Pandia (festival)

Last updated April 19, 2024

The Pandia was an ancient state festival attested as having been held annually at Athens as early as the time of Demosthenes.^[1] Although little that is known of the Pandia is certain,^[2] it was probably a festival for Zeus,^[3] and was celebrated in the spring after the City Dionysia in the middle of the month of Elaphebolion (late March and early April).

Dates

The exact date of the Pandia has been much discussed.^[4] Demosthenes speech Against Midias (21.8) has a meeting, during which the conduct of the City Dionysia was reviewed, being held after the Pandia. This places the Pandia, at least during the time of Demosthenes, after the City Dionysia. Some have seen an association between the Pandia and the full moon, putting the celebration on 14 Elaphebolion.^[5] However, according to Pickard-Cambridge, Gould, and Lewis, the association with the full moon "can neither be affirmed nor rejected" ^[6] , and modern scholarship appears to favor the later dates of the 16 or 17 Elaphebolion.^[7]

Rites

The derivation of the festival's name and exactly whom the festival may have honored have been the subject of considerable discussion.^[8] Zeus, the goddess Selene, Pandia, a daughter of Zeus and Selene, and Pandion, a mythical king, have all been seen as being possibly connected with the festival.

The name "Pandia" is associated with the goddess Selene, the Greek personification of the moon. Originally, Pandia may have been an epithet of Selene,^[9] but by at least the time of the Homeric Hymn to Selene,^[10] Pandia ("all brightness")^[11] had become a daughter of Selene and Zeus. Pandia Selene or Selene's daughter Pandia, have been offered as possible origins for the name of the festival.

Another mythological figure whose name has been suggested as a possible source for the name of the festival is Pandion, a legendary king of Athens who, as part of the tribal reforms of Cleisthenes at the end of the sixth century BC, became the eponymous hero of the Athenian tribe Pandionis. However, some scholars think it is more likely that the hero derived his name from the festival as its legendary founder.^[12] An inscription^[13] dating from c. 386 BC, which refers to a decree of the tribe Pandionis, commending a "priest of Pandion" for services performed at the Pandia, supports the notion of a link between Pandion and the festival.^[14]

While mentioning both Selene and Pandion in connection with the festival's name, Photius states that the festival was held for Zeus. ^[15] Although, according to Robert Parker, this association with Zeus may only be "a probably correct etymological guess",^[16] many scholars are content to assign the festival to Zeus.^[17] It is also possible that more than one mythological figure was associated with the festival, and who the festival honored may have changed over time.^[18]

Pandia of Plotheia

A festival of the same name is attested for the deme Plotheia; what relationship, if any, this festival may have had with the Pandia of Athens is unknown.^[19]

