Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/71

RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS. 5 fife of each peculiar city continues distinct, and even gathers to itself a greater abundance of facts and internal interests. So that during the two centuries now under review there was in the mind of every Greek an increase both of the city-feeling and of the Pan-Hellenic feeling, but on the other hand a decline of the old sentiment of separate race, Doric, Ionic, JEoYic. I have already, in my former volume, touched upon the many- sided character of the Grecian religion, entering as it did into all the enjoyments and sufferings, the hopes and fears, the affec- tions and antipathies, of the people, not simply imposing restraints and obligations, but protecting, multiplying, and diver- sifying all the social pleasures and all the decorations of exist- ence. Each city and even each village had its peculiar religious festivals, wherein the sacrifices to the gods were usually followed by public recreations of one kind or other, by feasting on the victims, processional marches, singing and dancing, or competition in strong and active exercises. The festival was originally local, but friendship or communion of race was shown by inviting others, non-residents, to partake in its attractions. In the case of a colony and its metropolis, it was a frequent practice that citizens of the metropolis were honored with a privileged seat at the festivals of the colony, or that one of their number was presented with the first taste of the sacrificial victim. 1 Recipro- cal frequentation of religious festivals was thus the standing evidence of friendship and fraternity among cities not politically united. That it must have existed to a certain degree from the earliest days, there can be no reasonable doubt ; though in Homer and Hesiod ve find only the celebration of funeral games, by a chief at his own private expense, in honor of his deceased father or friend, with all the accompanying recrea- tions, however, of a public festival, and with strangers not only 1 Thucyd. i, 26. See the tale in Pausanias (v, 25, 1 ) of the ancient chorus sent annually from Mcssene in Si'-i'y across the strait to Rhegium, to a local festival of the Rhegians, thirty-rive boys with a chorus-master and a fl'ite-plavcr: on one unfortunate occasion, all of them perished in cross ing. For the Theory (or solemn religious deputation) periodically sent bj the Athenians to Delos, see Plutarch, Nicias, c. 3 ; Plato, Phredon, c. 1, p M. Compare also Strabo, ix, p. 419, on the general subject.