The
Thargelia

Introduction

In Delos, the Thargelia is a two-day festival celebrating the annual birthday of the divine twins, Artemis and Apollon. In Athens, however, the festival was mainly focused on Apollon Paian in his role as a healing, apotropaic, and ancestral god of the city. From the information surviving it appears that in Athens Artemis had little to do with this festival at all other than the first day falling on her sacred day and Delian birthday. 

The purposes for the festival were twofold. The first day was largely devoted to purifying the city and driving out the death, sickness, and miasma of the year, while the second day was devoted to bringing in blessings for the upcoming harvests and, similarly, the continued health of the latest crop of young boys introduced to their family's phratria (tribe). Parke marks the similarity in Apollon's function in the Iliad, where the Argive soldiers were cursed with plague for stealing and refusing to return the daughter of a priest to Apollon. The first day they were to clean themselves and throw the off-scourings into the sea. The second day they offered hekatombs of bulls and he-goats to the god. Purification, then Offerings.

This too is the formula for the Athenian Thargelia. To drive out the bad and purify on the first day, scapegoats were selected to absorb any plague, famine, or miasma that might harm the city, the upcoming harvest, or the children, and then take the miasma with them when they're ritually driven out (pelted with fig branches and sea onions) and expelled from the city. In the very ancient past this may have been violent, but by Classical times it was a comedic performance. This was also the day new children, especially adopted sons, would be formally introduced and accepted into their father's tribe. Lastly, the festival is at the time in the agricultural year when fruits and vegetables are growing, but they're still green and unripened. Thus the Athenians gave Demeter Khloe, "of the green shoots," sacrifice on this day, though she received a full scale festival in other cities.

The second day was filled with offerings and celebration to bring in Apollo's blessings for the harvest season. Children would go door-to-door carrying gigantic olive boughs (with the help of their kinsmen) singing Crow and Swallow songs and asking for offerings to hang on their branch on their way to the temple, and the thargelos offering would be tossed overhead and strewn on the ground to encourage fertility, like Deukalion and Pyrrha. Afterwards, the Ten Tribes would compete in a grande-scale choir contest for the Ancestral Apollo where the winner got to offer their tripod trophy to the temple, dedicating their victory to the god.

Day 1. Bad Things Are Driven Out
6 Thargelion | Monthly Sacred Day for Artemis

Banishing Scapegoats to Cleanse the City

The first day was a day of purification, connected to Apollon in his role as a god of health and healing. Two men were selected as Pharmakoi (ritual scapegoats), on the basis that they were both poor and ugly (though mythic scapegoats are often Kings, heroes, and princesses). While serving as scapegoat for the city was noble, the city also chose what it considered undesirables to eventually banish from the city. Scapegoats would be honored and fed lavishly at state expense for some time leading up to the festival to become one with the community, but would be banished afterwards (pelted with squill onions, or beaten in older times) and so the special treatment and food was an incentive for the state-sanctioned abuse.

"Because it was the custom at Athens to lead two pharmakoi … This cleansing served to ward off plagues of disease, and it took its beginning from Androgeus the Cretan [son of King Minos], because the Athenians were afflicted with a plague of disease when he died unjustly in Athens, and this custom began to be in force, to always cleanse the city with pharmakoi."

Helladius, trans. Compton

The pharmakoi "symbolically carried away all the ills and impurities that might result in harm to the city or its ripening crops" (Larson) and thus annually purified Athens from sickness, miasma, or any incurred agos (divine wrath) that may threaten the collective or the upcoming harvest. But more specifically for the Thargelia, chasing away the pharmakoi represented chasing out the goddess of Famine during the summer harvest, whose ruin is emphasized in the festival's accompanying myth of Erysichthon.

On the first morning the two men were dressed in holy garments and led in procession around the city as katharsia (purificatory scape-goats), with one man wearing a string of black figs for the men, and the other a string of white figs for the women. Going around the city like this is typical of apotropaic rites which are meant to absorb the miasma of the entire area. Once the scapegoats had gone all the way around it was time to banish them so they could carry the miasma out. They were then beaten with fig branches and pelted with squills (a Mediterranean coastal onion) until they fled the city, never to return. Both figs and squills were considered to be apotropaic and would help chase out the bad. The branches and onions are theorized to be a substitute for earlier times in which the Pharmakoi would be beaten with rods and stoned to death, but thankfully by Classical times the practice evolved once more into a largely comedic and theatrical reenactment.

During or after the procession the ancient Athenians sacrificed a ram to Demeter Khloe ("of the green shoots") on the Acropolis, likely a prepatory sacrifice for blessings in the coming harvest. Apollon would be called on later the following day for similar blessings. The sacrifice may have had a connection to the Eleusinian Khloia festival for Demeter Khloe which would have taken place earlier in the spring, while in other cities Demeter Khloe was celebrated with a full festival known as the Thalysia.

