Page 11 - GALIET THESMOPHORIAS AND EUPHORIAS: Of Eyes and Funnels, Of Tracks and Traces IV

Galiet & Galiet
These festivals, believed to promote agricultural fertility by propitiating the Two Goddesses, Demeter and Persephone,8 included secret rites, pudenda and phallic worship(?)9 and the sacrifice of pigs.10 In virtue of their nature, men were excluded from participation. It is also believed that only aristocratic and legitimate citizen wives participated and that virgins or parthenoi were excluded. Every husband was responsible for financing his wife’s participation.
In ancient Athens, the festival was held on the 11th, 12th, and 13th during the month of Pyanopsion (September-October) either at the Pnyx or at the acropolis. It is believed that women slept overnight in skenai or tents. On the first day, the Anodos (ascension to the Thesmophorion shrine) was celebrated; on the second, the Nesteia (fast, grief and lamentation); and on the third the Kalligeneia (she of the beautiful birth). Similarly, Plutarch reveals that on the 10,th the day before the Athenian Thesmophoria, Athenian aristocratic women journeyed to Cape Kolias in Halimous to celebrate a mini-Thesmophoria and returned to Athens on the following day just in time to celebrate the festivities of the greater Thesmophoria. By contrast, in Syracuse, the festival lasted ten days and it began with the sowing of corn. At Delos, it took place a month earlier than Athens.
Because only fragments exist, the daily rites during the Anodos, Nesteia and Kalligeneia remain largely a mystery. However, Dillon and Burkert offer valuable insights. Though both agree that women ascend to the Thesmophorion shrine located either in the Athenian Pnyx or the acropolis,
8 In Dillon’s essay, the invoking prayer includes the Thesmophoroi Demeter and Persephone, Ploutos, Kalligenenia, Kourotrophos Ge, Hermes and the Graces. Dillon, M. “Women-only Festivals,” Ch.4 in Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion, London 2002: 109-25 plus notes. 112
9 The worship aspect is uncertain as later discussed in this essay.
10 When Demeter grieves for the loss of Persephone, she “hides the grain under the earth.” Also, many pig bones and votive pigs together with images of Demeter holding a piglet in her arms. West, Martin. Homeric Hymns. Homeric Apocrypha. Hymn to Demeter. Lives of Homer. London: Harvard University Press, 2003.
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