CHAPTER XI
THE ATHLETIC FESTIVALS OF ATHENS
It is impossible within the limits of this work to give any account of the various local festivals which existed in every state of Greece. Such an account would too often resolve itself into a barren list of names. With regard to Athens we are more fully informed; and from the fifth century onwards we may regard Athens as typical of the Greek world. A brief account of the Athenian festivals and competitions will enable us to form some idea of the part which such events occupied in the life of the Greeks. Athens was not the most athletic of the states of Greece; but nowhere was the love of festivals more developed, and nowhere were competitions more various and more numerous. The Athenian must have spent a large portion of his life in attending festivals and witnessing competitions. In the following list I shall confine myself to those festivals at which we know that there were competitions, and to the festivals of Athens; but we must remember that there were many other festivals in Athens itself, and that there were numerous competitions, athletic or other, on the borders of Attica, at which Athenians could attend as spectators or competitors.
The Attic year[[381]] commenced with the month of Hekatombaion (July), and in this month took place the great festival of Athene Polias, the Panathenaea, extending over several days and attracting visitors from the whole Aegean world. The lesser Panathenaea were held yearly; the great Panathenaea of which details will be found below, were held every fourth year, the third year of each Olympiad.
In the next month, Metageitnion, the feast of the Heraclea took place at Marathon. These were athletic games which seem to have been much frequented in Pindar’s time.[[382]] The prize was a silver cup. There were also Heraclea held at Athens in Cynosarges; but we have no evidence of any competitions held there.
Next came the Eleusinia in the month of Boedromion, like the lesser Panathenaea, celebrated yearly; but every second year of the Olympiad they were celebrated as a trieteris, and every fourth year as a pentaeteris. On these occasions there were athletics, horse-races, musical competitions, and a special competition called “the contest of the fathers” (πάτριος ἀγών), which seems to have been equestrian in character. As at the feast of Athene the prize consisted in jars of olive oil, so at Demeter’s feast it consisted in measures of corn and barley. Epharmostus of Opous is stated by Pindar to have won a victory in wrestling at Eleusis, and Herodotus of Thebes in the chariot-race.[[383]] The Eleusinia claimed an antiquity greater than that of the Olympia or the Isthmia, and the earliest athletic implement which we possess is an inscribed jumping-weight found at Eleusis which cannot be later than the beginning of the sixth century (Fig. [60]).
The month of Pyanepsion (October) was a very busy one for the athletic youth of Athens. First came the Oschophoria, a festal race in which two boys, chosen from each tribe, raced, dressed in women’s clothes, from the temple of Dionysus to the temple of Athene Skiras at Phalerum. They carried bunches of grapes, and the winner received as his prize a mixed drink, composed of wine, honey, cheese, flour, and oil.[[384]] On the sixth day of the month began the Thesea, the great athletic festival of the Athenian epheboi, and this was immediately followed by the Epitaphia. The details of the programme will be discussed below. Lastly, in connexion with the Apaturia there were musical competitions and torch-races in honour of Prometheus and Hephaestus.
With October the athletic season seems to have ended. The winter months and early spring were occupied with the dramatic competitions connected with the Dionysia and Lenaea. There may, of course, have been lesser competitions, of which we know nothing. At the “Country Dionysia,” for example, there appear to have been various rustic sports, such as the game of Askoliasmos,[[385]] which correspond to such sports as climbing the greasy pole and other Mayday festivities.
The month of Munychion or April was the beginning of the boating season. At the festival of Munychia there was a procession in honour of Artemis, followed by boat-races in the harbour.[[386]] At a later date these were replaced by a mimic naval battle, for which prizes were also given.[[387]] Then the epheboi sailed to Salamis to celebrate the Aiantea. There were more boat-races, and also a long-distance foot-race, in which the youths of Athens competed with the youths of Salamis.
In the same month took place the Athenian Olympia, founded by the Peisistratidae at the time when they commenced to build the temple of Olympian Zeus. There were athletic and equestrian competitions. It is perhaps to this festival that Pindar alludes, when he says that Timodemus won “at home crowns more than may be numbered in the games of Zeus.”[[388]] The festival was apparently a yearly one. It was reorganized on a more magnificent scale by Hadrian.
During the rest of the year there are few important competitions. There were musical competitions at the Thargelia, torch-races on horseback and on foot at the Bendidea, founded in the fourth century, and, lastly, more boat-races at the Diisoteria in the month of Skirophorion.