Notes

↑ Demosthenes, Against Midias 21.8–9; Inscriptiones Graecae , II² 1140, line 5; Harpocration, Lexicon of the Ten Orators s.v.; Pollux, Onomasticon 1.37. Though the earliest mentions of the festival we have date only from the fourth century BC, the festival was probably much older, Parke, p. 136, says that the festival "was probably a survival from the archaic past which had become fossilized", Parker (1996), p. 75 says "The panegyris or 'all-assembly' is in fact as ancient a Greek institution as any that we know of. If, as is likely, the system of tribal competition in Attic cults is archaic, there must always have been some pan-Attic festivals. Some old favourites (the Pandia for instance, the 'all-Zeus' festival or the Dipolieta) perhaps gradually faded away in the classical period", while Robertson sees the festival as marking the spring migration of sheep to mountain pastures, and having originated at least as early as the Mycenean period (Robertson 1991, p. 5; Robertson 1993, p. 15).
↑ Burkert, p. 182; Parke, pp. 135–136; Parker 2005, pp. 447–448.
↑ Parker 2005, p. 447.
↑ Mikalson 1975, p. 137.
↑ Smith, "Pandia", "Dionysia"; Cook, p. 733; Willetts, pp. 178; Robertson 1996, p. 75 note 109.
↑ Pickard-Cambridge, Gould and Lewis, p. 66.
↑ Harris, p. 190; Canevaro, p. 213; Pickard-Cambridge, Gould and Lewis, p. 66; Mikalson 1975, p. 137.
↑ For example see Willetts, pp. 178-179; Smith, "Pandia"; Harpers, "Pandia"; Photius, Lexicon s.v. Πάνδια; Scholiast on Demosthenes, 21.39a; Lexicon Patmense s.v. Πάνδια; Lexica Segueriana s.v. Πάνδια (Bekker, p. 292). For possible meanings of the name see Cook, p. 423 note 2 which derives it from the adjective Δῖοσ, meaning 'of' or 'belonging to Zeus', see also Parker 1996, p. 75, however Robertson 1996, p. 75 note 109 says that while "the festival name Pandia is sometimes thought to mean "Common festival of Zeus"—i.e. one celebrated jointly by several communities, ... the true meaning is surely "Rites of the all-bright sky".
↑ Willetts, p. 178; Cook, p. 732; Roscher, p. 100; Scholiast on Demosthenes, 21.39a.
↑ Hymn to Selene (32) 15–16.
↑ Fairbanks, p. 162. Regarding the meaning of "Pandia", Kerenyi, p. 197, says: '"the entirely shining" or the "entirely bright"— doubtless the brightness of nights of full moon.'
↑ Parke, p. 136; Kearns, pp. 81, 87, 192; Sourvinou-Inwood, p. 74; Parker 2005, p. 448; Lexicon Patmense s.v. Πάνδια. According to Kearns pp. 68–69, there was "a very wide spread cultic-mythic phenomenon in which a hero or heroine is worshipped in conjunction with a god, while an aetiological myth explains that he or she was the first to perform the rite."
↑ Inscriptiones Graecae , II² 1140, line 5.
↑ Canevaro, p 212; Harding, p. 42; Anderson, p. 130, p. 251 note 15; Robertson 1993, p. 15; Parke, p. 136.
↑ Cook, p. 732; Photius, Lexicon s.v. Πάνδια.
↑ Parker 2005, p. 478.
↑ For example see: Harris, p. 190; Harding, p. 42; Anderson, p. 130; Sourvinou-Inwood, p. 74; Robertson 1996, p. 41, p. 65 note 1; Parke, pp. 135–136.
↑ Kearns, p. 81, says "If the Pandia were a festival of Zeus, as the Panathenaia of Athena, it is nonetheless clear that the Pandion received a lesser sacrifice"; Smith, "Pandia" says "It is not impossible that in course of time the tribe Pandionis may have regarded themselves as specially connected with this festival, though we have no clear evidence of it, nor again that Zeus, as Preller thinks, may afterwards have been associated in the worship"; and Cook, p. 732 says "that the festival Pandia was ab initio connected with this Selene Pandia is far from clear", while Willetts, p. 179 sees a possible "metamorphosis" ... from a female to a male—Pandia to Pandion". Regarding the possibility of multiple honorees for Attic festivals see Parker 2005, p. 155, which says: "ancient scholars were uncertain what god two festivals (Skira, Oschophoria) belonged to, and the controversy has continued into modern times. But in both cases it seems that it is the principle of 'one god per festival' that is at fault."
↑ Mikalson 1977, p. 430; Parker 2005, pp. 73–74; p. 74 note 96, pp. 477–478; Dillon and Garland, pp. 354–355; Inscriptiones Graecae , I³ 258, line 9.

Related Research Articles

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Artemis is the goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, nature, vegetation, childbirth, care of children, and chastity. In later times, she was identified with Selene, the personification of the Moon. She was often said to roam the forests and mountains, attended by her entourage of nymphs. The goddess Diana is her Roman equivalent.

In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus by the Greeks for a frenzy he is said to induce called baccheia. As Dionysus Eleutherius, his wine, music, and ecstatic dance free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. His thyrsus, a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself.

Erechtheus in Greek mythology was a king of Athens, the founder of the polis and, in his role as god, attached to Poseidon, as "Poseidon Erechtheus". The name Erichthonius is carried by a son of Erechtheus, but Plutarch conflated the two names in the myth of the begetting of Erechtheus.

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Iacchus was a minor deity, of some cultic importance, particularly at Athens and Eleusis in connection with the Eleusinian mysteries, but without any significant mythology. He perhaps originated as the personification of the ritual exclamation Iacche! cried out during the Eleusinian procession from Athens to Eleusis. He was often identified with Dionysus, perhaps because of the resemblance of the names Iacchus and Bacchus, another name for Dionysus. By various accounts he was a son of Demeter, or a son of Persephone, identical with Dionysus Zagreus, or a son of Dionysus.

