This document summarizes many important ancient Greek festivals and religious celebrations. It describes festivals dedicated to major Greek gods like Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Athena, Demeter, Dionysus, and Aphrodite. For each festival it provides the name, date, location, key activities, religious significance, and purpose. The largest and most important festivals included the Olympic Games, Panathenaea, Dionysia, Eleusinian Mysteries, and others. Rituals typically involved sacrifices, processions, competitions, and ceremonies to honor the gods and mark changing seasons.

1. ANCIENT GREEK
FESTIVALS
Student: M.A.Vinokurova
Group АОП-112
Checked by: M.V.Maksimova
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
NORTH-EASTERN FEDERAL UNIVERSITY
INSTITUTE OF FOREIGN PHILOLOGY AND REGIONAL STUDIES
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH PHILOLOGY AND REGIONAL STUDIES
YAKUTSK 2015

2. Plato, Laws, 8.828b:
“that there are twelve feasts to the twelve gods who give their names to the several tribes:
to each of these they shall perform monthly sacrifices and assign choirs and musical
contests, and also gymnastic contests, as is suitable both to the gods themselves and to the
several seasons of the year;”

3. processions
FESTIVAL ACTIVITIES INCLUDED:
singing

4. dancing sacrifices

5. Banquets

6. Demeter - Persephone
- initiation ceremonies of greatest importance based at
Eleusis, promoting a belief that there was a hope for
life after death for those who were initiated.
THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES
14th-23th boedromion
Cicero, Laws II, xiv, 36:
«For among the many excellent and indeed
divine institutions which your Athens has brought
forth and contributed to human life, none, in my
opinion, is better than those mysteries. For by
their means we have been brought out of our
barbarous and savage mode of life and educated
and refined to a state of civilization; and as the
rites are called "initiations," so in very truth we
have learned from them the beginnings of life,
and have gained the power not only to live
happily, but also to die with a better hope.»

7. - women-only festival, promoting fertility and forming a union of women
THESMOPHORIA
11th-13th pyanepsion
more about
thesmophoria:
→ «Thesmophori
azusae»,
Aristophanes
sacrifice:
pigs
name derives
from thesmoi,
or laws by
which men
must work the
land
virgins were
not
permitted
to take part

8. Aphrodite goddess of love, beauty and sexuality
an annual festival held in honor of the goddess Aphrodite, took place in
several towns, but was especially important in Attica and on the Cyprus,
where Aphrodite Pandemos was celebrated with a magnificent celebration
APHRODISIA
4th-7th hekatombaion the first ritual
of the festival
is purifying
the temple
with the
blood from a
dove
afterwards
worshippers are
carrying sacred
images of the
goddess in a
procession to be
washed
it was not
permitted to make
bloody sacrifices,
since the altar
could not be
polluted with the
blood of the
sacrifice victims,
which were
usually white male
goats, excluding
the blood of the
sacred dove

9. Zeus god of the sky, lightning, thunder, law, order, justice
OLYMPIC GAMES
every 4 years
- religious and athletic festival held in Olympia. Competition was among representatives of
several city-states and kingdoms of Ancient Greece. These Games featured athletic, combat
sports, horse and chariot racing events.
During the Games, all conflicts among the
participating city-states were postponed until the
Games were finished. This cessation of hostilities
was known as the Olympic peace. This peace did
allow those religious pilgrims who were traveling
to Olympia to pass through warring territories
unmolested because they were protected by Zeus.
The Olympics were of fundamental religious
importance, featuring sporting events alongside
ritual sacrifices honoring both Zeus and Pelops.
Pelops was famous for his chariot race with King
Oenomaus of Pisatis. The winners of the events
were admired and immortalized in poems and
statues.

10. Poseidon god of the sea, earthquakes, storms, and horses
held biennially in April or May, celebrated with
a wreath of pine and later of dry celler, were
named after the isthmus of Corinth, where
they were held
ISTHMIAN GAMES
every 2 years
Flaminius restoring Liberty to Greece at the Isthmian Games
The Games of 196 BC were
used by Titus Quinctius
Flamininus to proclaim the
freedom of the Greek states
from Macedonian hegemony.

11. one of the four Panhellenic Games of Ancient
Greece, held every four years during five days,
which included religious ceremonies, large
banquet, musical and athletic contests, horse races.
The winners received a wreath of bay laurel, sacred
to Apollo, from the city of Tempe, in Thessaly.
APOLLO god of music, healing, light, prophecy and enlightenment
THE STADIUM OF DELPHI FOR THE PYTHIAN GAMES
PYTHIAN GAMES
every 2 years

12. festival, at which two or four girls between the ages of 7 and
11, chosen by the basileus (archontes) to serve Athena Polias
ARRHEPHORIA
3th skirophorion
Athena goddess of wisdom
"When I was just seven, I was arrephoros, then
at ten, I was aletris for the archegetis, then I
carried the orange robe as arkios (bear) at
Brauronia, and finally, having become a
beautiful girl, I was kanephoros, with a necklace
of dried figs."
stages of the women during
Arre(h)ephoria festival from Lysistrata,
B.C. Aristophanes
The Arrephoroi during the Panathenaic procession from the east zoforos of
the Parthenon

13. - the most important of all the festivals at Athens, inaugurated by the mythical king Erichthonius. There are
three major parts of festival: Great Panathenaea, Lesser Panathenaea and Panathenaic Games.
PANATHENAEA
28th hekatombaion
At sunrise of Athena's birth
day - the torch-race started.
The object was to bring the
new fire from the grove of
Academus, beyond the city
walls, to the altar of Athena
on the Acropolis. There
followed a grand procession,
in which the whole citizen
population took part. Winner
received as prize an amphora
filled with olive oil, and was
crowned with a branch of
olive.
runners at the Panathenaic Games

14. Dionysus god of the wine, fertility and theatre
ANTHESTERIA
11th -13th anthesterion
- festival of the vine flower, celebrated in Athens. This is a feast
of the dead as well.
women were
excluded
new wine was
broached and
followed by a
drinking
contest, the
second day
was the Feast
of Cups, the
third the
Feast of Pans
vases, filled
with grain of
all kinds, were
borne in
procession
and dedicated
to Hermes
wine vessel, that was given as gift during the
Anthesteria

15. LENAIA
12th-15th gamelion
- festival were the wine of the season was born. The theater was an integral part of Dionysus’s festival Lenaea. Many
of the great Greek tragedies actually originated during this festival.
more about
lenaia:
→ «The
Acharnians»,
Aristophanes

16. DIONYSIA
10th - 17th elaphebolion
- the second-most important festival after the Panathenaia, the central events of which were the theatrical
performances, everyone was invited to be entertained in theatre. During the celebration business life stopped,
prisoners were freed in order to participate. The Dionysia consisted of two festivals, the Rural Dionysia and the City
Dionysia.
Festival opened with a phallic parade, in
which the god's image was born through
the streets of Athens and brought to the
Temple of Dionysus. After completion of
the sacrifices, the image was now born
to the theatre dancing floor (the
orchestra) accompanied by torch bearers
- and there it stood throughout the
presentation of the plays over the next
several days but not before the komos,
or revel, a night-long feast and
celebration.

17. RESOURCES
1. carnaval.com/greece/festivals
2. ime.gr
3. rwaag.org
4. thehouseofvines.com
5. wikipedia.org