PIA SOCIETÀ DI S. FRANCESCO SAVERIO - Institute of Foreign Missions - Parma, seat of the Institute for Foreign Missions.
sacred (partly preserved by Plutarch, Theseus, 22), the procession made its way to the temple of Apollo, on whose doors the olive branch was hung.
This public festival, however, also had private aspects, since, according to some (scholia to Aristophanes, Plut. 1050), every Athenian on that day planted an olive branch before his own house, where he kept it until the P. of the following year, when the old branch was replaced by the new one. The meaning of the ceremony was that of thanksgiving to Apollo-Sun for the harvest of fruits ripened by the sun. There was also a footrace among young men whose parents were still alive, which started from the temple of Dionysus and ran as far as the harbour of Phalerum: the winner received a “fivefold” cup (σεντετλῆ) of wine, honey, cheese, flour, and oil. This contest too had the meaning of a harvest festival, specifically of the vintage. At a later period it was connected with the myth of Theseus, to whom funerary offerings and libations were paid.