In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Selene is the goddess and personification of the Moon. Also known as Mene, she is traditionally the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia, and sister of the sun god Helios and the dawn goddess Eos. She drives her moon chariot across the heavens. Several lovers are attributed to her in various myths, including Zeus, Pan, and the mortal Endymion. In post-classical times, Selene was often identified with Artemis, much as her brother, Helios, was identified with Apollo. Selene and Artemis were also associated with Hecate and all three were regarded as moon and lunar goddesses, but only Selene was regarded as the personification of the Moon itself.

In Greek mythology, the goddess Pandia or Pandeia was a daughter of Zeus and the goddess Selene, the Greek personification of the moon. From the Homeric Hymn to Selene, we have: "Once the Son of Cronos [Zeus] was joined with her [Selene] in love; and she conceived and bare a daughter Pandia, exceeding lovely amongst the deathless gods." An Athenian tradition perhaps made Pandia the wife of Antiochus, the eponymous hero of Antiochis, one of the ten Athenian tribes (phylai).

The Dionysia was a large festival in ancient Athens in honor of the god Dionysus, the central events of which were the theatrical performances of dramatic tragedies and, from 487 BC, comedies. It was the second-most important festival after the Panathenaia. The Dionysia actually consisted of two related festivals, the Rural Dionysia and the City Dionysia, which took place in different parts of the year. They were also an essential part of the Dionysian Mysteries.

The Attic calendar or Athenian calendar is the lunisolar calendar beginning in midsummer with the lunar month of Hekatombaion, in use in ancient Attica, the ancestral territory of the Athenian polis. It is sometimes called the Greek calendar because of Athens's cultural importance, but it is only one of many ancient Greek calendars.

The Lenaia was an annual Athenian festival with a dramatic competition. It was one of the lesser festivals of Athens and Ionia in ancient Greece. The Lenaia took place in Athens in Gamelion, roughly corresponding to January. The festival was in honour of Dionysus Lenaios. There is also evidence the festival also took place in Delphi.

Lycurgus was a statesman and logographer in Ancient Greece. In the aftermath of the Athenian defeat at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, he became the leading figure in Athenian politics, taking control of Athenian finances and pushing through a range of measures which drastically increased Athens' revenues. This money was used to expand the navy, improve the city's fortifications, develop the temples and religious ceremonies, and to build up a hefty reserve. He also encouraged the restoration of traditional values and prosecuted those who fell short of his expectations of civic behaviour. Because of his leading role, the period from 338 to 324 BC is often known in modern scholarship as the "Age of Lycurgus."

"On the Crown" is the most famous judicial oration of the prominent Athenian statesman and orator Demosthenes, delivered in 330 BC.

The Synoikia was an ancient Greek festival held in Athens commemorating the political unification of Attica. It was also called the Thesean Synoikismos and the Feast of Union, and celebrated Theseus as founder of Athens and the goddess Athena as the city's patron goddess. The festival was celebrated in the month of Hekatombeion on the 16th. A two-day festival, on the 15th and the 16th was held every second year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Altar of the Twelve Gods</span> Ancient altar in Athens, Greece

The Altar of the Twelve Gods, was an important altar and sanctuary at Athens, located in the northwest corner of the Classical Agora. The Altar was set up by Pisistratus the Younger, during his archonship, in 522/1 BC. It marked the central point from which distances from Athens were measured and was a place of supplication and refuge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sanctuary of Pandion</span>

The Sanctuary of Pandion is the name sometimes given to the remains of a building located in the south-east corner of the Acropolis of Athens. Its foundations were found during the excavations for the construction of the Old Acropolis Museum (1865–1874).

The festival calendar of Classical Athens involved the staging of many festivals each year. This includes festivals held in honor of Athena, Dionysus, Apollo, Artemis, Demeter, Persephone, Hermes, and Herakles. Other Athenian festivals were based around family, citizenship, sacrifice, and women. There were at least 120 festival days each year.

Robert Christopher Towneley Parker, FBA is a British ancient historian, specialising in ancient Greek religion and Greek epigraphy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood</span> Hellenist and academic

Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood was a scholar in the field of Ancient Greek religion and a highly influential Hellenist.

