A Re-interpretation of the Anthesteria and Its Eclectic Ceremonies
Date
2024-09-10
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Abstract
Scholarship on the Anthesteria, an Athenian festival held in late February and celebrated new wine in honour of the wine-god Dionysos, are at odds with how to interpret this festival, given that its various ceremonies contrasted each other in terms of their themes. Most notably the Anthesteria had joyous drinking festivities as well as a sacred wedding ritual between Dionysos and the basilinna (the archon basilieus’ wife). Held at this festival was also the morose Aiora ceremony, a rite wherein young Athenian women swung on makeshift swings to honour the death of the maiden Erigone. Given this contrast of the Anthesteria’s events, previous scholars, such as Walter Burkert, have demarcated the festival’s gloomy rites from its more cheerful and sacred rituals by placing them on separate days, which still encompassed the Anthesteria. More recent scholars, on the other hand, have excised the Aiora and holy wedding ceremony from the festival on the grounds that these two ceremonies are unrelated to the jovial and wine-centric events of the Anthesteria. Contradicting these scholars, my thesis offers an alternative interpretation of the Anthesteria, in which this festival could be both a gloomy and joyous occasion that was held on one day and hosted festive drinking events in conjunction with the gloomy Aiora ritual and sacred wedding ceremony. I shall argue that these seemingly contrasting events were interconnected and had a unifying purpose of ultimately promoting both agrarian and female fertility. As I discuss the fertility-promoting properties of the Anthesteria and its events, I shall compare this festival to Artemisian coming-of-age rites that promoted female fertility. Additionally, I will interpret this festival through the perspective of Hippocratic medicine, an interpretation overlooked by previous scholars, given that its ceremonies resemble Hippocratic treatments for gynaecological illnesses that affected a female’s fecundity.
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Keywords
Anthesteria, Greek Religion, Greek Festivals
Citation
Leo, K. T. (2024). A re-interpretation of the Anthesteria and its eclectic ceremonies (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.