Agrionia

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The Agrionia ( ancient Greek Ἀγριώνια ) were a festival in ancient Greece in honor of the god Dionysus , which was celebrated annually in the month of Agrionios named after him in the Boeotian cities of Orchomenos and Chaeronea .

Only Plutarch reports on the course of the festivities , otherwise they are neither literary nor inscribed. The aitiology of the cult forms the myth of the minyads . The daughters of the orchomenic king Minyas went into a frenzy and tore up Hippasus , the son of the minyad Leukippe . The minyades were then Oleiai ( Ὀλεῖαι called), their bearing after the fact mourning husband Psoloeis ( Ψολόεις ). The festival in Orchomenos was celebrated at night. A psoloeisnamed Dionysus priest pursued the women from the Minyas family called Oleiai with a sword . If he could catch up with one of them he would have to kill her. Plutarch reports that in his day the priest Zoilus himself was wounded during the ritual and then died. As a result, his family fell out of favor and their right to provide Dionysus priests was withdrawn. In Chaironeia, unlike Orchomenus, the festival was celebrated by women. They went in search of Dionysus and then broke it off on the grounds that Dionysus had fled from them to the Muses . They then went to the feast and then asked each other puzzles.

The religious historian Martin Persson Nilsson equated Agrionia with the Argive festival of the dead, Agriania or Agrania. This is justified with the approximate coincidence of spring festivals, the similar festival names and the fact that with the months Agrianios and Agerranios it can be assumed that similar festivals will spread further. Because of other festivals celebrated in spring for the souls of the deceased, such as the Attic Anthesteria , he accepts a soul celebration celebrated throughout Greece at that time. The Agronia should be counted among these, although there are no concrete references to this function of the festival. The human sacrifice committed in Orchomenos , although aitiologically reformed, is a further indication of the function of the festival of the soul, since human sacrifices for the deceased are already attested in Homer or proven by Mycenaean graves. In addition, the human sacrifice gives an indication of the old age of the festival, which may have been celebrated before the Dionysus cult entered Boeotia.

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Plutarch, Quaestiones Graecae 38 .
  2. ↑ Plutarch, Quaestiones Convivales 8, Proemium .
  3. ↑ Martin Persson Nilsson : Greek festivals of religious importance excluding the Attic. Teubner, Leipzig 1906. Reprint Teubner, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-519-07254-8 , pp. 271-274. ( Digitized version )