The march was solemn and majestic. At the head of it were old men, who carried olive-branches in their hands, [pg xxx] θαλλοφόροι, and these were chosen for the symmetry of their shape, and the vigour of their complexion. Athenian matrons, of great age, also accompanied them in the same equipage.
The grown and robust men formed the second class. They were armed at all points, and had bucklers and lances. After them came the strangers that inhabited Athens, carrying mattocks, instruments proper for tillage. Next followed the Athenian women of the same age, attended by the foreigners of their own sex, carrying vessels in their hands for the drawing of water.
The third class was composed of the young persons of both sexes, selected from the best families in the city. The young men wore vests, with crowns upon their heads, and sang a peculiar hymn in honour of the goddess. The maids carried baskets, κανηφόροι, in which were placed the sacred utensils proper to the ceremony, covered with veils to keep them from the sight of the spectators. The person, to whose care those sacred things were intrusted, was bound to observe a strict continence for several days before he touched them, or distributed them to the Athenian virgins;[55] or rather, as Demosthenes says, his whole life and conduct ought to have been a perfect model of virtue and purity. It was a high honour for a young woman to be chosen for so noble and august an office, and an insupportable affront to be deemed unworthy of it. We shall see that Hipparchus offered this indignity to the sister of Harmodius, which extremely incensed the conspirators against the Pisistratidæ. These Athenian virgins were followed by the foreign young women, who carried umbrellas and seats for them.
The children of both sexes closed the pomp of the procession.
In this august ceremony, the ῥαψωδοι were appointed to sing certain verses of Homer; a manifest proof of the estimation in which the works of that poet were held, even with regard to religion. Hipparchus, son of Pisistratus, first introduced that custom.
I have observed elsewhere,[56] that in the gymnastic games of this feast a herald proclaimed, that the people of Athens had conferred a crown of gold upon the celebrated physician Hippocrates, in gratitude for the signal services which he had rendered the state during the pestilence.
In this festival the people of Athens put themselves, and the whole republic, under the protection of Minerva, the tutelary [pg xxxi] goddess of their city, and implored of her all kind of prosperity. From the time of the battle of Marathon, in these public acts of worship, express mention was made of the Platæans, and they were joined in all things with the people of Athens.
Feasts of Bacchus.
The worship of Bacchus had been brought out of Egypt to Athens, where several feasts had been established in honour of that god; two particularly more remarkable than all the rest, called the great and the less feasts of Bacchus. The latter were a kind of preparation for the former, and were celebrated in the open field about autumn. They were named Lenea, from a Greek word[57] that signifies a wine-press. The great feasts were commonly called Dionysia, from one of the names of that god,[58] and were solemnized in the spring within the city.
In each of these feasts the public were entertained with games, shows, and dramatic representations, which were attended with a vast concourse of people, and exceeding magnificence, as will be seen hereafter: at the same time the poets disputed the prize of poetry, submitting to the judgment of arbitrators, expressly chosen for that purpose, their pieces, whether tragic or comic, which were then represented before the people.