Panathenaea: Or, A Singular Book on the Twin Festival of Minerva

IOANNIS MEVRSI

These Lesser Panathenaea were small. For the Greater ones were held on the twenty-third of the month of Hecatombaion the first month of the Attic year, roughly corresponding to July. I have said that the Lesser ones were celebrated the day after the Bendideia festival of the goddess Bendis. Hence it is that he says later that both this and that were at the same time. "In the lesser (Panathenaea), for these were performed around the same time as the Bendideia." And elsewhere again, clearly enough: "That the Panathenaea (the lesser ones) followed the Bendideia, the commentators say. And Aristotle of Rhodes records that the Bendideia in the Piraeus were performed on the twentieth of the month of Thargelion the eleventh month of the Attic year, roughly corresponding to May, and that the festivals concerning Athena followed." Here observe that the twentieth day is assigned to the Bendideia by that Aristotle of Rhodes, while others say they were accustomed to be celebrated on the nineteenth. But that is a slight difference, and only of one day. And some tell us that with the Lesser ones the sea was opened, and navigation began again, which others attributed to the spring Dionysia festival of the god Dionysus. There is a passage of Aristotle on this matter in his On the Generation of Animals, book 1: "From the Panathenaea, the sailing." For it ought to be understood as the Lesser ones, since the Greater were held in Hecatombaion, or June. And Maximus Tyrius is to be thought to speak of these by preeminence, when he separates them from spring, during which the lesser ones were performed. Dissertation XXXIII: "And the seasons allotted them their pleasures. In spring, the Dionysia. In autumn, the Mysteries. And another season another god has. The Panathenaea, the Scirophoria festival of the goddess Athena Sciras, the Aloa festival of Demeter and Dionysus, the Apaturia festival of the phratries."