ANTHESTERIA, one of the four (or five) Athenian fes tivals in honour of Dionysus, held annually for three days (I 1 th 13th) in the month of Anthesterion (Feb.-March). Its object was to celebrate the maturing of the wine stored at the previous vintage, and the beginning of spring. On the first day, called Pithoigia ("opening of the casks"), libations were offered from the newly opened casks to the god of wine, all the household joining in the festivities. The rooms and the drinking vessels in them were adorned with spring flowers, as were also the chil dren over three years of age. The second day, named Choes ("feast of beakers"), was a time of merry-making. 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. 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, in which the basilinna, wife of the archon basileus ("king-archon"), went through a ceremony of marriage to the wine god. The days on which the Pithoigia and CJioes were celebrated were both re garded as ill-omened, necessitating expiatory libations ; on them 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 named Chutroi (feast of pots), 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. It is uncertain whether the name is connected with Gr. anthos, flower.
See F. Hiller von Gartringen in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyklopddie (s.v.) ; J. Girard in Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des Anti quites (s.v. "Dionysia") ; and F. A. Voigt in Roscher's Lexikon der Mythologie (s.v. "Dionysos") ; A. W. Verrall, Journal of Hellenic Studies, xx. 19oo; A. Mommsen, Feste der Stadt Athen (1898) ; M. P. Nilsson, Studia de Dionyss Atticis (19oo) and Griechische Feste (5906) ; G. F. Schomann, Griechische Alterthiimer, ii. p. 516, ed. J. H. Lipsius (1902) ; J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903) ; E. Rohde, Psyche, p. 237, 4th ed. (i907)•