Kallynteria (Καλλυντήρια)

Karneia or Carneia (Κάρνεια )

Dedication: Apollo

City : Sparta

Date : 7^th Metageithnion

The festival was one reason why the Spartans did not help the Athenians in the Marathon battle.

a great national festival, celebrated by the Spartans in honour of Apollo Carneios, which, according to Sosibius (ap. Athen. xiv. p. 635), was instituted Olymp. xxvi.; although Apollo, under the name of Carneios, was worshipped in various places of Peloponnesus, particularly at Amyclae, at a very early period, and even before the Dorian migration. Wachsmuth , referring to the above passage of Athenaeus, thinks that the Carneia had long before been celebrated; and that when, in Olymp. xxvi., Terpander gained the victory, musical contests were only added to the martial solemnities of the festival. But the words of Athenaeus, who is the only authority to which Wachsmuth refers, do not allow of such an interpretation, for no distinction is there made between earlier and later solemnities of the festival, and Athenaeus simply says, the institution of the Carneia took place Olymp. xxvi. (Egeneto de hê thesis tôn Karneiôn kata tên hektên kai eikostên Olumpiada, hôs Sôsibios phêsin, en tôi peri chronôn.) The festival began, on the seventh day of the month of Karneios= Metageitnion of the Athenians, and lasted for nine days. (Athen. iv. p. 141; Eustath. ad Il. xxiv. sub fin.; Pint. Symp. viii. 1.) It was, as far as we know, a warlike festival, similar to the Attic Boëdromia, and was celebrated by all the Dorians. During the time of its celebration nine tents were pitched near the city, in each of which nine men lived in the manner of a military camp, obeying in everything the commands of a herald. Müller also supposes [p. 366] that a boat was carried round, and upon it a statue of the Carneian Apollo (Apollôn stemmatias), both adorned with lustratory garlands, called dikêlon stemmatiaion, in allusion to the passage of the Dorians from Naupactus into Peloponnesus. (Dorians, i. 3, § 8, note s.) The priest conducting the sacrifices at the Carneia was called Agêtês, whence the festival was sometimes designated by the name Agêtoria or Agêtoreion (Hesych. s. v. Agêtoreion); and from each of the Spartan tribes five unmarried men (Karneatai) were chosen as his ministers, whose office lasted four years, during which period they were not allowed to marry. (Hesych. s. v. Karneatai.) Some of them bore the name of Staphulodromoi. (Hesych. s. v.; compare Bekker, Anecd. p. 205.) Terpander was the first who gained the prize in the musical contests of the Carneia, and the musicians of his school were long distinguished competitors for the prize at this festival (Müller, Dor. iv. 6, § 3), and the last of this school who engaged in the contest was Perikleidas (Plut. de Mus. 6). When we read in Herodotus (vi. 106, vii. 206) and Thucydides (v. 54, and in other places) that the Spartans during the celebration of this festival were not allowed to take the field against an enemy, we must remember that this restriction was not peculiar to the Carneia, but common to all the great festivals of the Greeks: traces of it are found even in Homer (Od. xxi. 258, &c.).William Smith A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities

Khalkeia , Chalkia or Halkia

Dedication: Athena and Hephaistos

Date : 30^th Pyanepsion

Kronia (Κρόνια)

Dedication: Kronos

Date : 12^th Hecatombaion

A harvest festival in honor of the god of agriculture Kronos. A festival in honor of a Titan (A Roman version of the Kronia: The Saturnalia) Festivals of Light , The Worship of Saturn