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3 results

  • 7 - Local Variation in the Thesmophoria Festival: A Case Study of the Attic and Sicilian Thesmophoria Festivals

  • Edited by Hans Beck, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany, Julia Kindt, University of Sydney
  • Book:
    The Local Horizon of Ancient Greek Religion
    Published online:
    06 April 2023
    Print publication:
    13 April 2023, pp 205-231

  • Summary

    This chapter explores the Thesmophoria as a festival that was celebrated in multiple places in the ancient Greek world. McLardy approaches this festival from a comparative perspective, investigating its manifestations at Attica and on Sicily. Through an analysis of similarities and differences in the celebrations at these two locations, she shows how the festival drew on local landscapes, myths, and histories. In highlighting the local horizon, McLardy takes issue with an approach that has focused on describing the general elements of the festival (at the price of everything else) and that has pieced them together in a composite account. In her contribution, local elements are more than mere deviations from a universal template. Rather, such local dimensions of the Thesmophoria illustrate how Greek religion remained deeply embedded in the way people lived.

  • 7 - Local Variation in the Thesmophoria Festival: A Case Study of the Attic and Sicilian Thesmophoria Festivals

  • Edited by Hans Beck, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany, Julia Kindt, University of Sydney
  • Book:
    The Local Horizon of Ancient Greek Religion
    Published online:
    06 April 2023
    Print publication:
    13 April 2023, pp 205-231

  • Summary

    This chapter explores the Thesmophoria as a festival that was celebrated in multiple places in the ancient Greek world. McLardy approaches this festival from a comparative perspective, investigating its manifestations at Attica and on Sicily. Through an analysis of similarities and differences in the celebrations at these two locations, she shows how the festival drew on local landscapes, myths, and histories. In highlighting the local horizon, McLardy takes issue with an approach that has focused on describing the general elements of the festival (at the price of everything else) and that has pieced them together in a composite account. In her contribution, local elements are more than mere deviations from a universal template. Rather, such local dimensions of the Thesmophoria illustrate how Greek religion remained deeply embedded in the way people lived.

  • 8e - Athenian Cults and Festivals

  • from 8 - Greek culture, religion and society in the fifth century b.c.
  • Edited by David M. Lewis, John Boardman, J. K. Davies, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    26 March 1992, pp 245-267

  • Summary

    The rituals of Greek polis festivals contain elements of great antiquity. Particular traits of animal sacrifice as found especially in the Athenian ceremony of ox-murder, Buphonia, have been traced to the Paleolithic period, and the women's festival of Thesmophoria has been credited with a Stone Age character, too. Much of the documentation still consists in the material remains of cults in the sanctuaries as recovered and analysed by archaeology. But the growth of literacy led to the greater regulation of religion including leges sacrae, were published in the form of inscriptions under the pressure of the democratic system. The Athenian year begins in summer after harvest, with the first month, Hekatombaion, roughly corresponding to July. Divination had played its part in overthrowing the tyrants. The mysteries became part of the prestige of Athens and retained their authority, and their identity, for about one thousand years.