Ancient Greek Religious Festival of Anthesteria Revived in Athens

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Ancient Greek Religious Festival of Anthesteria Revived in Athens

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The ancient Greek religious festival of Anthesteria was revived in the center of the old city in Athens on Sunday. Credit: Hamburger Kunsthalle / Lawrence Alma Tadema / Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

The ancient Greek religious festival of Anthesteria was revived in Athens over the weekend of February 8 and 9.

Participants dressed in ancient Greek costume met on Sunday at the stairs of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, under the Acropolis, to reenact the spirit of the celebrations in honour of the god of wine Dionysus.

The procession continued to the archaeological site of Kerameikos, where participants honoured their dead ancestors.

Festivities had started the day before the procession, at the premises of Ancient Greek Religion, with the opening of the jar with the new wine and its sharing to participants, like the custom used to be in ancient Greece, some two and a half millennia ago.

Three-day festival in honour of Dionysus

In antiquity, the Anthesteria festival used to take place in late February – early March, on the 11th, 12th and 13th days of the month Anthesterion. It lasted three days and was one four Athens festivals in honour of Dionysus.

According to ancient Greek historian Thucydides, this was the oldest festival for the god of wine.

Anthesteria was also celebrated in the city-states of Ionia at the time as well as on the Aegean islands and coast of Anatolia.

Each day was fondly named for the kind of vessel that typified the day’s activity: Pithoigia for jar-opening, Choes for *****, and Chytroi for pots.

After opening the jars to taste the new wine for the first time on the first day, and conducting religious rituals on the second day, participants on the last day of the festival honoured not only their own dead, but also those who perished in the Great Flood of Deucalion, Greek mythology’s equivalent of Noah’s story.

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Duality of Anthesteria ancient Greek festival

While most people would believe that Anthesteria took their name from the word anthos, meaning flower, and connect the festival to a celebration of spring, British classical scholars and linguists have suggested a different etymology and interpretation of the ancient festival.

Arthur Woollgar Verrall glossed the name as a Feast of Revocation from the ancient Greek verb anathessasthai, meaning to “pray up”, in reference to the aspects of the festival where the dead were considered to return from the underworld and walk among the living.

Similarly, Jane Ellen Harrison also regarded the Anthesteria as primarily concerned with placating ancestral spirits.

This approach is also justified by the nature of the rituals conducted during the Anthesteria, including libations to the dead and offerings to the god Hermes as an underworld figure.

Nonetheless, the connection to flowers, blooming, and the arrival of spring is not entirely decoupled from the Anthesteria, even if not linguistically supported. Spring flowers were used to decorate the rooms of the house, the drinking vessels, and any children over three years of age, while festive mood prevailed.

A broader description of the festival could be that of a celebration of spring and new life in the presence of the spirits of the dead.

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