Celtic god Lugh, the god of the sun and agricultural fertility.
Th e harvest season began at this time and lasted until the end
of October. In some areas the beginning of the harvest was
marked by gathering wild berries; if the berries were plenti-
ful, crops would be too. Young people participated in games
of athletic skill; horse racing naked was a popular sport in
Ireland.
Th e autumn equinox fell around September 21 and
marked the beginning of autumn. Numerous ancient stone
structures were designed to catch the light of the rising sun
on this date. Th e Druids celebrated the equinox by burning
a large wicker fi gure that represented the plant spirit; some
scholars believe that this custom was the origin of Julius Cae-
sar’s belief that Druids practiced human sacrifi ce.
GREECE
BY CHRISTOPHER BLACKWELL
Every ancient Greek community celebrated a number of fes-
tivals, heortai, throughout the year. Th ese were simultane-
ously religious and social events. Festivals honored various
gods but also provided occasions for members of a commu-
nity or members of various communities to come together
in celebration. Th ere were other religious events during the
year, recurring rituals of various kinds, and public sacrifi ces.
Festivals stand out, however, because they were decidedly
enjoyable occasions, never somber or grim, as certain other
rituals might be.
Some of the oldest festivals had to do with the cycles of
the agricultural year and were associated with divinities of
the earth and the environment. Th e Mysteries celebrated at
Eleusis, near Athens, honored Demeter and marked the end
of winter. Citizens of Athens celebrated plowing with the Pro-
erosia, planting with the Th esmophoria, and harvesting with
the Anthesteria. Other festivals marked periods of transition
in human life, particularly transitions during childhood and
from childhood to adulthood. Athenian boys were initiated
into the community at the festival of the Apaturia. Th is took
place in the autumn at each of the small subcommunities of
Attica. Th e three days of this festival included the Dorpia, a
dinner feast ringing in the festival; a sacrifi ce to Zeus and
Athena (the patron goddess of Athens); and the Koureōtis,
the fi nal admission of the young men into the community.
Boys would participate in this festival at least three times
during their childhood: fi rst when they were small children;
again when they entered the “ephebate,” a period of military
instruction for adolescents; and fi nally when they married.
Athenian girls were initiated into the community at the
festival of the Brauronia, named aft er its location at a sanc-
tuary in the town of Brauron near Athens, also called the
Arkteia, or “bear festival.” Celebrated in honor of the goddess
Artemis, this festival involved Athenian girls between fi ve
and 10 years old who dressed as bears and gathered to per-
form dances. Scholars disagree on the meaning of this ritual,
but many think it was an occasion to celebrate the “wildness”
of young girls, who would eventually be “tamed” by marriage
and take their position as women of the community.
Some festivals were purely local, specifi c to a small vil-
lage or town. Others emphasized the relationship among
towns, united into the larger political entity of the city-state,
or polis. Athens, which was a political unity of the city of Ath-
ens with the many towns of the territory of Attica, celebrated
this coming together, or synoikism, during the festival of the
Synoikia and celebrated its unity and greatness at the Pana-
thenaea, or All-Athens festival. Th e latter festival, in honor
of the goddess Athena, began with a procession, or pompē,
through the city; the procession involved all members of the
community, including children, unmarried young men and
women, soldiers, and resident aliens. During this festival the
married women of Athens would present a new cloak, or pep-
los, to the statue of Athena in the Parthenon, having woven
the garment collectively during the year.
Th e most famous of festivals among the ancient Greeks
were the “agonistic” festivals, featuring competitions. Th ese
competitions fell into two categories: Gymnastic festivals had
athletic competition, and musical festivals, having to do with
the Muses, had competitions in poetry or drama. Th e most
famous gymnastic festival was that in honor of Zeus, held at
Olympia in the Peloponnese every four years beginning in
776 b.c.e. Th is festival, open to participants throughout the
Greek world, featured competitions in foot racing (including
a race in which runners wore bronze armor), chariot racing,
boxing and wrestling, and weight lift ing. So important was
this Olympic festival that warring states regularly called a
truce to enable participants to travel to Olympia safely. Other
festivals of athletic competition were the Nemean Games,
held in honor of Heracles; the Pythian Games, held in Del-
phi in honor of Apollo; and the Panathenaic Games, held in
Athens.
Of the musical festivals, the most famous were the dra-
matic festivals at Athens, the occasion for the production and
performance of tragedies and comedies. Th ere were two main
dramatic festivals celebrated by the Athenians, the Dionysia
and the Lenaea. Th e Dionysia was celebrated in the spring,
timed to coincide with the opening of the sailing season on
the Aegean Sea, aft er the unpredictable storms of winter had
passed. Th is festival was the occasion for Athens to show it-
self off to the rest of the Greek world, and it was open to all
Greeks. During the period of Athens’s naval empire, in the
fi ft h century, their “allies,” subject states, sent representatives
bearing annual tribute, which was presented to the city of
Athens in a public ceremony during the festival.
Th e focus of the Dionysia was the Th eater of Dionysus,
which was at once a theater and a temple. Th e democratic
government of Athens arranged for public funding of plays,
both tragedies and comedies. Each play was acted by two or
three professional actors and a trained and choreographed
chorus of citizens. Plays competed for prizes, with a panel of
judges awarding prizes for best play, best actor, and so forth.
A comic playwright would compete with a single play, but468 festivals: Greece