Ceremony
The procession to the Parthenon was more important than the games themselves. During the Great Panathenaia, a special robe (the peplos) was made by the women of Athens for the statue of Athena, which was carried to the Parthenon as part of the procession. There was also a large sacrifice made to Athena, the hekatombe ("sacrifice of a hundred oxen") and the meat from the sacrificed animals was used in an enormous banquet on the final night of the festival, the pannychis ("all-nighter"). Many scholars believe that this procession is the theme of the Parthenon Frieze.
Award ceremonies included the giving of Panathenaic amphorae which were the large ceramic vessels that contained the oil given as prizes. The winner of the chariot race received as a prize one-hundred and forty "Panathenaic Amphorae" full of olive oil.
Read more about this topic: Panathenaic Games
Famous quotes containing the word ceremony:
“That popular fable of the sot who was picked up dead-drunk in the street, carried to the duke’s house, washed and dressed and laid in the duke’s bed, and, on his waking, treated with all obsequious ceremony like the duke, and assured that he had been insane, owes its popularity to the fact that it symbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the world a sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, exercises his reason and finds himself a true prince.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Such a set of tittle tattle, prittle prattle visitants! Oh Dear! I am so sick of the ceremony and fuss of these fall lall people! So much dressing—chitchat—complimentary nonsense—In short, a country town is my detestation. All the conversation is scandal, all the attention, dress, and almost all the heart, folly, envy, and censoriousness.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“No ceremony that to great ones ‘longs,
Not the king’s crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace
As mercy does.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)