What was the Panathenaia?

The Panathenaia

The Panathenaia was the festival of Athena at Athens. It ended in a procession that carried a newly woven robe up to the Acropolis. Athletic and musical contests came first, and winners received oil in painted amphorae. Apollodorus says Erichthonius founded it, and Plutarch says Theseus did. At the Great Panathenaea, citizens in the procession could go armed without suspicion, and Thucydides says that is why the tyrannicides chose it.

The facts

Also known as: Panathenaea, Panathenaic Games, Great Panathenaea
Principal cult sites: The sanctuary of Athena Polias on the Athenian Acropolis

In short

Apollodorus says Erichthonius set up the wooden image of Athena on the acropolis and founded the festival of the Panathenaea.
Plutarch credits Theseus instead, in the same sentence in which Theseus settles all of Attica into one city and names it Athens.
In a play by Euripides, the captive women of Troy imagine yoking horses on Athena’s saffron robe, or embroidering the race of Titans put to sleep by the bolt of Zeus. It is the earliest surviving description of what went on the robe.
Thucydides says the plotters waited for the Great Panathenaea because only on that day could the citizens leading the procession be armed in numbers without suspicion.
Pausanias saw the ship built for the Panathenaic procession standing near the Hill of Ares. He judged it second in size only to the nine-banked vessel at Delos.
The Acropolis Museum holds a fragment of a Panathenaic prize amphora painted with a boxing match, found east of the Parthenon in 1886 and dated to 525 to 500 BC.

Erichthonius installs the image and starts the festival

The Panathenaia was the festival of the goddess Athena at Athens. It ended in a procession that carried a newly woven robe up to the Acropolis, the citadel of Athens. Athletic and musical contests came before it, and the winners received oil in painted jars.

The ancient writers do not agree on who founded it. In the Library of Apollodorus, a book that retells the Greek myths, Erichthonius drives out Amphictyon and takes the kingship. He sets up Athena’s wooden image on the Acropolis and starts the Panathenaia. Apollodorus gives this order: a political victory, then a sacred object, then a festival. It makes the celebration part of a new ruler’s settlement with the city’s goddess.

Theseus as founder

The writer Plutarch gives the festival to Theseus. In his account, Theseus abolishes the town halls and council chambers of Attica, the land around Athens, and settles everybody into one city. He names the city Athens and starts a Panathenaic festival. Then, separately, he starts the Metoecia on the sixteenth of the month Hecatombaeon.

The historian Thucydides tells of the same union. He names the holiday that came from it the Synoecia and does not mention the Panathenaia at all. Neither of the two accounts acknowledges the other’s founder.

What went on the robe

The best-known part of the festival is the robe carried up to the Acropolis for the goddess. The earliest surviving account of what it showed is in a tragedy by the playwright Euripides. He puts it in the mouths of the women of Troy, captives wondering where they will be enslaved. In the city of Pallas, home of Athena of the lovely chariot, they will yoke horses on her saffron robe, embroidering them on the web in brilliant varied shades. Or else they will embroider the race of Titans, put to sleep by Zeus the son of Cronos with a bolt of flashing flame. The chorus, the group of women who sing together in the play, is given a choice of horses or Titans. The play names no third subject.

The day armed men raised no suspicion

The Great Panathenaea was the larger form of the festival. Thucydides describes its procession from the point of view of two men planning a murder, Harmodius and Aristogeiton. They waited for that day, he writes, because it was the one occasion when the citizens who led the procession could be armed in good number without arousing suspicion.

Their grievance was itself a festival grievance. Harmodius’s sister had been called forward to carry a basket in a procession, then turned away as unworthy of the honour. The plot was small. The plotters expected the other armed marchers to come in behind them once it began. They did not. Athens later remembered the act as a tyrannicide, the killing of a tyrant, not as a failed coup.

The ship and the amphorae

Some of the festival’s equipment outlived the rite. The travel writer Pausanias, walking near the Hill of Ares, was shown the ship built for the procession of the Panathenaea. He thought it the second largest he knew of, behind the vessel at Delos with nine banks of oars below the deck. He does not say how it moved.

The prizes are the part of the festival that survives in large numbers. Panathenaic amphorae were jars filled with oil. As the Acropolis Museum puts it, they were given to the victors of the contests held at the Great Panathenaia. One side was painted with Athena Promachos. The other showed the event the prize was won at.

One boxer’s defeat

The museum holds a fragment of one of these jars, found in 1886 east of the Parthenon. It was made between 525 and 500 BC and is attributed to the Group of Copenhagen 99. It shows two boxers, their hands wrapped in the thin leather strips called strophia. The younger man has his arm raised to admit that he has lost.

The fragment keeps the contest’s last decision more clearly than any complete programme could. One boxer signals defeat, and the oil goes to the other. The robe moved toward Athena, the ship stood for the procession, and the prize jars left the city with the winners. Athens made its festival visible through objects in motion. Archaeology then brought one broken verdict back to the Acropolis.

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Pausanias saw the ship built for the procession of the Panathenaea standing near the Hill of Ares at Athens, and thought only the nine-banked vessel at Delos was larger. The prizes left with the winners and came back in pieces: the Acropolis Museum holds a fragment of a Panathenaic amphora painted with a boxing match, dug up east of the Parthenon in 1886 and dated to the last quarter of the sixth century BC.
Athens