The Artemis Agrotera was associated with the battle of Marathon in the Persian War. The Genesia was a state celebration in honor of the dead, coming at the end of the military campaigning season. The Metageitnia (?), dedicated to Apollo - ancient sources are unclear.Ī festival of Heracles in the athletic field of the town of Kynosarges, which we know to have been nearby Athens, though its exact location remains uncertain.Įleusinian Mysteries - celebrated during what was planting season in ancient Greece. The Synoikia celebrated the union of the peoples of Attica into one community.
A rather unimportant festival, its chief peculiarity was that it was a holiday for slaves and they were allowed to dine with their masters. The Kronia was dedicated to Kronos, who appears to have been the god of the grain harvest. The Panathenaia was celebrated with particular grandeur every fourth year, when it was called the Greater Panathenaia. First prize at this festival was one of a writer's most coveted honors. The best poets and playwrights from many parts of the Greek-speaking world competed. In 566/5 B.C., athletic games and competitions for performances of famous poems and the plays were added. Each year, the statue of Athena in her temple on the Acropolis would be presented with a new robe, called the peplos. The Panathenaia, the most famous and important festival in Athens brought together people from all over Attica and the other regions where Athens held influence to heap honors upon Athena, the goddess of Athens.
Those given below in parentheses roughly correlate to the Greek month. Greek months do not correspond exactly with the months of our calendar. In general, the 6th day of a month was dedicated to Artemis, the 7th to Apollo, and the 8th to Poseidon. The year was thought to begin in July, with the year's most important festival, the Panathenaia, and end in June with a closing ceremony. We know the Athenian names best and those are given below. While the Greek city-states all followed twelve-month years, with each month beginning on the new moon, each city derived its own names for the months from festivals that the city celebrated at that time of year. The festivals were so pivotal that they served as the primary way an ancient Greek citizen would have kept track of time as the months passed. These festivals could be minor, local single-day affairs, or week-long multiple-city benders. They would have been the major opportunities for a population that lived largely on subsistence farming to eat meat. These sacrifices served not only the needs of the gods, but also the very mundane needs of the people. Common activities at festivals included athletic competitions, artistic competitions (including the reciting of poetry and hymns and the performance of plays), large feasts, and religious sacrifices. Greek religious life centered on the festival, which is something like a modern-day religious service, track meet, "Shakespeare in the park" theater performance, and Mardi Gras party all rolled into one.
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