Ancient Greek literary sources claim that among the many deities worshipped by a typical Greek city-state, one consistently held unique status as founding patron and protector of the polis, its citizens, governance and territories, as evidenced by the city's founding myth, and by high levels of investment in the deity's temple and civic cult. The temple of the deity involved was usually founded on the highest ground (acropolis) within the city walls, or elsewhere within the central public assembly space, the agora. Conversely, a city's possession of a patron deity was thought to be a mark of the city's status as polis.

Pandion was the eponymous hero of the Attic tribe Pandionis, which was created as part of the tribal reforms of Cleisthenes at the end of the sixth century BC. He is usually assumed to be one of the two legendary kings of Athens, Pandion I or Pandion II.

In Greek mythology, Pandion may refer to the following characters:

References

Anderson, Greg, The Athenian Experiment: Building an Imagined Political Community in Ancient Attica, 508-490 B.C., University of Michigan Press, 2003. ISBN 9780472113200.
Bekker, Immanuel, Anecdota Graeca: Lexica Segueriana, Apud G.C. Nauckium, 1814.
Burkert, Walter, Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth, University of California Press, 1983. ISBN 0520036506.
Canevaro, Mirko, The Documents in the Attic Orators: Laws and Decrees in the Public Speeches of the Demosthenic Corpus, Oxford University Press, 2013. ISBN 9780199668908.
Cook, Arthur Bernard, Zeus: Zeus, God of the Bright Sky, Volume 1 of Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion, Biblo and Tannen, 1914.
Dillon, Matthew, Lynda Garland, Ancient Greece: Social and Historical Documents from Archaic Times to the Death of Alexander, Routledge, 2010. ISBN 9780203854556.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by A. T. Murray, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1939.
Evelyn-White, Hugh, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Homeric Hymns. Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914.
Harding, Phillip, The Story of Athens: The Fragments of the Local Chronicles of Attika, Routledge, 2007. ISBN 9781134304479.
Harris, Edward M., Demosthenes, Speeches 20-22, University of Texas Press, 2010. ISBN 9780292794139.
Kearns, Emily, The Heroes of Attica (Bulletin Supplement 57), University of London Institute of Classical Studies 1989. ISBN 978-0900587603.
Mikalson, Jon D. (1975), The Sacred and Civil Calendar of the Athenian Year, Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691035458.
Mikalson, Jon D. (1977), "Religion in the Attic Demes". The American Journal of Philology (The Johns Hopkins University Press) 98 (4): 424–435.
Parke, Herbert William, Festivals of the Athenians, Cornell University Press, 1977.
Parker, Robert (1996), Athenian Religion: A History, Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-814979-4.
Parker, Robert (2005), Polytheism and Society at Athens, Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-927483-3.
Pickard-Cambridge, Sir arthur W., John Gould and D. M. Lewis, The Dramatic Festivals of Athens Oxford University Press, USA; 2 edition (January 12, 1989). ISBN 0-19-814258-7.
Robertson, Noel (1991), "Myth, Ritual and Livelihood in Early Greece" in Ancient Economy in Mythology: East and West, ed. M. Silver (Savage, Md. 1991). ISBN 0847676293.
Robertson, Noel (1993), Festivals and Legends: The Formation of Greek Cities in the Light of Public Ritual, The University of Toronto Press.
Robertson, Noel (1996), "Athena's Shrines and Festivals" in Worshipping Athena: Panathenaia and Parthenon, The University of Wisconsin Press.
Roscher, Wilhelm Heinrich, Über Selene und Verwandtes, B. G. Teubner, Leizig 1890.
Sourvinou-Inwood, Christiane, Tragedy and Athenian Religion, Lexington Books, 2003. ISBN 9780739104002.
Smith, William; A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities . William Smith, LLD. William Wayte. G. E. Marindin. Albemarle Street, London. John Murray. 1890. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Willetts, R. F., Cretan Cults and Festivals, Greenwood Press, 1980. ISBN 9780313220500.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Demosthenes, Against Midias 21.8–9; Inscriptiones Graecae , II² 1140, line 5; Harpocration, Lexicon of the Ten Orators s.v.; Pollux, Onomasticon 1.37. Though the earliest mentions of the festival we have date only from the fourth century BC, the festival was probably much older, Parke, p. 136, says that the festival "was probably a survival from the archaic past which had become fossilized", Parker (1996), p. 75 says "The panegyris or 'all-assembly' is in fact as ancient a Greek institution as any that we know of. If, as is likely, the system of tribal competition in Attic cults is archaic, there must always have been some pan-Attic festivals. Some old favourites (the Pandia for instance, the 'all-Zeus' festival or the Dipolieta) perhaps gradually faded away in the classical period", while Robertson sees the festival as marking the spring migration of sheep to mountain pastures, and having originated at least as early as the Mycenean period (Robertson 1991, p. 5; Robertson 1993, p. 15).

