Paian

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...

Sing, Muse, of Myrrha the princess of Cyprus, who they say made a grievous error in neglecting the worship of its most mighty goddess, Aphrodite. The goddess of Passion infected the pious princess with an incestuous lust for the King, her very own father, and thus their ruin was sown.

The Anthesteria or the Older Dionysia, as it was sometimes called even in ancient times, is one of the oldest Dionysos festivals dating to possibly before the migration, and is where the month gets its name. It occurs sometime between early-to-mid spring, depending on the year when the first flowers began to return promising new light at the end of a rough winter. It also marked the time when the wine pressed and jarred away from the previous fall harvest was finally drinkable.