Listed 1 sub titles with search on: Ancients' feasts, games and rituals for destination: "INOI Ancient demos ATTIKI".
Apaturia (apatouria) was a political festival, which the Athenians had in common
with all the Greeks of the Ionian name (Herod. i. 147), with the exception of
those of Colophon and Ephesus. It was celebrated in the month of Pyanepsion, and
lasted for three days. The origin of this festival is related
in the following manner:
About the year 1100 B.C., the Athenians were carrying on a war against the Boeotians,
concerning the district of Cilaenae, or, according to others, respecting the
little town of Oenoe. The Boeotian Xanthios, or Xanthos, challenged Thymoetes,
king of Attica, to single combat; and when he refused, Melanthos, a Messenian
exile of the house of the Nelids, offered himself to fight for Thymoetes, on condition
that, if victorious, he should be the successor to Thymoetes. The offer was accepted;
and when Xanthios and Melanthos began the engagement, there appeared behind Xanthios
a man in the trage, the skin of a black goat. Melanthos reminded his adversary
that he was violating the laws of single combat by having, a companion; and while
Xanthios looked around, Melanthos slew the deceived Xanthios. From that time,
the Athenians celebrated two festivals; the Apaturia, and that of Dionysos Melanaegis,
who was believed to have been the man who appeared behind Xanthios.
This is the story related by the Scholiast on Aristophanes (Acharn.
146). This tradition has given rise to a false etymology of the name apatouria,
which was formerly considered to be derived from apatan, to deceive. All modern
critics, however Muller and Welcker agree that the name is composed of a=hama,
and patoria, which is perfectly consistent with what Xenophon (Hellen. i. 7, 8)
says of the festival: En hois (apatouriois) hoi te pateres kai hoi sungeneis xuneisi
sphisin autois. According to this derivation, it is the festival at which the
phratriae met, to discuss and settle their own affairs. But, as every citizen
was a member of a phratria, the festival extended over the whole nation, who assembled
according to phratriae. Welcker, on account of the prominent part which Dionysos
takes in the legend respecting the origin of the Attic Apaturia, conceives that
it arose from the circumstance that families belonging to the Dionysian tribe
of the Aegicores had been registered among the citizens.
The first day of the festival, which probably fell on the eleventh
of the month of Pyanepsion, was called dorpia or dorpeia (Athen. iv.; Hesych.
and Suid. s. v.); on which every citizen went in the evening to the phratrium,
or to the house of some wealthy member of his own phratria, and there enjoyed
the supper prepared for him (Aristoph. Acharn. 146). That the cup-bearers (oinoptai)
were not idle on this occasion, may be seen from Photius (Lexic. s. v. Dorpia).
The second day was called anarrusis (anarrein), from the sacrifice
offered on this day to Zeus, surnamed Phratrios, and to Athena, and sometimes
to Dionysos Melanaegis. This was a state sacrifice, in which all citizens took
part. The day was chiefly devoted to the gods, and to it must, perhaps, be confined
what Harpocration (s. v. Lampas) mentions, from the Atthis of Istrus, that the
Athenians at the apaturia used to dress splendidly, kindle torches on the altar
of Hephaestos, and sacrifice and sing in honour of him. Proclus on Plato (Tim.),
in opposition to all other authorities, calls the first day of the Apaturia anarrusis,
and the second dorpia, which is, perhaps, nothing more than a slip of his pen.
On the third day, called koureotis (kouros), children born in that
year, in the families of the phratriae, or such as were not yet registered, were
taken by their fathers, or in their absence by their representatives (kurioi),
before the assembled members of the phratria. For every child a sheep or goat
was sacrificed. The victim was called meion, and he who sacrificed it meiagogos
(meiagogein). It is said that the victim was not allowed to be below (Harpocrat.,
Suid., Phot. s. v. Meion), or, according to Pollux (iii. 52), above, a certain
weight. Whenever any one thought he had reason to oppose the reception of the
child into the phratria, he stated the case, and, at the same time, led away the
victim from the altar (Dem. c. Macart. 14). If the members of the phratria found
the objections to the reception of the child to be sufficient, the victim was
removed; when no objections were raised, the father, or he who supplied his place,
was obliged to establish by oath that the child was the offspring of free-born
parents and citizens of Athens. After the victim was sacrificed, the phratores
gave their votes, which they took from the altar of Jupiter Phratrios. When the
majority voted against the reception, the cause might be tried before one of the
courts of Athens; and if the claims of the child were found unobjectionable, its
name, as well as that of the father, was entered in the register of the phratria,
and those who had wished to effect the exclusion of the child were liable to be
punished (Dem. c. Macart. 82). Then followed the distribution of wine, and of
the victim, of which every phrator received his share; and poems were recited
by the elder boys, and a prize was given to him who acquitted himself the best
on the occasion (Plat. Tim.). On this day, also, illegitimate children on whom
the privileges of Athenian citizens were to be bestowed, as well as children adopted
by citizens, and newly created citizens, were introduced; but the last, it appears,
could only be received into a phratria when they had previously been adopted by
a citizen; and their children, when born by a mother who was a citizen, had a
legitimate claim to be inscribed in the phratria of their grandfather, on their
mother's side. In later times, however, the difficulties of being admitted into
a phratria seem to have been greatly diminished.
Some writers have added a fourth day to this festival, under the name
of epibda (Hesych. s. v. Apatouria; and Simplicius on Aristot. Phys. iv, a); but
this is no particular day of the festival, for epibda signifies nothing else but
a day subsequent to any festival.
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