#attic calendar celebrations

Ὀγδόη Μεσοῦντος/ Ὀγδόη ἐπὶ δέκα / Όκτωκαιδεκάτη, XVIII day
From today’s sunset: eighteenth day of Boedromion.
‘Epidauria’

Epidauria, or Asklepieia, the annual festival of Asklepios in Athens. According to Pausanias and Philostratos, Asklepios originally came to Athens on this day to be initiated into the Mysteries, and, because He was late, an extra festival day was created to accommodate him: “The Athenians say that they initiated Asklepios into their Mysteries on that day, and since that time they paid divine honors to Him.”

“It was then the day of the Epidaurian festival, at which it is customary for the Athenians to hold the initiation at a second sacrifice after both proclamation and victims have been offered; and this custom was instituted in honor of Asklepios, because they still initiated him when he arrived from Epidauros too late for the Mysteries.”

Accordingly, this extra day allows late arrivals to join the festival.

Festival linked with the establishment of the cult of Asklepios and Hygeia in Athens: “Telemachos founded the sanctuary and altar to Asklepios first, and Hygeia, the sons of Asklepios and His daughters…coming up from Zea during the Great Mysteries, Asklepios was conveyed to the Eleusinion; and having sent for servants at his own expenses, Telemachos brought Him here on a wagon, in accordance with an oracle; at the same time came Hygeia; and so the whole sanctuary was established in the archonship of Astyphilos of Kydantidai.”

First, there is a pannychis in honor of Asklepios, in the Eleusinion and in the temple of Asklepios; following a procession (from Zea to the temple of Asklepios?), there is a second major sacrifice- “The Archon Basileus organizes the procession in honor of Asklepios, when the initiates spend the night staying awake…”

A sacrifice and procession were thus established for the Epidauria, “on the day when the mystai were keeping at home.” The mystai remain at their homes in meditation, preparing themselves for the following days.

“the son of Nikokrates, of Phlya, who was priest of Asklepios and Hygieia in the year of the archonship of Timarchos, performed in fair and pious fashion the initial sacrifices of the year to Asklepios and Hygieia and the other Gods to whom it was an ancestral custom to make offerings, and whereas at the Asklepieia, the Epidauria, and the Heroa he sacrificed bulls in the Asklepios sanctuary in town and performed the night-festivals of these celebrations; moreover, having made sacrifices in behalf of the Council and the Demos and the children and the women, he reported in all cases to the Council that the sacrifices had been favourable and that they assured safety…”

Private sacrificial calendar: a perfect sacrifice to Dionysos and to all the other Gods

(cfr. Vit. Apoll. iv. 18; Pausanias 2.26.8; IG II2 974,1367, 4960 ; Herod. v. 82; Arist. Or. XXXXVII 6; Arist. Ath. Pol. 56.4)

(Marble statue of Asclepius; leaning on a club round which a snake is twined; bearded and wearing diadem and mantle. By His side is a draped figure of Telesphoros (which is headless). Roman (perhaps after a Greek original of the third century BCE). Now in the British Museum…)

Τετάρτη Μεσοῦντος/ Τετρὰς ἐπὶ δέκα/ Τεσσαρεκαιδεκάτη, XIV day
From today’s sunset: fourteenth day of Boedromion.
The epheboi escort back the Sacred objects from Eleusis to the Eleusinion in Athens.
“…it must be ordained to the cosmete of the epheboi to lead the youths at Eleusis in observance of the ancient customary rule on the 13th of the month Boedromion, in the usual form of the procession that accompanies the sacred objects, so that on the 14th they accompany back the sacred objects up to the Eleusinion in the City, so that there are more discipline and greater surveillance over the sacred objects, when the phaiduntés of the Two Goddesses, according to the traditions of the Homeland, announces to the priestess of Athena the arrival of the sacred objects and of the escort …” (IG II2 1078)

(Caryatid from the roof of the small Propylaea in Eleusis, bringing on her head the ciste, holding the Sacred objects. Eleusis Museum)

Τρίτη Μεσοῦντος/ Τρισκαιδεκάτη/ Τρίτη ἐπὶ δέκα, XIII day
From today’s sunset: thirteenth day of Boedromion.

Procession of the epheboi toward Eleusis.
“Driantianos, archon of Eumolpidai, said:
“As we celebrate even to this day and administer the Mysteries as in the past and as established by the traditional norm and by the Eumolpidai, it is up to the people to decide, with good fortune, the modes of transport in an orderly way of the sacred objects from Eleusis to here (Eleusinion in the City ) and then from the City to Eleusis, it must be ordained to the cosmete of the epheboi to lead the youths at Eleusis in observance of the ancient customary rule on the 13th of the month Boedromion, in the usual form of the procession that accompanies the sacred objects … “ (IG II2 1078)

