Brauronia

BRAURONIA (Βραυρόνια). - Festivals in honour of Artemis, celebrated at Brauron on the eastern coast of Attica and especially intended for women. Priestesses of the goddess were the bears, Athenian girls between the ages of 5 and 10, dressed in a saffron-coloured peplos; they recall other animal-named priesthoods in Greece and Asia Minor. According to some, they would be a remnant of animal disguises such as frequently appear in Minoan worship; according to others, they would testify that the goddess originally had an animal form. At the B. a goat was sacrificed; the canephoroi took part in the festival, which presupposes a procession to the sanctuary. Every five years the B. were celebrated in a more solemn form: Athens sent envoys, and then probably took place those contests of rhapsodes which Pisistrato seems to have taken as a model for the Panathenaea. Connected with the B. is the legend according to which Pelasgian, Lemnian, or Tyrrhenian pirates abducted the Attic women who had attended them.