The Thesmophoria
The festival of the Thesmophoria
took place in the Athenian month Pyanepsion (approximately October)
and was reserved for women only. The association of this festival
with women was natural to the Greeks, because they saw agricultural and
human fertility as all part of the same process of reproduction.
Women no doubt enjoyed this holiday because they were able to get out of
the house and engage in religious ritual that (at least in very primitive
times) was crucial to survival. The ritual itself involved retrieving the
decayed remains of sacrificed piglets and dough in the shape of snakes
and human penises, which women had buried undergournd in a late spring
festival. These remains1 were later sprinkled over the
fields to promote fertility.
The celebrants camped out
for three days and two nights in an area probably near the Pnyx.
On the second day, they fasted and sat on the ground, perhaps as an act
of mourning in imitation of Demeter, the grain goddess, who refused to
eat when Hades stole her daughter. They also shouted verbal abuse
at each other (typical of agricultural festivals) and struck each other
with straps made of bark. The third day was called Kalligeneia
("bearer of fair offspring") in honor of Demeter. Aristophanes wrote
a play called the Thesmophoriazusai ('the women of the Thesmophoria).
Notes
1. The name of the
festival means 'the carrying of the thesmoi' and it has been conjectured
that the thesmoi were these decayed remains.
Previous
(Domestic Life).
Previous
(Religious Life).