(Pentelic marble caryatid: a woman dressed to take part in religious rites. In a style adapted from Athenian work of the 5th century BCE. One of a group of five surviving caryatids found at the site, arranged to form a colonnade in a Sanctuary, most probably of Demeter (also Isis has been suggested, cf. Cook 2011, nr. 264: ‘A Statue of Isis, six feet six inches high; upon the head is the calyx of the Lotus, the symbol of this deity; The rose, chaplets, and other emblems of production are placed on other parts of the head; It is draped in a similar manner to the statue of Libera’). The Sanctuary was built on land owned by Regilla, wife of Herodes Atticus. We ought not to forget that Regilla was a priestess of Demeter and that her husband, at her death, dedicated her garments and jewelry at the Sanctuary in Eleusis (cf. Jennifer Tobin, Herodes Attikos and the City of Athens: Patronage and Conflict under the Antonines; Walter Ameling, Herodes Atticus, 2 voll; B. F. Cook, The Townley Marbles)
The so called ‘Townley Caryatid’, now in the British Museum…)

Ἑνάτη Ἱσταμένου, IX day
From today’s sunset: ninth day of Boedromion.
The ninth day is always sacred to the Muses, to Rhea and to Helios.

“The eighth and the ninth of the month that begins: these are the best days to accomplish the man’s works: (Hesiod) praise the eighth and ninth plausibly as they carry perfection (syntelestikai) and therefore he has dedicated them to the human activities…one (the eight), by having a perfect dimension, the other (the nine), by deriving from a perfect number (the three), bring to accomplishment the works undertaken in them.”
Schol. Erga, 772-773

“The ninth of the first part of the month, for all men, is completely devoid of evils: it is good both for planting and for generating, both for a man and for a woman, and it is never a day completely bad.”

“From discoursing about king Apollo, Plato proceeds to the Muses, and the name of music; for Apollo is celebrated as Musagetes, or the leader of the Muses. And He indeed is a monad with respect to the harmony in the world; but the choir of the Muses is the monad of all the number of the ennead (i.e. nine): From both likewise the whole world is bound in indissoluble bonds, and is one and all-perfect, through the communications of these divinities; possessing the former through the Apolloniacal monad, but its all-perfect subsistence through the number of the Muses. For the number nine which is generated from the first perfect number (that is 3) is, through similitude and sameness, accommodated to the multiform causes of the mundane order and harmony; all these causes at the same time being collected into one summit for the purpose of producing one consummate perfection.”
(Proclus on the Cratylus of Plato Concerning the Muses)

(Statuette of a Muse standing holding the right hand up, following the Muse for Drama who holds a mask. She has the left arm resting on the hip, the right arm extending and the right leg bent and crossing her right over it. She is wearing a chiton high-girt and deeply cut under the right arm and dropped below the left shoulder, with a binding around the neck. From Myrina, late 2nd century BCE. Now in the Boston Museum…)

Δευτέρα Ἱσταμένου, II day
From today’s sunset: second day of Boedromion.
The second day is always sacred to the Agathos Daimon, to all the Heroes and Heroines and to the Chthonian Deities. It is also a day sacred to Poseidon.

Niketeria, celebrating the victory of Athena over Poseidon in the contest for the possession of Attica.
“You who obtained the Acropolis on the high-crested hill,
a symbol, Queen, of the top of your great series;
You who loved the man-feeding land, mother of books,
strongly resisting the holy desire of your father’s brother,
and granted the city to have your name and noble mind-
there, under the top edge of the mountain, You made an olive tree
sprout up as a manifest sign of that battle for posterity too,
when an immense gulf stirred up from the sea
came upon the children of Cecrops, directed by Poseidon,
lashing all things with its loud-roaring streams.”
Proclus’ Hymn to Athena

“Even now the victory of Athena is celebrated by the Athenians; they have a festival because Poseidon has been surpassed by Athena, because the order of generation has been overpowered by the noeric one and because the inhabitants of that region, after the necessary things had been taken care of, rushed toward the intellectual life. For Poseidon is considered to be the Leader of generation, while Athena is the Guardian of the noeric life.”
Proclus, in Tim., 53d

(Athena donating the olive-tree, Poseidon the horse- or ‘The naming of Athens’; Antikensammlung Berlin, Catalogue des pierres graves antiques de S.A. le Prince Stanislas Poniatowski)

Τριακάς - From today’s sunset: Ἑκάτης δεῖπνον. The end of the Month, the Old and New - it is always sacred to the Goddess Hekate.
https://www.academia.edu/11144029/Hekate_cenni_teologici_e_culto

“the thirtieth we celebrate in Hades because of Hekate” - ie , the thirtieth day of the month (if present, otherwise the 29th, which is, in any case, called ‘thirtieth’) is honored Hekate as it is the last day of the month and at the same time, we also honor the dead (in fact, in its calendar, Pletho dedicated the twenty-ninth day to Pluto).
“The image of Hekate is erected and consecrated at the crossroads, and rites in honor of the dead have been made on the thirtieth day.”
The last day of the month must be also devoted to meditation and to the reconsideration of the work done during the month, as well as to the preparation for the new month to come. In any case, no one should undertake an important work during this last day. It is highly recommended to fast for the whole day (for example, this was the habit of Proklos)

(Detail of a marble statue of Hekate. First century CE. Now in the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden - Leiden…)