| May 19, 2013 |
Language selection |
 |
|
|
 |
| Ancients' feasts, games and rituals
(8)
|
|
|
|
| Feast in honor of distinguished persons |
|
|  SPARTI (Ancient city) LACONIA |
|
|
Tithenidia
|
|
|
| Festivals for gods and gods' deeds |
|
| | AMYKLES (Ancient sanctuary) SPARTI |
|
|
Hyacinthia
Agesilaus again marched with an army against Corinth, and, as the festival Hyacinthia was at hand, he gave the Amycleans leave to go back home and perform the traditional rites in honor of Apollo and Hyacinthus.
|
|
|
|
|
Hyacinthia. A festival, celebrated for three days in the summer of each
year, at Amyclae, in honour of Apollo and his unhappy favourite Hyacynthus. Muller
gives strong reasons for supposing that the Hyacinthia was originally a festival
of Demeter. Like other festivals in honour of nature, the festival of the Hyacinthia,
celebrated by the Spartans at Amyclae for three days in July, down to the time
of the Roman emperors, was connected with the expression of grief at the death
of vegetation, of joy over the harvest, and of cheerful trust in the re-awakening
of nature. On the first day, which was dedicated to silent mourning, sacrifice
to the dead was offered at the grave of Hyacinthus, which was under the statue
of Apollo in the temple at Amyclae. The following day was spent in public rejoicing
in honour of Apollo, in which all the populace, including the slaves, took part.
They went in festal procession with choruses of singing boys and girls, accompanied
by harps and flutes, to the temple of Apollo, where games and competitions, sacrifices
and entertainments to one another took place, and a robe, woven by the Spartan
women, was offered to the god.
| This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks |
|
|
|
|
|
Hyacynthia (Huakinthia), a great national festival, celebrated every year at Amyclae
by the Amyclaeans and Spartans. The festival dated from pre-Dorian times, but,
like the Carneia, had been taken over by the Dorians; and was held in honour of
the Amyclaean Apollo and of the youthful hero Hyacinthus, whom he accidentally
struck dead with a quoit. This Amyclaean Apollo, however, with whom Hyacinthus
was associated, must not be confounded with Apollo, the national divinity of the
Dorians. (Muller, Orchom. p. 327; Dor. ii. 8, § 15.) This Hyacinthus is unmistakably
a personification of the drying up of vegetation by the heat of summer: the quoit
(diskos) is the sun's disc, Apollo the god who hurls it (Schomann, Alterth. ii.
404). The Hyacinthia lasted for three days, and began on the longest day of the
Spartan month Hecatombeus (the Attic Hecatombaeon, Hesych. s. v. Hekatombeus:
Manso, Sparta, iii. 2, p. 201; called also Huakinthios from this festival, Stein
on Herod. ix. 7). On the first day of the Hyacinthia sacrifices were offered to
the dead, and the death of Hyacinthus was lamented. Nobody wore any garlands or
sung paeans at the sacrifices, nor was any wheaten bread offered: plain sacrificial
cakes, apparently unleavened, were the order of the day, and great abstinence
was practised. This serious and melancholy character was foreign to all the other
festivals of Apollo. The second day, however, was wholly spent in public rejoicings
and amusements. Amyclae was visited by numbers of strangers (paneguris axiologos
kai megale, Didymus ap. Ath. iv. p. 139 e), and boys played the cithara or sang
to the accompaniment of the flute, and celebrated in anapaestic metres the praise
of Apollo, while others, in splendid attire, performed a horse-race in the theatre.
This horse-race is probably the agon mentioned by Strabo in connexion with the
Hyacinthia (vi. p. 278). After this race there followed a number of choruses of
youths conducted by a choropoios (Xen. Ages. 2, § 17), in which some of their
national songs (epichoria poiemata) were sung. During the songs of these choruses
dancers performed some of the ancient and simple movements with the accompaniment
of the flute and the song. The Spartan and Amyclaean maidens, after this, riding
in chariots made of wickerwork (kanathra), and splendidly adorned, went in solemn
procession. Numerous sacrifices were also offered on this day, and the citizens
kept open house for their friends and relations; and even slaves were allowed
to enjoy themselves. (Didymus, ap. Ath. iv. p. 139.) One of the favourite meals
on this occasion was called kopis. and is described by Molpis (ap. Ath. iv. p.
140) as consisting of cake, bread, meat, raw herbs, broth, figs, dessert, and
the seeds of lupine. Some ancient writers, when speaking of the Hyacinthia, apply
to the whole festival such epithets as can only be used in regard to the second
day; for instance, when they call it a merry or joyful solemnity. Macrobius (Sat.
i. 18, § 2) states that the Spartans wore chaplets of ivy at the Hyacinthia as
at a Bacchic rite, which can only be true if it be understood of the second day.
The incorrectness of these writers is however in some degree excused by the fact,
that the second day formed the principal part of the festive season, as appears
from the description of Didymus, and as may also be inferred from Xenophon (Hell.
iv. 5, § 11; compare Ages. 2, § 17), who makes the paean the principal part of
the Hyacinthia. The third day's ceremonies are not specially described (Schomann,
l. c.), but, according to the tradition, were of a solemn character, resembling
those of the first day. The great importance attached to this festival by the
Amyclaeans and Lacedaemonians is seen from the fact, that the Amyclaeans, even
when they had taken the field against an enemy, always returned home on the approach
of the season of the Hyacinthia, that they might not be obliged to neglect its
celebration (Xen. Hell. iv. 5, § 11 Paus. iii. 10, § 1), and that the Lacedaemonians
on one occasion concluded a truce of forty days with the town of Eira, merely
to be able to return home and celebrate the national festival (Paus. iv. 19, §
3); and that in a treaty with Sparta, B.C. 421, the Athenians, in order to show
their good--will towards Sparta, promised every year to attend the celebration
of the Hyacinthia. (Thuc. v. 23.)
| This is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks |
|
|
|
| | SPARTI (Ancient city) LACONIA |
|
|
Gymnopaedia
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In honour of Pausanias and Leonidas
Opposite the theater are two tombs; the first is that of Pausanias, the general at Plataea, the second is that of Leonidas. Every year they deliver speeches over them, and hold a contest in which none may compete except Spartans.
|
|
|
| Memory of significant events |
|
|
|
Pyrricha
|
|
|
|
|
Hecatombaea
Hecatombaea (Hekatombaia). An anniversary sacrifice called by this name in Laconia, and offered for the preservation of the hundred towns which once flourished in that country.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
