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from the north-west could be re-enacted, and while it was there, a sacrifice took place and a hymn was sung. When the statue had returned to its normal place, the festival proper began with a grand procession to the holy precinct where the sacrifices were to be made. The procession called at various altars in the city, including that of the Twelve Gods in the Agora, and dancing choruses performed at each one. Either in this procession or in a separate 'revel' later in the day, huge wooden phalli were carried along, and lusty songs addressed to them, a practice also observed in other Greek Dionysiac cults. Also on this day, it is assumed, the twenty dithyrambic choruses performed their pieces. The next three or four days were filled with the dramatic performances. In the last quarter of the fifth century the pattern was that on each of three days a tragic poet produced three tragedies and a satyr-play, and a comic poet one comedy: a daily progress from the sublime to the ridiculous.30 |
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At the Great Panathenaea, choruses of young men and women sang paeans and danced through the first night on the Acropolis. We hear of 'ring-choruses' (the term normally used at Athens in connection with dithyrambs), and of dances in armour by men and by boys. At dawn a great procession set out bearing a new robe for Athena's statue. The sheep and cattle to be sacrificed were conducted by the religious officials, and after them came a band of citharists and auletes playing in concert at the head of the rest of the crowd of participants (Pl. 5). After the offerings had been made and everyone had feasted on the meat, the musical and athletic contests must have got under way. Altogether the festival lasted four days. The citharodic, aulodic, and auletic performances could perhaps have been completed in a single day, or part of one. The rhapsodes' recitals of the entire Iliad and Odyssey, on the other hand, must have extended over more or less the whole period of the festival.31 |
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The Laconian Hyakinthia occupied three days in early summer. The first was a day of mourning for the death of Hyakinthos, and for this reason the sacrifice was not accompanied by the usual music. On the second day, however, the mood was very different. The whole of Sparta attended to watch a splendid display. A chorus of boys sang a paean to Apollo, probably marching or prancing along, as we are told that they had their tunics tucked up and that the rhythm was |
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30 L. Deubner, Attische Feste (Berlin, 1932), 138-42; Pickard-Cambridge, DFA2 57 ff.; H. W. Parke, Festivals of the Athenians (London, 1977). 125-36. |
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31 For the Panathenaea see Deubner. op. cit. 22-35; Parke, op. cit 33-50. |
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