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APATURIA 100.00%
The general feast of the PHRATRIES (q.v.) held chiefly by Greeks of the Ionian race. At Athens it lasted three days in the month of Pyanepsion (Oct.-Nov.), and was celebrated with sacrificial banquets. On the third day the fathers brought their children born since the last celebration before the members (phrators) assembled at the headquarters of each phratria, and after declaring on oath their legitimate birth, bad their names inscribed on the roll of phratores. For every child enrolled a sheep or goat was sacrificed, which went to furnish the common feast. On the same day the fathers made their children who were at school give proofs of their progress, especially by reciting passages from poets, and those who distinguished themselves were rewarded with prizes.
 
GENNETAE 52.29%

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This was the Athenian term for the members of the 360 ancient families (gennoe), thirty of which made up one of the twelve phratrioe of the four old Ionic tribes. These families consisted of some thirty houses, who referred their origin and name to a common ancestor, and observed a common worship, with special priests to superintend it. The objects of this worship were Zeus Herkeios (the god of house and home), Apollo Patroos (the god of the family), the heros of the family, and other tutelary deities. Supposing that a family worship rose to the dignity of a state ceremony, the priestly office remained hereditary in the family (genna). If there were no nearer relations, the members of the genna had a law of inheritance which they observed among themselves. Maintained by these religious and legal ties, the gennoe and the phratrioe survived the old Ionic tribes, after the abolition of the latter by Cleisthenes. The president of the genna superintended the enrolment of new members into it at the feast of the Apaturia, the occasion italics>on which the new members of the phratrioe were also enrolled. (See APATURIA.) A citizen who did not belong to a genna could only become member of one by adoption, and under certain conditions.
 
ORGEONES 50.23%

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The Athenian term for the members of a society for the observance of a divine cult not belonging to the State religion, especially those who, without belonging to the old families (see GENNET'), nevertheless like them formed a family union originating in descent from the same ancestors, and possessed a special family worship. The adoption of the children of families belonging to such a religious society occurred, as with the Gennet', at the same time as their enrolment into the phratries at the feast of the Apaturia (q.v.).
 
PHRATRIA 29.13%

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Denoted among the Greeks the subdivision of a phyple (q.v.) embracing a number of families. In Attica the four old Ionic phyloe contained three phratrioe in each, twelve in all; and each phratrioe comprehended thirty families (see GENNETAe). When the old phyloe were suppressed by Clisthenes, the phratrioe remained in existence as religious associations for the observance of the ancient forms of worship, which did not admit of being suppressed. They had, however, no political importance, except that the sons (by birth or adoption) of a citizen had to be enrolled in the register of phratores, or members of the phratria of their natural or adoptive father. This was done by the phratriarchi (presidents) at the chief festival of the phratrioe, the Apaturia (q.v.). Newly married husbands also introduced their wives into the phratria. Each phratria had a separate place of worship (phratrion), with the altars of its deities. Zeus and Athene were common to all, but each phratria worshipped other special deities of its own.
 
