The festivals of the Athenian sacred calendar constitute a vital key to classical Greek culture and religion.  Erika Simon sets out here to explicate those complex and often obscure festivals.  By careful marshaling of a variety of proofs from literary, historical, and archaeological sources, she is able to justify some startling conclusions and achieve a comprehensive and truly original synthesis that clarifies, as never before, the probable origins and meanings of the Attic cults. (view table of contents)

Product Description: Studies the most important Athenian festival through its representations on vases

A descriptive study of the religious festivals of the ancient Athenians, depicting and explaining the behavior associated with each, speculating on what happened at the mysteries, and elucidating the primitivism that pervaded classical Greek thought