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HYDRIAPHO´RIA (ὑδριαφορία) was one of the services which aliens (μέτοικοι) residing at Athens had to perform to the Athenians at the Panathenaea, and by which it was probably intended to impress upon them the recollection that they were mere aliens and not citizens. The hydriaphoria was performed by the wives of aliens (Pollux, 3.55); whereas their daughters had on the same occasion to perform the σκιαδοηφορία (the carrying of parasols) for the Athenian maidens (Pollux, 7.134; cf. 174), and their husbands the σκαφηφορία (the carrying of vessels containing offerings of cakes, &c. for the goddess; see Aelian, Ael. VH 6.1, with Perizonius: Dinarch. ap. Harpocrat. s. v. σκαφηφόροι, with Valesius). It has been inferred from the words of Aelian that these humiliating services were not demanded of the aliens by the laws of Solon, but introduced at a later period; on such a point, however, the authority of Aelian is of no value. The hydriaphoria was the carrying of a vessel with water (ὑδρία, Aristoph. Eccl. 738), which service the married alien women had to perform to the married part of the female citizens of Athens, when they walked to the temple of Athena in the great procession at the Panathenaea. The duties thus imposed upon μέτοικοι were a badge of inferiority, but cost nothing except in dignity: it does not seem correct to compare them, as Boeckh does (P. E. p. 538 = Sthh.3 1.624), with the liturgies. (Hermann, Staatsalterth. § 115, n. 10; Schömann, Antiq. Juris Publici, p. 190, Antiq. 1.354 E. T.)
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities
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