,
besides promoting good living and happiness in this life, they gave hope
for the life to come. "The man purified by initiation," says Pindar,
"has understood before his death the beginning and end of life, and
after death dwells with the gods."

In Polygnotus's famous painting of the infernal regions, in the Lesche
at Delphi, two women were represented trying to carry water in jars that
have no bottoms; an inscription states that they were never initiated,
and the moral was "that without initiation life is altogether wasted and
lost." In the worship of Demeter and in the Eleusinian mysteries there
was everything to appeal to woman--the sanctity of marriage, deified
motherhood, exaltation of the home and of domestic duties--and the zeal
manifested by Athenian women in these religious rites doubtless promoted
a feminine piety and a natural devoutness which ennobled the Athenian
home and softened parental discipline.

The Thesmophoria was the festival of the married women; but young girls
and even children had their festivals in the Brauronia and the
Artemisia, celebrated in honor of Artemis, the special patron of
virgins. The Brauronia was celebrated every fifth year, in the little
town of Brauron. Chosen Athenian maidens between the ages of five and
ten years, dressed in saffron-colored garments, went in solemn
procession to the sanctuary of the goddess, where they performed a
propitiatory rite, in which they imitated bears, an animal sacred to
Artemis. Every maiden of Athens, before she could marry, must have once
taken part in this festival and consecrated herself to the goddess.
There was also a precinct of Artemis Brauronia on the Acropolis, and
doubtless this ceremony was also performed there. Almost everywhere this
virgin goddess was revered by young girls as the guardian of their
maiden years, and before marriage it was the custom that the bride
should dedicate to Artemis a lock of her hair, her girdle, and her
maiden tunic.

Maidens also took part in the worship of the twin brother of Artemis,
Apollo, in the island of Delos, which was the birthplace of the god and
goddess. The celebration was a festival of youth and beauty, of poetry
and art. Aristocratic maidens of Athens joined with those of the seat of
the Delphian confederacy over which Athens presided in making the
occasion emphasize the power and splendor of Athens in the height of its
greatness.

"Once every five years, in the spring, a solemn festi