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Athenian Festivals
The festival calendar of Classical Athens involved the staging of many festivals each year. This includes festivals held in honor of Athena, Dionysus, Apollo, Artemis, Demeter, Persephone, Hermes, and Heracles. Other Athenian festivals were based around family, citizenship, sacrifice, and women. There were at least 120 festival days each year. Athena The Panathenaea (, "all-Athenian festival") was the most important festival for Athens and one of the grandest in the entire ancient Greek world. Except for slaves, all inhabitants of the ''polis'' could take part in the festival. This holiday of great antiquity is believed to have been the observance of Athena's birthday and honoured the goddess as the city's patron divinity, Athena Polias ('Athena of the city'). A procession assembled before dawn at the Dipylon Gate in the northern sector of the city. The procession, led by the Kanephoros, made its way to the Areopagus and in front of the Temple of Athena Nike next to the Pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Attic Calendar
The Attic calendar or Athenian calendar is the lunisolar calendar beginning in midsummer with the lunar month of Hekatombaion, in use in ancient Attica, the ancestral territory of the Athenian polis. It is sometimes called the Greek calendar because of Athens's cultural importance, but it is only one of many ancient Greek calendars. Although relatively abundant, the evidence for the Attic calendar is still patchy and often contested. As it was well known in Athens and of little use outside Attica, no contemporary source set out to describe the system as a whole. Further, even during the well-sourced 5th and 4th centuries BC, the calendar underwent changes, not all perfectly understood. As such, any account given of it must be a tentative reconstruction. Local focus The Attic calendar was an exclusively local phenomenon, used to regulate the internal affairs of the Athenians, with little relevance to the outside world. For example, just across the border in Boeotia, the months h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Kanephoros
The Kanephoros (, , pl. Kanephoroi (Greek: ); latinate plural form Canephorae; lit. "Basket Bearers") was an honorific office given to unmarried young women in ancient Greece, which involved the privilege of leading the procession to sacrifice at festivals; the highest honour was to lead the () at the Panathenaic Festival. The role was given to a virgin selected from amongst the aristocratic or Eupatrid families of Athens whose purity and youth was thought essential to ensure a successful sacrifice. Her task was to carry a basket or ''kanoun'' (), which contained the offering of barley or first fruits, the sacrificial knife and fillets to decorate the bull, in procession through the city up to the altar on the acropolis. From Aristophanes’s ''Lysistrata'' we have evidence that the office of kanephoros was the last in a sequence of religious duties that an unmarried Athenian girl might undertake; first as an ''arrephoros, arrhephoros'', later an ''aletris'', then as an ''arktos' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ionia
Ionia ( ) was an ancient region encompassing the central part of the western coast of Anatolia. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state, it was named after the Ionians who had settled in the region before the archaic period. Ionia proper comprised a narrow coastal strip from Phocaea in the north near the mouth of the river Hermus (now the Gediz), to Miletus in the south near the mouth of the river Maeander, and included the islands of Chios and Samos. It was bounded by Aeolia to the north, Lydia to the east and Caria to the south. The cities within the region figured significantly in the strife between the Persian Empire and the Greeks. Ionian cities were identified by mythic traditions of kinship and by their use of the Ionic dialect, but there was a core group of twelve Ionian cities that formed the Ionian League and had a shared sanctuary and festival at Panionion. These twelve cities were (from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Lenaia
The Lenaia () was an annual Athenian festival with a dramatic competition. It was one of the lesser festivals of Athens and Ionia in ancient Greece. The Lenaia took place in Athens in Gamelion, roughly corresponding to January. The festival was in honour of Dionysus Lenaios. There is also evidence the festival also took place in Delphi. The term ''Lenaia'' probably comes from "''lenos''" 'wine-press' or from "''lenai''", another name for the Maenads (the female worshippers of Dionysus). Overview The Lenaia is depicted on numerous vases, which show both typical Maenad scenes and those of aristocrats and wine-mixing rituals. It is unknown exactly what kind of worship occurred at the festival, but it may have been in honor of Dionysus as a youth or the rebirth of Dionysus after his murder by the Titans. It may have also had some connection with the Eleusinian Mysteries, as some of the same religious officials were involved (such as the ''Archon basileus '' and the ''epimeletai''). T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Dionysian Mysteries
The Dionysian Mysteries were a ritual of ancient Greece and Rome which sometimes used intoxicants and other trance-inducing techniques (like dance and music) to remove inhibitions. It also provided some liberation for people marginalized by Greek society, such as slaves, outlaws, and non-citizens. In their final phase the Mysteries shifted their emphasis from a chthonic, underworld orientation to a transcendental, mystical one, with Dionysus changing his nature accordingly. By its nature as a mystery religion reserved for the initiated, many aspects of the Dionysian cult remain unknown and were lost with the decline of Greco-Roman polytheism. Modern knowledge is derived from descriptions, imagery and cross-cultural studies. Origins The Dionysian Mysteries of mainland Greece and the Roman Empire are thought to have evolved from a more primitive initiatory cult of unknown origins. It spread throughout the Mediterranean region by the start of the Classical Greek period. It ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Panathenaia
