ANTHESTERIA

one of the several Athenian festivals in honour of Dionysus, the wine god, held annually for three days in the month of Anthesterion (FebruaryMarch) to celebrate the beginning of spring and the maturing of the wine stored at the previous vintage. On the first day libations were offered to Dionysus from the newly opened casks. The second day was a time of popular merrymaking, but the state performed a secret ceremony in a sanctuary of Dionysus in the Lenaeum, in which the wife of the king archon went through a ceremony of marriage to Dionysus. On these days, it was believed, the souls of the dead came up from the underworld and walked abroad; people chewed leaves of whitethorn and smeared their doors with tar to protect themselves from evil. The third day was a festival of the dead.