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Skira
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<h2 id="description">Description</h2> <p>At Athens, the last month of the year was <i><a href="/facts/Attic_calendar/oeNA1VNB">Skirophorion</a></i>, after the festival. Its most prominent feature was the procession that led out of <a href="/facts/Athens/mBxlp8X1">Athens</a> to a place called <a href="/facts/Scirum/3LzymuyN">Skiron</a> near <a href="/facts/Eleusis/NLhDaKrL">Eleusis</a>, in which the priestess of <a href="/facts/Athena/dwnr6Gsd">Athena</a>, the priest of <a href="/facts/Poseidon/kTYc88aD">Poseidon</a>, and in later times, the priest of <a href="/facts/Helios/9KSb5eQ1">Helios</a>, took part, under a <a href="/facts/Baldachin/AG9DYFQ6">ceremonial canopy</a> called the <i>skiron</i>, which was held up by a member of the family of the <i>Eteoboutadai</i><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:2" href="#fn:2"><sup>2</sup></a> or by the priest of Erechtheus.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3"><sup>3</sup></a> Their joint temple on the <a href="/facts/Acropolis/5Je8NC6c">Acropolis</a> was the <a href="/facts/Erechtheum/kyoGUA9A">Erechtheum</a>, where Poseidon embodied as <a href="/facts/Erechtheus/WnShR86Y">Erechtheus</a> remained a <a href="/facts/Numinous/mRYHekNj">numinous</a> presence.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4"><sup>4</sup></a> The canopy symbolized the protection of the Attic soil from the blazing heat of the sun.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:5" href="#fn:5"><sup>5</sup></a> </p><p>At Skiron there was a sanctuary dedicated to <a href="/facts/Demeter/msJN4G3H">Demeter</a>/<a href="/facts/Persephone/nwNGsa7l">Kore</a> and one to Athena. </p><p>As a festival of dissolution, the Skira was a festival proverbial for license, in which men played <a href="/facts/Dice/aURlPtbp">dice</a> games, but a time also of daytime fasting, and of the inversion of the social order, for the bonds of marriage were suspended, as women banded together and left the quarters where they were ordinarily confined, to eat <a href="/facts/Garlic/NschLR1S">garlic</a> together "according to ancestral custom",<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:6" href="#fn:6"><sup>6</sup></a> and to sacrifice and feast together, at the expense of the men. The Skira is the setting for <a href="/facts/Aristophanes/xbpAcg6F">Aristophanes</a>' comedy <i><a href="/facts/Ecclesiazusae/8PRvN1CK">Ecclesiazusae</a></i> (393 BCE), in which the women seize the opportunity afforded by the festival, to hatch their plot to overthrow <a href="/facts/Patriarchy/oTko9QfX">male domination</a>. </p> <h2 id="see-also">See also</h2> <ul><li><a href="/facts/Athenian_festivals/1GnscEDN">Athenian festivals</a></li></ul> <h2 id="notes">Notes</h2> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol> <li id="fn:1"><p>The festival is analysed by Walter Burkert, in Homo Necans (1972, tr. 1983:143-49), with bibliography p 143, note 33. <a href="/wiki/Walter_Burkert" target="_blank">/wiki/Walter_Burkert</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:2"><p>L. Deubner, Attische Feste (Berlin 1932:49-50); their accompanier in late descriptions, the priest of Helios, Walter Burkert regards as a Hellenistic innovation rather than an archaic survival (Burkert 1983:) <a href="/wiki/Helios" target="_blank">/wiki/Helios</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:3"><p>A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), Scirophoria <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0063%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DS%3Aentry+group%3D2%3Aentry%3Dscirophoria-cn" target="_blank">https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0063%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DS%3Aentry+group%3D2%3Aentry%3Dscirophoria-cn</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:4"><p>See Poseidon#The foundation of Athens; the connection was an early one: in the Odyssey (vii.81), Athena was said to have "entered the house of Erechtheus" (noted by Burkert 1983:144). <a href="/wiki/Poseidon#The_foundation_of_Athens" target="_blank">/wiki/Poseidon#The_foundation_of_Athens</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:5"><p>A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), Scirophoria <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0063%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DS%3Aentry+group%3D2%3Aentry%3Dscirophoria-cn" target="_blank">https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0063%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DS%3Aentry+group%3D2%3Aentry%3Dscirophoria-cn</a> <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:6"><p>Inscriptiones Graeca, noted by Burkert 1983: 145, note 41; see also Jane Ellen Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903, 3rd ed. 1922:134f). <a href="/wiki/Jane_Ellen_Harrison" target="_blank">/wiki/Jane_Ellen_Harrison</a> <a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> </ol>