a hoplite race in armor, a javelin throw from horseback, team events such as mock battles on horseback, recitations of the and in which contestants were required to continue from wherever the previous singer ended, musical competitions, the euandria.

Hecatombaion 28: day 6 The great procession. After all night celebration and dancing (pannychis), the day begins with a torch race from the grove of the Acadamia to the Acropolis to light the fire on Athena’s altar. The great pompe follows.

Hecatombaion 29-30: day 7-8 equestrian events including a race (apabatoi) in which lightly armed warriors leapt off racing chariots at full speed, and a regatta. Prize giving Jeffery Hurwitt, 1998.The Athenian Acropolis: History, Mythology, and Archaeology from the Neolithic Era to the Present. Cambridge UP. Panathenaic ca 480 BCE. Inscription: TON ATHENETHEN ATHLON (from the games at Athens) height 62.2 cm

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~yaleart/objects/panathenaic- amphora-2/ Panathenaic Amphora. ca.520 BCE.

http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search -the-collections/254862 The mysteries of Demeter and Persephone at

Fragments of a Roman copy set in a plaster cast of the original Greek marble relief, ca. 450–425 BCE

Image source: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of- art/14.130.9 The Mysteries of Demeter and Persephone was one of the most important of the religious cults of . It was a source of peace and consolation for initiates; according to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter:

Blessed is the mortal on earth who has seen these rites, but the uninitiated who has no share in them never has the same lot once dead in the dreary darkness. HHD 480-82

From perhaps as early as Mycenaean times until about 400 CE, countless Greeks and foreigners, men and women, slaves, even Roman emperors converged annually on Athens and Eleusis to take part in the sacred rites. The Mysteries were uniquely egalitarian; open to anyone who spoke Greek and had not committed murder. The Roman Cicero said that Athens had given to mankind "nothing finer” and that initiates into the mysteries “acquire not only a way of living in happiness but also a way of dying with greater hope" (De legibus, 2.36). In 405 BCE brings a chorus of initiates onstage in his comedy Frogs:

Come, let us go to the flower-strewn meadows. 439ff. Let us pick armfuls of roses. Let us dance our beautiful dance, … For us, only for us, the sun shines, never setting with its sweet light; for us, who extend a welcome to you all, brothers and strangers

Seated on a stool covered by a fleece, the goddess drew the veil before her face. Torre Nova Sarcophagus For a long time she sat voiceless with grief on the stool 3rd CE Rome And responded to no-one with word or gesture. Unsmiling, tasting neither food nor drink… She then bid them mix barley and water with soft mint [pennyroyal] and give her to drink. Metaneira made and gave the drink to the goddess as she bid. Almighty Deo received it for the sake of the rite. HHD 192-211

Telesterion at Eleusis

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolemage/8191841684/sizes/o/in/phot ostream/ creative commons some rights reserved.