Adoption Day

Besides the ritual banishment of scapegoats and sacrifice to Demeter Khloe, there is one more rite that traditionally occurred on this day. The 10 Tribes of Athens would assemble, and the Fathers would introduce their new sons who they swore were from an Athenian mother, both legitimate and adopted, to the men of the extended family and they would vote on the son's formal acceptance into the tribe. The mythic origin story for this rite was tied to Ion, a son adopted by Apollo who is believed to be the namesake and ancestor of the Ionians.

This was one step the ancient Athenians took to authenticate citizenship before a boy became a man with full rights. Certain tribes in Athens were responsible for running certain cultic rites or festivals, including processions, and formal acceptance into the tribe would soon mean fulfillment of said duties if their tribe required. For the Thargelia, if they happened to be accepted into the Erysichthonidai, they might even be part of the Begging Rite the next day.

Day 2. Good Things are Carried In
7 Thargelion | Monthly Sacred Day for Apollon

Thargelos Offering

A thargelos was a cake or pot of various boiled grains and vegetables taken in procession and offered on the shrine to Apollo Pythios, and is the offering for which the entire festival gains its name. The thargelos was a plouthygieia, literally 'wealth and health', which was thrown and scattered overhead as a symbol of perpetual life, just as Deukalion and Pyrrha threw the bones of Gaia over their own heads to repopulate the earth.

Homer refers to a thalusia as a first-fruits offering, perhaps also linked etymologically (the truth is there are many theories but no one knows for sure). Since it was too early in the growing year for an actual harvest of first-fruits it was likely that this was an appeal for blessings in the coming harvest in Apollon's role as a god of fertility and vegetation, a role likely carried over to Athens from his cultus in Delos, and an ancestral god for the city.

The Eiresione Begging Rite

"The Eiresione brings figs and fat bread,
honey in pots, oil to rub down, a cup of
strong wine so you go drunk to bed."
- A Swallow Song

The myth of Erysichthon is a proposed aition, origin myth, for the ritual begging practice traditional of the Thargelia. Though this was not the case all across Greece, in Athens festivals were publicly funded and so the inclusion of begging was highly unusual. As such, its continued practice marks it as an important rite of the festival. Plato notes that the Erysichthonidai, descendants of Erysichthon, are one of the oldest family names in Athens, and it was their genos, family, that was in charge of bearing the eiresione, a common tradition for Apollon's festivals. It was an instrument mediating his power as a protector of the city and household, particularly appropriate for a festival of purification and blessings.

The eiresione was a large olive branch wound in red and white wool that was traditionally carried by children during the Thargelia door-to-door as a form of ritual begging while singing choral "swallow" or "crow" songs, asking for offerings to the god in exchange for home blessings of abundance, health, wealth, and peace. The olive branch would be adorned with these offerings, typically first-fruits, breads, and flasks of honey and olive oil, though there would be a degree of diversity depending on the household and the season. While private eiresione would be left outside the door in honor of Apollon, the communal ones, such as for the Thargelia Festival, were taken in procession around the city and to the sanctuaries. The branches were too big to be carried on their own though, hence an older relative would bear the weight while the child held it. The olive-branch carriers were called ampithales, and later, eiresiones, though both were from the Erysichthonidai family, descendants of Erysichthon the Beggar King.

"Gentlemen – give a bit of whatever each of you has in
his hands to a crow! She’ll also accept a lump of salt,
for she’s very fond of dining on this;
whoever gives her salt now will give honeycomb some other time.
Slave! Open the door – Wealth knocked!
Let an unmarried girl bring figs for the crow!"
- A Crow Song (trans. S.D. Olson)

Eiresione is etymologically linked with both the word for "protect," ὲρυώ, and "wool," εἷροσ, meaning literally the eiresione refers to a protective-wool branch. For the Thargelia the eiresione were specifically in honor of Helios, the Horai (Seasons), and Apollon, though for other festivals they are associated with Theseus and the Herakleidies (Herakles' sons) as well.

The eiresione served as a symbol of spring-time renewal, a ward for Erysichthon's famine, and to procure blessings for the upcoming harvest. The branch would be taken in procession to the sanctuary of Helios and the Horai as a precautionary rite from drought, though possibly also due to the correlation the Ancient Athenians would have seen between the Seasons, the growth of the young boys, and the growth of the green and unripe shoots of corn. Apollon, of course, is also the god who oversees the nurture of young boys.

Choir Contest for the Ten Tribes

At some point a dithyrambic choir contest would be hosted by the Archon of the City Dionysia Festival. Dionysos and Apollon were closely related in myth and in Delphi, and dithyrambs were particular to both so this wasn't an unusual practice. The singers were chosen from the ten tribes of Athens, five groups of boys and five groups of men, and were set to compete against one another. The winner would be awarded a tripod, which would in turn be dedicated to Apollon in the Pythion, his temple near the Ilissos. As a god of harmony and music, dithyrambs have a sacred place in Apollon's cultus. The contest emphasizes Apollon as the nurturer of boys and the Ancestral god of the 10 Tribes.

How are you going to celebrate the Thargelia?