The Arrival of the God
“For in the month Anthesterion a trireme raised into the air is escorted into the agora which the priest of Dionysos steers like a helmsman with its lines loose from the sea.” (Philostratos, Lives of the Sophists 1.25.1)
The Opening of the Jars
“At the temple of Dionysos in Lemnai the Athenians bring the new wine from the jars and mix it in honor of the god and then they drink it themselves. Because of this custom Dionysos is called Limnaios, because the wine was mixed with water and then for the first time drunk diluted. Therefore the streams were called Nymphs and Nurses of Dionysos because mixed-in water increases the wine. Then having taken pleasure in the mixture they hymned Dionysos in songs, dancing and addressing him as Euanthes and Dithyrambos and the Bacchic One and Bromios.” (Phanodemos, cited in Athenaios’ Deipnosophistai 11.465a)
The Child’s First sip of Wine from a Cup for Funereal Libations
“He was of an age for ‘Khoic’ things, but Fate anticipated the Choes.” (IG ii 13139.71)
The City Erupts in Drunken Revelry
“It is commanded to those bringing back the victory spoils that they revile and make jokes about the most famous men along with their generals, like those escorts on wagons during the Athenian festival who used to carry on with jokes but now sing improvisational poems.” (Dionysios Halikarnassos, Roman Antiquities 7.72.11)
The Dead Walk Among us
“Meaning outside the door. There is a proverbial phrase “outdoors, Kares, the Anthesteria are over.” Some say the expression arises because of the number of Carian slaves, since during the Anthesteria they were praying and not working. Thus when the festival was finished they sent them off to their work saying “outdoors, Kares, the Anthesteria are over.” Some, however, say the expression this way: “outdoors, Keres, the Anthesteria are not in here.” On the basis that during the Anthesteria the souls [κῆρες] would be wandering throughout the city.” (Suidas, s.v. Θύραζε “outside the door”)
The Table of the Matricide
“When Orestes arrived at Athens after killing his mother Demophon wanted to receive him, but was not willing to let him approach the sacred rites nor share the libations, since he had not yet been put on trial. So he ordered the sacred things to be locked up and a separate pitcher of wine to be set beside each person, saying that a flat cake would be given as a prize to the one who drained his first. He also ordered them, when they had stopped drinking, not to put the wreathes with which they were crowned on the sacred objects, because they had been under the same roof with Orestes. Rather each one was to twine them around his own pitcher.” (Athenaios, Deipnosophistai 10.437c-d)
Swinging for the Mournful Maid
“Sorrowful Erigone weeping in the Marathonian wood beside the body of her slain father, her plaints exhausted, began to untie the sad knot of her girdle and chose sturdy branches intent on death.” (Statius, Thebaid 11.644)
Crowned with flowers
“Children in Athens during the month of Anthesterion are crowned with flowers on the third year from birth.” (Philostratos, Heroikos 12.2)
Aroused
“It is the eighth month amongst the Athenians, sacred to Dionysos. It is so called because most things bloom (anthein) from the earth at that time.” (Suidas, s.v. Anthesterion)
The Pure and Ineffable Mystery
“And this woman offered for you on behalf of the city the unspeakably holy rites, and she saw what it was inappropriate for her, being a foreigner, to see; and being a foreigner she entered where no other of all the Athenians except the wife of the king enters; she administered the oath to the gerarai who serve at the rites, and she was given to Dionysos as his bride, and she performed on behalf of the city the traditional acts, many sacred and ineffable ones, towards the gods. In ancient times, Athenians, there was a monarchy in our city, and the kingship belonged to those who in turn were outstanding because of being indigenous. The king used to make all of the sacrifices, and his wife used to perform those which were most holy and ineffable – and appropriately since she was queen. But when Theseus centralized the city and created a democracy, and the city became populace, the people continued no less than before to select the king, electing him from among the most distinguished in noble qualities. And they passed a law that his wife should be an Athenian who has never had intercourse with another man, but that he should marry a virgin, in order that according to ancestral custom she might offer the ineffably holy rites on behalf of the city, and that the customary observances might be done for the gods piously, and that nothing might be neglected or altered. They inscribed this law on a stele and set it beside the altar in the sanctuary of Dionysos En Limnais. This stele is still standing today, displaying the inscription in worn Attic letters. Thus the people bore witness about their own piety toward the god and left a testament for their successors that we require her who will be given to the god as his bride and will perform the sacred rites to be that kind of woman. For these reasons they set in the most ancient and holy temple of Dionysos in Limnai, so that most people could not see the inscription. For it is opened once each year, on the twelfth of the month Anthesterion. These sacred and holy rites for the celebration of which your ancestors provided so well and so magnificently, it is your duty, men of Athens, to maintain with devotion, and likewise to punish those who insolently defy your laws and have been guilty of shameless impiety toward the gods; and this for two reasons: first, that they may pay the penalty for their crimes; and, secondly, that others may take warning, and may fear to commit any sin against the gods and against the state. I wish now to call before you the sacred herald who waits upon the wife of the king, when she administers the oath to the venerable priestesses as they carry their baskets in front of the altar before they touch the victims, in order that you may hear the oath and the words that are pronounced, at least as far as it is permitted you to hear them; and that you may understand how august and holy and ancient the rites are. I live a holy life and am pure and unstained by all else that pollutes and by commerce with man and I will celebrate the feast of the wine god and the Iobacchic feast in honor of Dionysos in accordance with custom and at the appointed times. You have heard the oath and the accepted rites handed down by our fathers, as far as it is permitted to speak of them, and how this woman, whom Stephanos betrothed to Theogenes when the latter was king, as his own daughter, performed these rites, and administered the oath to the venerable priestesses; and you know that even the women who behold these rites are not permitted to speak of them to anyone else. Let me now bring before you a piece of evidence which was, to be sure, given in secret, but which I shall show by the facts themselves to be clear and true.” (Demosthenes, Against Neaira 73; 74-79)
The Ancient Drowned Ones
“During the month of Anthesterion they have many memorial ceremonies for the destruction and ruin brought about by rain, since around that time the Flood happened.” (Plutarch, Life of Sulla 14)
The Women who Sing Foreign Dirges
“Meaning with a mournful song. For the Carians were a kind of dirge-singer and mourned the dead of others for payment. But some understood Plato to mean in a non-Greek and obscure language; because the Carians speak a barbarian language.” (Suidas, s.v. Καρικῇ Μούσῃ “with a Carian muse”)
A soupy meal for the Hermes Below
“Those who had survived the great deluge of Deukalion boiled pots of every kind of seed, and from this the festival gets its name. It is their custom to sacrifice to Hermes Chthonios. No one tastes the pot. The survivors did this in propitiation to Hermes on behalf of those who had died.” (Theopompos, in the Scholia to Aristophanes’ Acharnians 1076)
Cleansing the Doors
“A plant that at the Choes they chewed from dawn as a preventative medicine. They also smeared their houses with pitch for this is unpollutable. Therefore also at the birth of children they smear their houses to drive away daimones.” (Photius s.v. buckthorn)
Tagged: anthesteria, dionysos, erigone, hermes