[2] Burkert, p. 182; Parke, pp. 135–136; Parker 2005, pp. 447–448.

[3] Parker 2005, p. 447.

[4] Mikalson 1975, p. 137.

[5] Smith, "Pandia", "Dionysia"; Cook, p. 733; Willetts, pp. 178; Robertson 1996, p. 75 note 109.

[6] Pickard-Cambridge, Gould and Lewis, p. 66.

[7] Harris, p. 190; Canevaro, p. 213; Pickard-Cambridge, Gould and Lewis, p. 66; Mikalson 1975, p. 137.

[8] For example see Willetts, pp. 178-179; Smith, "Pandia"; Harpers, "Pandia"; Photius, Lexicon s.v. Πάνδια; Scholiast on Demosthenes, 21.39a; Lexicon Patmense s.v. Πάνδια; Lexica Segueriana s.v. Πάνδια (Bekker, p. 292). For possible meanings of the name see Cook, p. 423 note 2 which derives it from the adjective Δῖοσ, meaning 'of' or 'belonging to Zeus', see also Parker 1996, p. 75, however Robertson 1996, p. 75 note 109 says that while "the festival name Pandia is sometimes thought to mean "Common festival of Zeus"—i.e. one celebrated jointly by several communities, ... the true meaning is surely "Rites of the all-bright sky".

[9] Willetts, p. 178; Cook, p. 732; Roscher, p. 100; Scholiast on Demosthenes, 21.39a.

[10] Hymn to Selene (32) 15–16.

[11] Fairbanks, p. 162. Regarding the meaning of "Pandia", Kerenyi, p. 197, says: '"the entirely shining" or the "entirely bright"— doubtless the brightness of nights of full moon.'

[12] Parke, p. 136; Kearns, pp. 81, 87, 192; Sourvinou-Inwood, p. 74; Parker 2005, p. 448; Lexicon Patmense s.v. Πάνδια. According to Kearns pp. 68–69, there was "a very wide spread cultic-mythic phenomenon in which a hero or heroine is worshipped in conjunction with a god, while an aetiological myth explains that he or she was the first to perform the rite."

[13] Inscriptiones Graecae , II² 1140, line 5.

[14] Canevaro, p 212; Harding, p. 42; Anderson, p. 130, p. 251 note 15; Robertson 1993, p. 15; Parke, p. 136.

[15] Cook, p. 732; Photius, Lexicon s.v. Πάνδια.

[16] Parker 2005, p. 478.

[17] For example see: Harris, p. 190; Harding, p. 42; Anderson, p. 130; Sourvinou-Inwood, p. 74; Robertson 1996, p. 41, p. 65 note 1; Parke, pp. 135–136.

[18] Kearns, p. 81, says "If the Pandia were a festival of Zeus, as the Panathenaia of Athena, it is nonetheless clear that the Pandion received a lesser sacrifice"; Smith, "Pandia" says "It is not impossible that in course of time the tribe Pandionis may have regarded themselves as specially connected with this festival, though we have no clear evidence of it, nor again that Zeus, as Preller thinks, may afterwards have been associated in the worship"; and Cook, p. 732 says "that the festival Pandia was ab initio connected with this Selene Pandia is far from clear", while Willetts, p. 179 sees a possible "metamorphosis" ... from a female to a male—Pandia to Pandion". Regarding the possibility of multiple honorees for Attic festivals see Parker 2005, p. 155, which says: "ancient scholars were uncertain what god two festivals (Skira, Oschophoria) belonged to, and the controversy has continued into modern times. But in both cases it seems that it is the principle of 'one god per festival' that is at fault."

[19] Mikalson 1977, p. 430; Parker 2005, pp. 73–74; p. 74 note 96, pp. 477–478; Dillon and Garland, pp. 354–355; Inscriptiones Graecae , I³ 258, line 9.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]