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Ancient Greek mid winter /winter solstice festival - ParthianBow - 09-11-2013
I've got an Greek question. As you might expect, I have rather a large number of Roman texts, but possess the sum total of one on Greece, as it doesn't usually pertain to me. I've looked all over the net, and can't find an answer to my query.
An easy answer, that is. Does anyone know if the ancient Greeks celebrated either a mid winter festival or a festival to mark the winter solstice? (In other words, a sort of Greek Saturnalia, as the Romans had.) Many thanks for any info or the names of any texts in which I might find the answer.
Ancient Greek mid winter /winter solstice festival - Athena Areias - 09-11-2013
I bookmarked a site called "Ancient Greek Religion":
http:/www.greekreligion.org/
A subset if this site is
http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/SF/SF.html
This should get you going.
Ancient Greek mid winter /winter solstice festival - ParthianBow - 09-11-2013
That's excellent, thank you - found what I needed on the second website within a couple of minutes!
:!: (I needed the information because my third Hannibal novel is set on Sicily, before and during the siege of Syracuse, so I've got a lot of Greek Syracusan characters.)
Best wishes - Ben
Ancient Greek mid winter /winter solstice festival - Lyceum - 09-11-2013
Ok I clicked on the second site, hardly "useful", Its so...nonsense. I'm guessing it's one of those Hellenic neo-pagan crapfests. I'm clicking on the page for the "Larentalia" for example, since its an area with an increasing amount of work and finding the following:
Acca is an obscure Latin word: in Greek akkô means a "ridiculous woman" or "bogey"; in Sanskrit akka means "mother." Therefore Acca Larentia seems to be the Mater Larum.
How do you respond but with laugher? it manages to be historically, philologically AND logically specious all at once.
OP, a few warnings. There is no singular Greek Religion, there are only a few shared tendencies. Even within a city sacral calenders can change heavily via area e.g Athens and its demes. We actually have a good portion of a demotic calender and can compare. I don't know how that influences what you're after.
I would recommend the following entryway texts: Parke's "Festivals of the Athenians" and Erika Simone's "Festivals of Attica". Yes, both are Athenian focused but are solid introductions without much knowledge beforehand.
I can help you more thoroughly after the 30th of September . The West is particularly troubling, though there has been some recent work its all in article form minus, I think, Lomas' stuff. You'll want to concentrate on Demetra and Kore in this area though the Tyrants were quite keen to wholesale take elements of Athenian culture, hence my recommendation of Athens as a base...
By all means use the sites Athena Areias helpfully recommended, just with extreme caution of the later...the first one in general seems more reliable.
If you're doing you're own research focus on sacred space and time for best results here.
Ancient Greek mid winter /winter solstice festival - Athena Areias - 09-11-2013
My bad! :oops: I dug a little deeper and found some sources on this page. (General disclaimer inserted here)
http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/GSF.html
More work for you to verify, but at least some where to start! Wiki goes to here goes to Wiki goes to here - a giant loop!
Edited to add: The link I first gave you does have sources linked to it. Older, but perhaps still useful.
Ancient Greek mid winter /winter solstice festival - Lyceum - 09-11-2013
Quote:My bad! :oops: I dug a little deeper and found some sources on this page. (General disclaimer inserted here)
http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/GSF.html
More work for you to verify, but at least some where to start! Wiki goes to here goes to Wiki goes to here - a giant loop!
Edited to add: The link I first gave you does have sources linked to it. Older, but perhaps still useful.
Oh, I hope that didn't sound like I'm irate at you - why would I be? one of those links was very helpful to anybody. However, these neo-Pagans always get my goat: both for being childish and spreading misinformation and I'd hate to see anyone tripped up by them.
Anyway I just wanted to say, of course! How could we forget Wiki! Honestly I know it usually brings automatic scorn but Wikipedia is not always bad. Both the page on the Attic calender http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attic_calendar and the one of the Festivals seem ok: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_festivals The latter more so if you ignore the interpretive aspects. Unfortunately it's organised more via deity than month.
I also can't help but feel anything in a Sicilian setting would probably occur either at a Thesmophoria like event (which could have an event somewhat akin to Bakhtin's carnivale affect due to the presence of Iambics) simply due to the heavy epichoric (local mythic links) associations Sicily accrued throughout the Classical period.
Ancient Greek mid winter /winter solstice festival - ParthianBow - 09-12-2013
Thanks for further detail. I'll treat that second one with due caution.
Another good site recommended to my by Christian Cameron is this one:
http://www.numachi.com/~ccount/hmepa/Notes.html