HEPHAESTUS 14.87%

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In Greek mythology, the god of fire, and of the arts which need fire in the execution. He was said to be the son of Zeus and Hera, or (according to Hesiod) of the latter only. The boy was ugly, and lame in both feet, and his mother was ashamed of him. She threw him from Olympus into the ocean, where he was taken up by Eurynome and Thetis, and concealed in a subterranean cavern. Here he remained for nine years, and fashioned a number of exquisite works of art, among them a golden throne with invisible chains, which he sent to his mother by way of revenge. She sat down in it, and was chained to the seat, so fast that no one could release her. On this it was resolved to call Hephaestus back to Olympus. Ares wished to force him back, but was scared off by his brother with fire-brands. Dionysus at length succeeded in making him drunk, and bringing him back, in this condition, to Olympus. But he was destined to meet with his old mishap a second time. There was a quarrel between Zeus and Hera, and Hephaestus took his mother's part; whereupon Zeus seized him by the leg and hurled him down from Olympus. He fell upon the island of Lemnos, where the Sintians, who then inhabited the island, took care of him and brought him to himself. From this time Lemnos was his favourite abode. His lameness was, in the later story, attributed to this fall. The whole story, the sojourn of Hephaestus in the cavern under the sea, and his fondness for Lemnos, is, in all probability, based upon volcanic phenomena; the submarine activity of volcanic fires, and the natural features of the island of Lemnos. Here there was a volcano called Mosychlos, which was in activity down to the time of Alexander the Great. The friendship existing between Dionysus and Hephaestus may be explained by the fact that the best and finest wines are grown in the volcanic regions of the South. As a master in the production of beautiful and fascinating works of art, Hephaestus is in Homer the husband of Charis, and in Hesiod of Aglaia, the youngest of the Graces. (See CHARITES.) The story of his marriage with Aphrodite was not, apparently, widely known in early antiquity. Through his artistic genius he appears, and most especially in the Athenian story, as the intimate friend of Athene. In Homer he lives and works on Olympus, where he makes palaces of brass for himself and the other deities. But he has a forge also on Mount Mosychlos in Lemnos; the later story gives him one under Aetna in Sicily, and on the sacred island, or island of Hephaestus, in the Lipari Islands, where he is heard at work with his companions the Cyclopes. All the masterpieces of metal which appear in the stories of gods and heroes, the aeagis of Zeus, the arms of Achilles, the sceptre of Agamemnon, the necklace of Harmonia, and others, were attributed to the art of Hephaestus. To help his lameness he made, according to Homer, two golden maidens, with the power of motion, to lean upon when he walked. He was much worshipped in Lemnos, where there was an annual festival in his honour All fires were put out for nine days, during which rites of atonement and purification were performed. Then fresh fire was brought on a sacred ship from Delos, the fires were kindled again, and a new life, as the saying went, began. At Athens he was worshipped in the Academy, in connexion with Athene and Prometheus (see PROMETHEUS). In October the smiths and smelters celebrated the Chalkeia, a feast of metal-workers, in his honour and that of Athene; at the Apaturia sacrifices were offered to him, among other gods, as the giver of fire, and torches were kindled, and hymns were sung; at the Hephaestia, finally, there was a torch-race in his honour. In works of art he is represented as a vigorous man with a beard, equipped, like a smith, with hammer and tongs; his left leg is shortened, to show his lameness (see engraving). The Romans identified him with their Vulcanus (see VULCANUS).
 
