Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

VIIl] The Eiresione 321
of the summer first-fruits, the Thargelia, which also gave their
name to a month Thargelion, May—June. The Eiresione is of
course simply a portable May-pole, a branch hung about with
wool, acorns, figs, cakes, fruits of all sorts and sometimes wine-jars.
It was appropriate alike to the early and the late harvest-festival,
but for the late harvest after the vintage was over it had naturally
to be supplemented by the carrying of other branches, vine-boughs
laden with bunches of grapes, an Oschophoria.
This blend of Eiresione and Oschophoria was evidently
characteristic of the ceremonies of Pyanepsion. The two cere-
monies are represented on the Calendar- frieze 1
of the old
Metropolitan Church of Athens (Fig. 93) to mark the month
& qr-
Fig. 93.
Pyanepsion. A boy carrying the Eiresione is followed by a
magistrate, and immediately in front of him is a youth treading
grapes and holding in his hand an dschos, a branch laden with
bunches of grapes. To the right of him is a kanephoi'os carrying
no doubt a pankarpia.
With the Staphylodromoi of the Karneia 2 in our minds the
main gist of the Oschophoria is clear. It is like the race of
Olympia, a race of youths, epheboi, kouroi, with boughs. It has
similar content of the Oschophoria. See also Mannhardt, Wald- und Feldkulte,
1877, pp. 214— 58, which, spite of its early date, is far the best account both as
regards the collection of facts and their interpretation.
1 J. N. Svoronos, Der Athenische Volkskalendar, Sonderabdruck aus Journal
Internationale d'archeologie numismatique, 1899, n. 1.
2 See supra, p. 234.
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