Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

270 Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks
heads of the sacrificial victims, as well as cushions for the gods
to sit on. Youths carried water pitchers, old men brandished olive
branches sacred to Athene, and metics bore offering trays. The central
feature of the procession was a ship mounted on wheels with
a woollen peplos rigged to its mast in place of a sail. The peplos,
which was woven by Athenian maidens of noble birth who resided
on the Acropolis, clothed an olive wood statue of Athene that was
believed to have dropped onto the Acropolis out of the sky. The
removal of the goddess’s old peplos and its replacement by a new
one evidently formed the climax to the entire Panathenaia, for this
is the scene depicted on the portion of the frieze directly above the
entrance to the Parthenon. A herd of cows was sacrificed to the goddess
on the altar outside her temple, and the meat was then distributed
to participants down at the Dipylon Gate, where the procession
had begun.
The Panathenaia also featured competitions, including recitations
of the works of Homer, contests on the flute and harp, athletic and
equestrian events, dancing, and, in later times, a naval competition.
Victors were awarded decorated amphorae containing olive oil in
commemoration of the fact that the olive tree was the goddess’s gift
to the state. These bore the simple inscription, “One of the prizes
from Athens,” accompanied by an illustration of the event for which
the vase was awarded.
THEATRICAL PERFORMANCES
When we talk about Greek drama, we almost exclusively mean
Athenian drama, both tragedy and comedy. Only a few non-Athenian
playwrights are known to us by name, and none of their plays has
survived. Drama was both an invention and an integral aspect of
Athenian democracy, so much so that it is quite impossible to talk
about it other than as an expression of the distinctive political and
civic realities of the Athenian state.
The origins of Greek drama are very imperfectly understood,
but they probably derive from an opposition between the chorus
and a single actor. From earliest times, the Greeks held choral performances
in honor of the gods, in commemoration of military
and athletic victories, and in mourning for the dead. Tragoidia, the
Greek word for tragedy—which derives from tragos, or goat, and
oidê, song—probably owes its origins either to the fact that choruses
were originally dressed in the loinskins of goats or to the fact
that the prize for the song was a goat. The Athenians attributed the