**ALOE** (*Ἀλῶς*, from *ἄλως* “threshing-floor”). — A festival of the Athenian calendar, falling in the month of Posideon (15 December–15 January), dedicated to Demeter and celebrated both in Athens and at Eleusis; of an agrarian character, it was the festival of threshing, whose celebration in a winter month is explained by its association—like other Attic festivals—with Dionysus, to whom the vine is sacred, its harvest being arranged and adjusted at the beginning of winter.
The festival was celebrated exclusively by women, who offered bloodless libations (*ἐλάχος*), presented by a priestess (Demosthenes, *Or.*, 59, 116); it admitted obscene expressions (*ἀλαχρολογία*) suggested by the priestess (Scol. Iucino, *Dal. mer.*, 7, 4) and accompanied by displays of phallic figurines, with a sacromagical significance of fertility. The festival concluded with a banquet at which wine was poured in abundance, though certain foods forbidden in the Eleusinian Mysteries were excluded: fish, rooster, beans, apples (Porphyry, *De abst.*, 4, 16).
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