Festivals of the Athenians


Book Description

A descriptive study of the religious festivals of the ancient Athenians, depicting and explaining the behavior associated with each, speculating on what happened at the mysteries, and elucidating the primitivism that pervaded classical Greek thought




Festivals of the Athenians


Book Description




Athenian Myths and Festivals


Book Description

Moving out from a particular problem about a particular Athenian festival, the late Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood investigates central questions concerning Athenian festivals and the myths that underlay them. This is the final work of an iconic figure among students of Greek religion.




Serving Athena


Book Description

In ancient Athens, the Panathenaia was the most important festival and was celebrated in honour of Athena from the middle of the sixth century BC until the end of the fourth century AD. This in-depth study examines how this all-Athenian celebration was an occasion for constructing identities and how it affected those identities. Since not everyone took part in the same way, this differential participation articulated individuals' relationships both to the goddess and to the city so that the festival played an important role in negotiating what it meant to be Athenian (and non-Athenian). Julia Shear applies theories of identity formation which were developed in the social sciences to the ancient Greek material and brings together historical, epigraphical, and archaeological evidence to provide a better understanding both of this important occasion and of Athenian identities over the festival's long history.




The Athenian Adonia in Context


Book Description

A fresh examination of a marginalized women's festival that influenced Athenian art, drama, philosophy, and public institutions.




Worshipping Athena


Book Description

Ten papers from 1992 symposia at Dartmouth College and Princeton University are augmented by an original chapter and a translation of a Greek article, to explore the myth and cult of Athena, contests and prizes associated with her worship, and art and politics generated around her. Among the topics are women in the Panathenaic and other festivals, the iconography of shield devices and column-mounted statues on amphoras, and the Panatheniaia in the age of Perikles. Paper edition (unseen), $22.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR




The Thesmophoriazusae


Book Description

Thesmophoriazusae was performed in Athens in 411 BCE, most likely at the City Dionysia, and is among the most brilliant of Aristophanes' eleven surviving comedies. It is the story of the crucial moment in a quarrel between the tragic playwright Euripides and Athens' women, who accuse him of slandering them in his plays and are holding a meeting at one of their secret festivals to set a penalty for his crimes. Thesmophoriazusae is a brilliantly inventive comedy, full of wild slapstick humour and devastating literary parody, and is a basic source for questions of gender and sexuality in late 5th-century Athens and for the popular reception of Euripidean tragedy.




Inscriptional Records for the Dramatic Festivals in Athens


Book Description

Millis and Olson offer a updated edition of IG II2 2318–2325, the most substantial surviving evidence for the institutional history of the Athenian dramatic festivals. Fresh texts, detailed discussion of restorations, and full epigraphic and prosopographic commentary are included.




Goddess and Polis


Book Description

While the Olympics, because of their modern revival, enjoy the greatest fame today, in ancient Greece other religious festivals were equally elaborate and impressive spectacles. The lavishly illustrated Goddess and Polis is the first work devoted to the Panathenaia, the most significant of these festivals to be held in ancient Athens. Founded in 566 B.C., this complex ritual performed for the goddess Athena vied with other Greek festivals in grandeur and importance and was particularly distinguished by the works of art commissioned in its service. Among these were the painted vases known as Panathenaic amphoras, each of which contained forty liters of olive oil, awarded to athletic and equestrian victors. The contests depicted on these vases are the best extant illustrations of Greek sport. Although women were excluded from the competitions, they had an important role to play in the weaving of the peplos, an elaborate textile that took nine months to produce. The culmination of the festival was a long procession bearing this new robe to the cult statue of the goddess; the procession in turn was the subject of another great work of art, the Parthenon frieze. Combining art, spectacle, and civic consciousness, the Panathenaia contributed to the development of the high classical style of Periklean Athens. This book deals with every aspect of the festival and produces a vivid portrait of the worship of the patron goddess of the city. Essays by eminent classical scholars examine in depth the musical and poetic competitions, the athletic and equestrian contests, the peplos, and the evolving image of Athena as documented in sculpture from the Acropolis. Jenifer Neils, the curator of the exhibition Goddess and Polis, held at the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, has contributed an introduction to the Panathenaia, an essay on the prize amphoras, and detailed entries for the seventy objects exhibited.




The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Athens


Book Description

This book is a comprehensive introduction to ancient Athens, its topography, monuments, inhabitants, cultural institutions, religious rituals, and politics. Drawing from the newest scholarship on the city, this volume examines how the city was planned, how it functioned, and how it was transformed from a democratic polis into a Roman urbs.




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