PANATHENAEA (Panathēnaia). - Among the Athenian festivals the P. were the most ancient, celebrated in honor of Athena Polias, protectress of the city. The festival (which was said to have been instituted by the mythical Erichthonius) was originally limited to the city of Athens alone, but from the time when Theseus united Attica into a single state it was called that of the Panathenaea, and indeed on the occasion of this union the festival of the Synoecia (Συνοίκια) was celebrated on 18 Hecatombaion (July-August), which served as a preparation for the P.
The festival of the P. was annual, but from the time of Pisistratus (566 B.C.), in addition to the annual celebration, another far more solemn one was instituted, the Great Panathenaea, which recurred every 4 years (a penteteric festival), that is, every third year of the Olympiad. Its duration was 4 or 6 days, between the 23rd and the 28th of Hecatombaion, on which last day fell the birth of the goddess.
The exact course of the P. (conducted under the guidance of 10 athlothetai) is rather obscure, also because in the course of time the festival kept being enriched with ever new elements. On the first days chariot races were held, to which horse races, gymnastic contests and, in a more recent period, a torch race (lampadedromia) were later added: at nightfall (the festival fell before the new moon) a chosen group of youths set out in two relays from the altar of Eros in the Academy, on which the torches were lit: the first ran ahead with lighted torches; the second followed at a distance without torches. Whoever was overtaken had to give up his torch, and the winner was the one who arrived first at the goal with his torch still lit.
Pisistratus (or his son Hipparchus) established that at the P. the Homeric songs should be recited by the rhapsodes, and Pericles introduced musical contests, celebrated in the Odeon. Besides the choruses of dancers, at the P. there took place, on the last day, contests of triremes (disputed by the various tribes of Attica). The prizes consisted of golden crowns, of oil from the goddess's sacred olives, of decorated clay vases or of bronze tripods and, for the winners of the regatta, of a sum of money, part of which was destined for a sacrifice in honor of Poseidon.
The closing of the festival, on the 28th day, included a solemn procession, which brought to the goddess the very rich peplos, woven by Athenian citizen women (the ergastinai), on which, among other things, the victorious struggle of Athena against the Giants was represented. This peplos was conducted from the Ceramicus through the streets of the city on a cart shaped like a ship as far as the sanctuary of the goddess on the acropolis. This procession was depicted by Phidias in the frieze of the Parthenon.
Cesare D'Onofrio