ing vessels in them were adorned
with spring flowers, as were also the children over three years of age.
The second day, named _Choes_ (feast of beakers), was a time of
merrymaking. The people dressed themselves gaily, some in the disguise
of the mythical personages in the suite of Dionysus, and paid a round of
visits to their acquaintances. Drinking clubs met to drink off matches,
the winner being he who drained his cup most rapidly. Others poured
libations on the tombs of deceased relatives. On the part of the state
this day was the occasion of a peculiarly solemn and secret ceremony in
one of the sanctuaries of Dionysus in the Lenaeum, which for the rest of
the year was closed. The basilissa (or basilinna), wife of the archon
basileus for the time, went through a ceremony of marriage to the wine
god, in which she was assisted by fourteen Athenian matrons, called
_geraerae_, chosen by the basileus and sworn to secrecy. The days on
which the Pithoigia and Choes were celebrated were both regarded as
[Greek: apophrades] (_nefasti_) and [Greek: miarai] ("defiled"),
necessitating expiatory libations; on them the souls of the dead came up
from the underworld and walked abroad; people chewed leaves of
whitethorn and besmeared their doors with tar to protect themselves from
evil. But at least in private circles the festive character of the
ceremonies predominated. The third day was named _Chytri_ (feast of
pots, from [Greek: chytros], a pot), a festival of the dead. Cooked
pulse was offered to Hermes, in his capacity of a god of the lower
world, and to the souls of the dead. Although no performances were
allowed at the theatre, a sort of rehearsal took place, at which the
players for the ensuing dramatic festival were selected.

The name Anthesteria, according to the account of it given above, is
usually connected with [Greek: anthos] ("flower," or the "bloom" of the
grape), but A.W. Verrall (_Journal of Hellenic Studies_, xx., 1900, p.
115) explains it as a feast of "revocation" (from [Greek:
anathessasthai], to "pray back" or "up"), at which the ghosts of the
dead were recalled to the land of the living (_cp._ the Roman _mundus
patet_). J.E. Harrison (_ibid_. 100, 109, and _Prolegomena_), regarding
the Anthesteria as primarily a festival of all souls, the object of
which was the expulsion of ancestral ghosts by means of placation,
explains [Greek: pithoigia] as the feast of the opening of the graves
([Greek: pithos] meaning