ARTEMIS 10.19%

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The virgin daughter of Zeus and Leto (Latona), by the common account born a twin-sister of Apollo, and just before him, at Delos. The Ortygia (see ASTERIA) named in another tradition as her birthplace, was interpreted to mean Delos, though several other places where the worship of Artemis had long prevailed put forward pretensions to that name and its mythological renown, especially the well-known island of Ortygia off Syracuse. She, as well as her mother, was worshipped jointly with her brother at Delos, Delphi and all the most venerable spots where Apollo was honoured. She is armed, as he is, with bow and arrow, which, like him, and often together with him, she wields against monsters and giants; hence the paean was chanted to her as well as to him. Like those of Apollo, the shafts of Artemis were regarded as the cause of sudden death, especially to maidens and wives. But she was also a beneficent and helpful deity. As Apollo is the luminous god of day, she with her torch is a goddess of light by night, and in course of time becomes identified with all possible goddesses of moon and night. (See SELENE, HECATE, BENDIS, BRITOMARTIS.) Her proper domain is that of Nature, with its hills and valleys, woods, meadows, rivers and fountains ; there amid her nymphs, herself the fairest and tallest, she is a mighty huntress, sometimes chasing wild animals, sometimes dancing, playing, or bathing with her companions. Her favourite haunt was thought to be the mountains and forest of Arcadia, where, in many spots, she had sanctuaries, consecrated hunting-grounds, and sacred animals. To her, as goddess of the forest and the chase, all beasts of the woods and fields, in fact all game, were dear and sacred; but her favourite animal was held all over Greece to be the hind. From this sacred animal and the hunting of it, the month which the other Greeks called Artemision or Artemisios (March-April) was named by the Athenians Elaphe-bolion (deer-shooting), and her festival as goddess of game and hunting, at which deer or cakes in the shape of deer were offered up, Elaphebolia. As goddess of the chase, she had also some influence in war, and the Spartans before battle sought her favour by the gift of a she-goat. Miltiades too, before the battle of Marathon, had vowed to her as many goats as there should be enemies fallen on the field; but the number proving so great that the vow could not be kept, 500 goats were sacrificed at each anniversary of the victory in the month of Boedromion. Again she was much worshipped as a goddess of the Moon. At Amarynthus in Eubaea, the whole island kept holiday to her with processions and prize-fights. At Munychia in Attica, at full moon in the month of Munychion (April-May), large round loaves or cakes, decked all round with lights as a symbol of her own luminary, were borne in procession and presented to her; and at the same time was solemnized the festival of the victory of Salamis in Cyprus, because on that occasion the goddess had shone in her full glory on the Greeks. An ancient shrine of the Moon-goddess at Brauron in Attica was held in such veneration, that the Brauronia, originally a merely local festival, was afterwards made a public ceremony, to which Athens itself sent deputies every five years, and a precinct was dedicated to " Artemis of Brauron" on the Acropolis itself. (See plan of ACROPOLIS.) At this feast the girls between five and ten years of age, clad in saffron-coloured garments, were conducted by their mothers in procession to the goddess, and commended to her care. For Artemis is also a protectress of youth, especially those of her own sex. As such she patronized a Nurses' festival at Sparta in a temple outside the town, to which little boys were brought by their nurses; while the Ionians at their Apaturia presented her with the hair of boys. Almost everywhere young girls revered the virgin goddess as the guardian of their maiden years, and before marriage they offered up to her a lock of their hair, their girdle, and their maiden garment. She was also worshipped in many parts as the goddess of Good Repute, especially in youths and maidens, and was regarded as an enemy of all disorderly doings. With her attributes as the goddess of the moon, and as the promoter of healthy development, especially in the female frame, is connected the notion of her assisting in childbirth (see EILEITHYLA). in early times human sacrifices had been offered to Artemis. A relic of this was the yearly custom observed at Sparta, of flogging the boys till they bled, at the altar of deity not unknown elsewhere and named Artemis Orthia (the upright) probably from her stiff posture in the antiquated wooden image. At Sparta, as in other places, the ancient image was looked upon as the same which Iphigenia and Orestes brought away from Tauris (the Crimea), viz., that of the Tauric Artemis; a Scythian deity who was identified with Artemis because of the human sacrifices common in her worship. The Artemis of Ephesus, too, so greatly honoured by all the Ionians of Asia [Acts xix 28] is no Greek divinity, but Asiatic. This is sufficiently shown by the fact that eunuchs were employed in her worship; a practice quite foreign to Greek ideas. The Greek colonists identified her with their own Artemis, because she was goddess of the moon and a power of nature, present in mountains, woods and marshy places, nourishing life in plants, animals and men. But, unlike Artemis, she was not regarded as a virgin, but as a mother and foster-mother, as is clearly shown by the multitude of breasts in the rude effigy. Her worship, frantic and fanatical after the manner of Asia, was traced back to the Amazons. A number of other deities native to Asia was also worshipped by the Greeks under the name of Artemis. Artemis appears in works of art as the ideal of austere maiden beauty, tall of stature, with bow and quiver on her shoulder, or torch in her hand, and generally leading or carrying a hinds, or riding in a chariot drawn by hinds. Her commonest character is that of a huntress. In earlier times the figure is fuller and stronger, and the clothing more complete; in later works she is represented as more slender and lighter of foot, the hair loose, the dress girt up high, the feet protected by the Cretan shoe. The most celebrated of her existing statues is the Diana of Versailles (see cut). On the identification of Artemis with the Italian Diana, see DIANA.
 
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