Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/124

114 FESTIVALS a hymn designed for use at the commencement of the ploughing time j 1 and in the Aitareya-rdkmana,thQ earliest treatise on Hindu ceremonial, we already find a complete series of sattras or sacrificial sessions exactly following the course of the solar year. They are divided into two distinct sections, each consisting of six months of thirty days each. The sacrifices are allowed to commence only at certain lucky constellations and in certain months. So, for in stance, as a rule, no great sacrifice can commence during the sun s southern progress. The great sacrifices generally take place in spring, in the months of April and May. 2 In the Parsee Scriptures 3 the year is divided into six seasons or gahanbars of two months each, concluding with February, the season at which " great expiatory sacrifices were offered for the growth of the whole creation in the last two months of the year." We have no means of know ing precisely what were the arrangements of the Phoenician calendar, but it is generally admitted that the worship was solar, the principal festivals taking place in spring and in autumn. Among the most characteristic celebrations of the Egyptians were those which took place at the d^o.j toy/.os or disappearance of Osiris in October or November, at the search for his remains, and their discovery about the winter solstice, and at the date of his supposed entrance into the moon at the beginning of spring. The Phrygian festivals were also arranged on the theory that the deity was asleep during the winter and awake during the summer; in the autumn they celebrated his retiring to rest, and in spring with mirth and revelry they roused him from his slumbers. 4 The seasonal character of the Teutonic Ostern, the Celtic Beltein, and the Scandinavian Yule is obvious. Nor was the habit of observing such festivals peculiar to the Aryan or the Semitic race. The Mexicans, who were remarkable for the perfection of their calendar (see vol i. 695), had also an elaborate system of movable and immovable feasts distri buted over the entire year ; the principal festivals, however, in honour of their chiefs gods, Tezcatlipoca, Huitzilopochtli, and Tlaloc, were held in May, June, and December. Still more plainly connected with the revolutions of the seasons was the public worship of the ancient Peruvians, who, besides the ordinary feast at each new moon, observed four solar festivals annually. Of these the most important was the Yntip-Raymi(Sun-feast), which, preceded byathree days fast, began with the summer solstice, and lasted for nine days. Its ceremonies have been often described. A similar but less important festival was held at the winter solstice. The Cusqui-Raymi, held after seed-time, as the maize began to appear, was celebrated with sacrifices and banquets, music and dancing. A fourth great festival, called Citua, held on the first new moon after the autumnal equinox, was preceded by a strict fast and special observances intended for purposes of purification and expiation, after which the festivities lasted until the moon entered her second quarter. Greek festivals. Perhaps the annual Attic festival in honour of Erechtheus alluded to in the Iliad (ii. 550) ought to be regarded as an instance of ancestor-worship ; but the seasonal character of the (.oprrf or new-moon feast in Od., xx. 156, and of the OaXva-ia or harvest-festival in //., ix. 533, is generally acknowledged. The older Homeric poems, however, give no such express indications of a fully- developed system of festivals as are to be met with in the 1 " May the heavens, the waters, the firmament, be kind to us ; may the lord of the field be gracious to us May the oxen (draw) happily, the men labour happily ; may the traces bind happily, wield the goad happily" (Wilson s translation, iii. 224). 2 See Haug s Attareya-br&hmanam of the Rig-Veda; Max Miiller s Chips from a German Workshop, i. 115. 3 Visperad. See Haug, Parsis, 192 ; Richardson s Dissertation on tJie f.anyuaye, <L-c., of Eastern Nations, p. 184; Morier s Journey through Persia. 4 Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride; Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 21. so-called " Homeric " hymns, in the Works and Days of Hesiod, in the pages of Herodotus, and so abundantly in most authors of the subsequent period ; and it is manifest that the calendar of Homer or even of Herodotus must have been a much simpler matter than that of the Taren- tines, for example, came to be, of whom we are told by Strabo that their holidays were in excess of their working days. Each demos of ancient Greece during the historical period had its own local festivals (eoprat S^OTIKCU), often largely attended and splendidly solemnized, the usages of which, though essentially alike, differed very considerably in details. These details have in many cases been wholly lost, and in others have reached us only in a very fragment ary state. But with regard to the Athenian calendar, the most interesting of all, our means of information are for tunately very copious. It included some 50 or 60 days on which all business, and especially the administration of justice, was by order of the magistrates suspended. Among these iepofjirjviai were included in Gamelion (January), the Lencea or wine-press feast in honour of Dionysus ; in Anthesterion (February), ihe Anthesteria, also in honour of Dionysus, lasting three days (Pithoigia, Choes, and Chutroi); the Diasia in honour of Zeus, and the lesser Eleusinia; in Elaphebolion (March), the Pandia of Zeus, the Elaphe- bolia of Artemis, and the greater Dionysia ; in Munychion, the Munychia of Artemis as the moon goddess (Mowv^ia) and the Delphinia of Apollo ; in Thargelion (May), the Thargelia of Apollo and the Plynteria and Callynteria of Athene ; in Skirophorion (June), the Diipolia of Zeus and the Skirophoria of Athene; in Hekatombaion hecatombs were offered to Apollo the summer-god, and the Crania of Cronus and the Panatliencea of Athene were held ; in Metageitnion, the Metageitnia of Apollo ; in Boedromion, the Boedromia. of .Apollo the helper, 5 the Nekusia or Nemeseia (the festival of the dead), and the greater Elews- inia ; in Pyanepsion, the Pyanepsia of Apollo, the Oscho- phoria of Dionysus (probably), the Chalkeia or Athencva of Athene, the Thesmophoria of Demeter, and the Apaturia; in Maimakterion, the Maimakteria of Zeus ; and in Posei- deon (December), the lesser Dionysia. Of these (for the more important of which reference is made to the separate articles) some are commemorative of historical events, and one at least may perhaps be regarded as a relic of ancestor-worship ; but the great majority are nature-festivals, associating themselves in the manner that has already been indicated with the phenomena of the seasons, the equinoxes and the solstices. 6 In addition to their numerous public festivals, the Greeks held various family celebrations, also called eoprai, in connexion with weddings, births, and similar domestic occurrences. The great national Travrjyvpe^ Olympian, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian will be found under separate headings. Roman Festivals. For the purpose of holding comitia and administering justice, the days of the Roman year were regarded as being either dies fasti or dies nefasti the dies fasti being the days on which it was lawful for the proetors to administer justice in the public courts, while on the dies nefasti neither courts of justice nor meetings of comitia were allowed to be held. Some days were fasti during one por tion and nefasti during another; these were called dies intercisi. For the purposes of religion a different division of the year was made ; the days were treated as festi or as profesti, the former being consecrated to acts of public worship, such as sacrifices, banquets, and games, while the latter (whether fasti or nefasti) were not specially claimed for religious purposes. The dies festi or feria? In this month the anniversaries of the battle of Marathon, and of the downfall of the thirty tyrants, were also publicly celebrated. 6 See Schoemann, Gricchische Altcrthiimcr, ii. 439 sq. ; Mommsen, Ilcortologie.