ALOE ('ΑΛῺΣ, from ἌΛΩΣ "Let it be"). - A festival of the Athenian calendar, which fell in the month of Posideon (December 15 – January 15), dedicated to Demeter and celebrated both in Athens and in Eleusis; it was of an agrarian character; it was the festival of threshing, whose celebration in a winter month is explained by the association with it, as with other Attic festivals, of Dionysus, to whom the vine is sacred, whose harvest is settled and enjoyed at the beginning of winter.

The festival was celebrated exclusively by women, who offered bloodless libations (τέλανος), presented by a priestess (Demosthenes, Or., 59, 116); it admitted obscene expressions (αἰσχρολογία) suggested by the priestess (Schol. Lucian, Dial. mer., 7, 4) and accompanied by displays of phallic figurines, with a sacro-magical significance of fertility. The festival was closed by a banquet at which wine was drunk in abundance, but from which those foods that were forbidden in the Eleusinian mysteries were excluded: fish, rooster, beans, apples (Porphyry, De abst., 4, 16).

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: A. Mommsen, Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum, Leipzig 1898, pp. 359-69; P. Stengel, Die griechischen Kultusalterümer, 3rd ed., Munich 1920, p. 234 ff.; J. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, 3rd ed., Cambridge 1922, pp. 145-50.

@incollection{ec1_aloe_alos_da_alos_sia, author = {Turchi, Nicola}, title = {Alòe ('ΑΛῺΣ, da ἄλως «sia»)}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {I}, pages = {915}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1948}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/aloe-alos-da-alos-sia} }

One of some 20,000 entries brought back from the twelve printed volumes (1948–54). Spotted something? Help us improve it.

Aloe ('ΑΛῺΣ, from ἌΛΩΣ "Let it be")

About this entry