GENEALOGIES (Tà Geneàis). - A funerary commemoration, which was held in Athens on the anniversary of the birth (not of the death) of a deceased person, especially of the head of the family (Herodotus, IV, 26; Isaeus, II, 46).

As a public festival it fell on the 5th of Boedromion (Sept.-Oct.) in remembrance of the dead of the various families; the ritual consisted, as in the private g., of offerings on the tombs of bands, crowns and foods of a funerary kind. There was no lack of a sacrifice to the Earth, the mother who receives the dead (Hesychius, Lex., s. v.). Also in other cities in the Argolid and in Boeotia an analogous commemoration was celebrated under the name of Τὰ νεκάας (δὰ νέκας "dead"). It is not proven that the Nemesia (Τὰ Νεφέας) are to be identified with the g., since those were rather intended to appease the vengeance (νέακας) of the dead angered by the forgetfulness of the living with regard to them. The great festival of all the dead of the city fell in Athens on the third day of the Anthesteria (v.).

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: A. Mommsen, Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum, Leipzig 1898, pp. 172-75; E. Rohde, Psyche, I, Italian trans. Bari 1914, pp. 237-39; P. Stengel, Die griechischen Kulturalterümer, Munich 1920, p. 227; L. Deubner, Attische Feste, Berlin-Leipzig 1932, see index.

Nicola Turchi

@incollection{ec5_genesie_ta_geneais, author = {Turchi, Nicola}, title = {Genésie (ΤᾺ ΓΕΝΈΑΙΣ)}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {V}, pages = {2012}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/genesie-ta-geneais} }

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Genealogies (Tà Geneàis)

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