by Athenia Glaucon

Trying to put together a complete picture of ancient Hellenic festivals is always a little difficult - for one thing, there was no fixed civil calendar; for another there was no consistency among Hellenic city-states on festivals. Each city had its own festivals days - much like most towns in America have their very own "town day" today.

Because of the difficulty in determining exactly what was celebrated where, modern recreationists use a somewhat hybrid calendar that was cobbled together from written, archeological and anthropological records. We do know a little more about what Athens did, and so the Athenian calendar tends to be the default these days.

While civil calendars weren't fixed, certain celebrations follow the path of the sun and are therefore, pretty consistent. In the month known as Poseidon, which mostly coincides with December, ancient Athenians offered a sacrifice to Zeus Horios sometime around the solstice itself in the deme of Erkia. We can also assume that Poseidon himself was the recipient of a festival during this month, since it was, after all, named after him and the 8th day of the month was holy to him.

During the last half of the month a festival known as the Rural Dionysia was held. It included a procession with men carrying a phallus, cake-bearers, revellers and singing. The god was carried into the city to represent Dionysus coming into the city. Later in the year a City Dionysia would be celebrated. As always, sacrifices were made during this festival.

At the end of the month of Poseidon, the festival known as Haloa was celebrated in honor of Demeter and Dionysus. Here's one of those things that we, in our temperate climates forget - winter was not a time of vegetative death for the ancient greeks - they were already looking forward to their first harvest. Hence this festival was known as "Haloa" named after the halos, or threshing floor. This was a distinctly fertility oriented ritual, with genitalia shaped cakes and orgiastic revels.

The first week of what we think of as the "New year" was filled with sacrifices to major deities for the ancient Hellenes. Athene, Aphrodite, Artemis, Poseidon, Apollo, even the heroes Heracles and Theseus had their days.

Like so many other cultures, it appears that this time of year was full of celebrations, revels and parties...there's just something in the air, we guess.

Sources:
Ancient Hellenic Calendar
Hellenic Month Established Per Athens (HMEPA)
And for those of you interested in a discussion of such things, there is a Yahoo! group: Hellenic Calendar