The Panathenaea (or Panathenaia) was a multi-day ancient Greek festival held annually in Athens that would always conclude on 28 Hekatombaion, the first month of the Attic calendar.Shear, Julia L. "Hadrian, the Panathenaia, and the Athenian Calendar". ''Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik'' 180 (2012): 159. . The main purpose of the festival was for Athenians and non-Athenians to celebrate the goddess Athena. Every four years, the festival was celebrated in a larger manner over a longer time period with increased festivities and was known as the Great (or Greater) Panathenaea. In the years that the festival occurred that were not considered the Great Panathenaea, the festival was known as the Lesser Panathenaea. The festival consisted of various competitions and ceremonies, culminating with a religious procession that ended in the Acropolis of Athens.Shear, Julia L. Serving Athena: The Festival of the Panathenaia and the Construction of Athenian Identities. (New York: Cambr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Greek Comedy
Ancient Greek comedy () was one of the final three principal dramatic forms in the theatre of classical Greece; the others being tragedy and the satyr play. Greek comedy was distinguished from tragedy by its happy endings and use of comically exaggerated character archetypes, the latter feature being the origin of the modern concept of the comedy. Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods; Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the eleven extant plays of Aristophanes; Middle Comedy is largely lost and preserved only in relatively short fragments by authors such as Athenaeus of Naucratis; New Comedy is known primarily from the substantial papyrus fragments of Menander. A burlesque dramatic form that blended tragic and comic elements, known as phlyax play or hilarotragedy, developed in the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia by the late 4th century BC. The philosopher Aristotle wrote in his '' Poetics'' (c. 335 BC) that comedy is a representation of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Tragedy
A tragedy is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a tragic hero, main character or cast of characters. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsis, or a "pain [that] awakens pleasure,” for the audience. While many cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, the term ''tragedy'' often refers to a specific Poetic tradition, tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western culture, Western civilization. That tradition has been multiple and discontinuous, yet the term has often been used to invoke a powerful effect of cultural identity and historical continuity—"the Classical Athens, Greeks and the Elizabethan era, Elizabethans, in one cultural form; Hellenistic civilization, Hellenes and Christians, in a common activity," as Raymond Williams puts it. Originating in the theatre of ancient Greece ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Dionysia
The Dionysia (; Greek: Διονύσια) was a large festival in ancient Athens in honor of the god Dionysus, the central events of which were processions and sacrifices in honor of Dionysus, the theatrical performances of dramatic tragedies and, from 487 BC, comedies. It was the second-most important festival after the Panathenaia. The Dionysia actually consisted of two related festivals, the Rural Dionysia and the City Dionysia, which took place in different parts of the year. Rural Dionysia Origins The Dionysia was originally a rural festival in Eleutherae, Attica ( – ''Dionysia ta kat' agrous''), celebrating the cultivation of vines. Archaeological evidence suggests that theatres for the Rural Dionysia had been constructed as early as the 6th century BCE , but the festival is generally believed to have been celebrated even before that. This "rural Dionysia" was held during the winter, in the month of Poseideon (the month straddling the winter solstice, i.e., ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Peplos
A peplos () is a body-length garment established as typical attire for women in ancient Greece by , during the late Archaic Greece, Archaic and Classical Greece, Classical period. It was a long, rectangular cloth with the top edge folded down about halfway, so that what was the top of the rectangle was now draped below the waist, and the bottom of the rectangle was at the ankle. One side of the peplos could be left open, or pinned or sewn together,"Ancient Greek Dress" ''Heilbronn Timeline of Art History'', Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–2013. Retrieved 7 October 2013. with a type of brooch later called "fibula". In Latin and in a Roman context, it could be called a ''Palla (garment), palla''. It should not be confused with the Ionians, Ionic Chiton (garment), chiton, which was a piece of fabric folded over and sewn toget ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Erechtheum
The Erechtheion (, Latinisation of names, latinized as Erechtheum ; , ) or Temple of Athena Polias is an Classical Greece, ancient Greek Ionic order, Ionic Ancient Greek temple, temple on the north side of the Acropolis of Athens, Acropolis, Athens, which was primarily dedicated to the goddess Athena. The Ionic building, which housed the statue of Athena Polias, has in modern scholarship been called the Erechtheion (the sanctuary of Erechtheus or Poseidon) in the belief that it encompassed two buildings mentioned by the Greek-Roman geographer Pausanias (geographer), Pausanias: the Temple of Athena Polias and the Erechtheion. However, whether the Erechtheion referred to by Pausanias and other sources is indeed the Ionic temple or an entirely different building has become a point of contention in recent decades, with various scholars ruling out that Athena and Erechtheus were worshipped in a single building. Alternative suggested locations of the true Erechtheion include the structu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Parthenon
The Parthenon (; ; ) is a former Ancient Greek temple, temple on the Acropolis of Athens, Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the Greek gods, goddess Athena. Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of classical Art in Ancient Greece, Greek art, and the Parthenon is considered an enduring symbol of Ancient Greece, democracy, and western culture, Western civilization. The Parthenon was built in the 5th century BC in thanksgiving for the Greek victory over the Achaemenid Empire, Persian invaders during the Greco-Persian Wars. Like most Greek temples, the Parthenon also served as the city treasury. Construction started in 447 BC when the Delian League was at the peak of its power. It was completed in 438 BC; work on the artwork and decorations continued until 432 BC. For a time, it served as the treasury of the Delian League, which later became the Athenian Empire. In the final decade of the 6th century AD, the Parthenon was converted into ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
