APATURIA ('Airarobpea)

This article appears in Volume V02, Page 160 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: ANC-APO

APATURIA ('Airarobpea) , an ancient Greek festival held annually by all the Ionian towns except Ephesus and

Colophon

COLOPHON

(Herodotus i. 147). At Athens it took place in the month of Pyanepsion (October to November), and lasted three days, on which occasion the various phratries (i.e. clans) of Attica met to discuss their affairs. The name is a slightly modified form of alraropLa = d,ua1raropta, oo2rarapta, the festival of "common relationship." The ancient etymology associated it with aaarn (deceit), a legend existing that the festival originated in 1 too B.C. in commemoration of a single combat between a certain Melanthus, representing King Thymoetes of Attica, and King Xanthus of Boeotia, in which Melanthus successfully threw his adversary off his guard by crying that a man in a black goat's skin (identified with Dionysus) was helping him (Schol. Aristophanes, Acharnians, 146). On the first day of the festival, called Dorpia or Dorpeia, banquets were held towards evening at the

meeting

MEETING (from " to meet," to come together, assemble, 0. Eng. metals ; cf. Du. moeten, Swed. mota, Goth. gamotjan, &c., derivatives of the Teut. word for a meeting, seen in O. Eng. Wit, moot, an assembly of the people; cf. witanagemot)

-place of the phratries or in the private houses of members. On the second, Anarrhysis (from avappbeuv, to draw back the victim's head), a sacrifice of oxen was offered at the public cost to Zeus Phratrius and

Athena

ATHENA (the Attic form of the Homeric Athene, also called Athenaia, Pallas Athene, Pallas)

. On the third day, Cureotis (K0Upewres), children born since the last festival were presented by their fathers or guardians to the assembled phratores, and, after an oath had been taken as to their legitimacy and the sacrifice of a goat or a sheep, their names were inscribed in the

. The name KoupeWTLS is derived either from Kovpos, that is, the day of the

young

, or less probably from KELaW, because on this occasion

young

people cut their

hair

HAIR (a word common to Teutonic languages)

and offered it to the gods. The victim was called yeiov. On this day also it was the custom for boys still at school to declaim pieces of poetry, and to receive prizes (Plato, Timaeus; 21 B). According to Hesychius these three days of the festival were followed by a fourth, called i ri.(33a, but this is merely a general

term

TERM

for the day after any festival.

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