Thesmophoria
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The Thesmophoria (
Festival
The Thesmophoria was one of the most widespread ancient Greek festivals.[1] The fact that it was celebrated across the Greek world suggests that it dates back to before the Greek settlement in Ionia in the eleventh century BCE.[2] The best evidence for the Thesmophoria concern its practice in Athens, but there is also information from elsewhere in the Greek world, including Arcadia,[3] Sicily and Eretria.[4]
The festival was dedicated to Demeter and her daughter Persephone[5] and was celebrated in order to promote fertility, both human and agricultural.[1] It was celebrated only by women, and men were forbidden to see or hear about the rites.[4] It is not certain whether all free women celebrated the Thesmophoria, or whether this was restricted to aristocratic women;[6] whichever was the case, non-citizen and unmarried women appear not to have celebrated the festival.[7] In fact, participation was expected of all Attic wives, and could serve as a form of proof of marriage.[8]
In Athens, the Thesmophoria took place over three days, from the eleventh to the thirteenth of
The main source about the rituals of the Thesmophoria comes from a scholion on Lucian's Dialogues of the Courtesans.[11] A second major source is Aristophanes' play Thesmophoriazusae;[12] however, Aristophanes' portrayal of the festival mixes authentically Thesmophoric elements with elements from other Greek religious practice, especially the worship of Dionysus.
Rituals
According to the scholiast on Lucian, during the Thesmophoria pigs were
It is not certain how long the remains of the pigs were left in the megara. The fact that they had decomposed by the time that they were retrieved shows that they had been left in the pits for some time. Possibly they were thrown in during one festival and retrieved the next year. However, if they were thrown in during the Thesmophoria and retrieved in time for the sowing of seeds that year, then they may have only been left for a few weeks before being taken out again.[14]
Anodos
The first day of the Thesmophoria at Athens was known as anodos ("ascent"). This is usually thought to be because on this day the women celebrating the festival ascended to the shrine called the Thesmophorion.[17] Preparations for the rest of the festival were made on this day: two women were elected to oversee the celebrations. Women also set up tents on this day; they would spend the rest of the festival staying in these rather than at home.[11]
Matthew Dillon argues that the name anodos is more likely to relate to the ascent of Persephone from the underworld, which was celebrated at the festival. Dillon suggests that a sacrifice to celebrate this ascent was performed on the first day of the festival.[17]
Nesteia
The second day of the festival was called the nesteia. This was a day of fasting,
Kalligeneia
The third day of the Thesmophoria was kalligeneia, or "beautiful birth". On this day, women called upon the goddess Kalligeneia, praying for their own fertility. Plutarch notes that in Eretria the women did not call upon Kalligeneia during the Thesmophoria.[17]
See also
References
- ^ a b Habash 1997, p. 20.
- ^ Chlup 2007, p. 74.
- ^ Herodotus, 2.171
- ^ a b c Dillon 2002, p. 110.
- ^ Habash 1997, p. 19.
- ^ Dillon 2002, p. 118.
- ^ Dillon 2002, p. 112.
- S2CID 74391789.
- ^ a b Tzanetou 2002, p. 331.
- ^ a b Dillon 2002, p. 111.
- ^ a b c d Tzanetou 2002, p. 333.
- ^ a b c d Dillon 2002, p. 114.
- ^ Dillon 2002, p. 116.
- ^ a b Dillon 2002, p. 115.
- ^ Tzanetou 2002, pp. 333–334.
- ^ Burkert 1985, p. 244.
- ^ a b c d e Dillon 2002, p. 113.
- ^ Chlup 2007, p. 87.
Works cited
- ISBN 0-674-36280-2.
- Chlup, Radek (2007). "The Semantics of Fertility: Levels of Meaning in the Thesmophoria" (PDF). Kernos. 20.
- Dillon, Matthew (2002). Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415202728.
- Habash, Martha (1997). "The Odd Thesmophoria of Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae". Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies. 38 (1).
- Herodotus, Histories, Book 2.
- Tzanetou, Angeliki (2002). "Something to do with Demeter: Ritual and Performance in Aristophanes' Women at the Thesmophoria". American Journal of Philology. 123 (3): 329–367. S2CID 162596042.
- Pritchard, David M. “The Position of Attic Women in Democratic Athens.” Greece and Rome, vol. 61, no. 2, 2014, pp. 174–193., .
Further reading
- Harrison, Jane Ellen (1903). Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. Cambridge University Press.
- Kerenyi, Karl (1967). Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter.
- Håland, Evy Johanne (2017). Greek Festivals, Modern and Ancient: A Comparison of Female and Male Values, 2 vols. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing (or. Norwegian 2007, translated by the author).