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The Date of the Adonia at Athens*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 August 2011

Francis Redding Walton
Francis Redding Walton
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

Three dates have been suggested for the celebration of the festival of Adonis at Athens, all of which have found adherents in recent years. Deubner, relying solely on the apparent evidence of vase-paintings, as interpreted by Hauser, placed the Adonia at the beginning of autumn. The only argument in favor of so late a date, that bunches of fresh grapes appeared in representations of the κῆποι 'Aδώνιδος' was disposed of by Nock, who pointed out that grapes were also kept until the feast of Choes, Anthesterion 12.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , January 1938 , pp. 65 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1938

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References

1 Deubner, L., Attische Feste (Berlin, 1932), p. 221Google Scholar; Hauser, F., Oest. Jahresh., 12, 1909, pp. 90–99Google Scholar.

2 Nock, A. D., review of Deubner, op. cit., in Gnomon, 10, 1934, pp. 290–292Google Scholar; cf. Nilsson, M. P., de Dionysiis Atticis (Lundae, 1900), pp. 125–126Google Scholar.

3 Baudissin, W. W., Adonis und Esmun (Leipzig, 1911), pp. 126–133.Google Scholar

4 Cumont, F., “Les Syriens en Espagne et les Adonies à Seville,” Syria 8, 1927, pp. 330–341CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “Adonis et Sirius,” Glotz, Mélanges, 1932, 1, pp. 257 ff.Google Scholar; “Adonies et Canicule,” Syria 16, 1935, pp. 46–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Cumont, F., Syria 16, 1935, p. 49, n. 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Piganiol, A., “Deux notes sur l'expédition de Sicile, I. Les Adonies de 415 av. J.-C.,” REG 50, 1937, pp. 1–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Meritt, B. D., “The Departure of Alcibiades for Sicily,” AJA 34, 1930, pp. 125–152CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Athenian Financial Documents (Ann Arbor, 1932), pp. 160 ff.Google Scholar; Dinsmoor, W. B., Archons of Athens (Cambridge, Mass., 1931), pp. 337–340Google Scholar.

8 Soon after June 8, according to Dinsmoor; Meritt, though now agreeing with Dinsmoor on the date of the last payment, still holds that the fleet did not sail till about June 20.

9 Meritt, B. D., AJA 34, 1930, pp. 136–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Ibid., pp. 137–139.

11 Meritt, B. D., Hesperia 4, 1935, pp. 574–575.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Broneer, O., Hesperia 1, 1932, pp. 43–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 I find, however, that , Nilsson, op. cit., p. 100Google Scholar, n. 1, noted the importance of this text in this connection.

14 Cf. contra Aug. Mommsen, Burs. Jahres., 60, 1889, 3, p. 250 and 253.

15 Christ-Schmid-Staehlin, Griechische Literaturgeschichte, ed. 6, 2, p. 826.

16 Haloa: IV. 6. 3; IV. 18. 4 and 17; Adonia: IV. 10. 1.

17 According to , Becker-Hermann, Charikles, ed. 2 (Leipzig, 1854), 2, pp. 240–241Google Scholar, it was customary to invite guests to dinner often as late as the very day of the dinner. The locus classicus is , Plato, Symp. 174Google Scholar e: Ὦ, ϕάναι, Ἀριστόδημε, εἰς καλὸν ἥκεις ὄπως συνδειπνήσῃς εἰ δ᾽ ἄλλου τινὸς ἔνεκα ἦλθες, εἰς αὖθις ἀναβαλοῦ, ὡς καί, χθὲς ζητῶν σε ἴνα καλέσαιμι, οὐχ οἷός τ᾽ ἦ ἰδεῖν. The Sybarites, as one might expect, invited to dinner a year in advance (Plut., Sept. Sap. Conv. 147 e), a fact so strikingly in contrast to normal Greek custom that it was singled out for mention.

18 , Kock, Com. Gr. Fragm. 2, fr. 43, 38–40.Google Scholar

19 Boehlau, J., “Ein neuer Erosmythus,” Philol. 60, 1901, pp. 321–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Eros and Adonis (?) together on a lecythus of about 850 B.C., now in New York: Richter, G. M. A., Red-figured Attic Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New Haven, 1936), pp. 219–220Google Scholar, no. 173 and Pl. 168; Eros in scenes of the Adonia, , Hauser, l. c., with the other references given by Richter, p. 219Google Scholar, n. 3. The Ἔρωτες were figured with Adonis in Alexandria (cf. Theocr. XV, 120).

21 Broneer, O., Hesperia 1, 1932, p. 54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Meritt, B. D., Hesperia 4, 1935, p. 574CrossRefGoogle Scholar.