LENEE. - A festival celebrated in Athens in the month of Gamelion (= January-February) in honor of Dionysus Lenaios (Ἀῆναις), and it was one of the four principal festivals of Attica in honor of Dionysus.

Given the winter time of its celebration, the L. are to be considered more probably an orgiastic and mystic festival, rather than a festival of the vintage and, as it were, a glorification of the winepress (ὄγνός), the sacred symbol of the god. They in fact fell precisely in the period of the winter trieteric orgies; at Magnesia the Dionysiac initiates celebrated funeral rites for their companions in the Lenaion; the Orphic βαρχέων of Athens was sacred to Dionysus Leneus and mysteries were celebrated there, and Dionysus Leneus was closely connected with the infernal deities (Heraclitus, frg. 15, identifies with Hades the Dionysus celebrated in the L.).

The place where the L. were celebrated was Athens, where, throughout the whole Lenean territory, a solemn procession took place, probably phallophoric, with burlesque and coarse jests, with a banquet, at which the new wine was drunk, and with dramatic performances.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: M. Nilsson: Griechische Feste, Leipzig 1906, p. 275 ff.; A. B. Cook, Zeus, I. Cambridge 1914, p. 667; L. Deubner, Attische Feste, Berlin 1932, pp. 123-34.

Cesare D'Onofrio

@incollection{ec7_lenee, author = {D'Onofrio, Cesare}, title = {Lenee}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VII}, pages = {1099}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/lenee} }

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

About this entry