The ancient Persians alone of all nations had no F., as they had no temples and no common worship, These " Puritans of Polytheism," who worshiped the sun only, and his representative on earth, fire, scorned show and pomp, and large religious gatherings. A striking contrast to them is formed, in another hemisphere, by the ancient Mexicans, who were found to possess one of the most richly developed calendars of F., scientific ally divided into movable and immovable feasts. As a strange and singular phenom enon among F., we may also mention here that " of the Dead or Souls," celebrated among the wild tribes of North America. At a certain time, all the graves are emptied, and the remains of the bodies buried since the last festival are taken out by the relatives, and thrown together into a large common mound, amid great rejoicings and solemni ties, to which all the neighboring tribes are invited.
Greece had received the types of civilization, religion, and art from Egypt and the east generally, but she developed them all in a manner befitting her glorious clime and the joyous genius of her sons. At the time of the Iliad, two principal festivals only— the harvest and the vintage—seem to have been celebrated (ix. 250); but they increased with such rapidity, that in the days of Pericles they had reached the number of a thou sand; some indeed being an epitome only of their memorable feats of arms, others restricted to one town, or province, or profession, or sex, or to a few initiated, or recur ring only at intervals of several years; but there were still so many kept by the whole people that ancient writers bitterly denounce them as merry beginnings of a sad end, as the slow but sure ruin of the commonwealth. Their forebodings proved true enough; and yet Greece would certainly never have reached the highest place among nations, as far as literature, the arts, and philosophy are concerned, had it not been for the con stant contests attached to her many festivals. She resisted Asia, because her citizens were always alert, always ready. The religious part of the festival—homage offered to personified ideas—consisted mostly in the carrying about of the deity of the day to the sound of flute, lyre, and hymns, and in a sacrifice, followed by a general meal upon certain portions of the animal offered. Then followed scenic representations symboliz ing the deeds of the gods; after which came games and matches of all kinds—foot, horse, and chariot races, leaping, boxing, throwing, wrestling, etc. Separate accounts are given of some of the more remarkable Greek festivals. See BACCHUS, ELEUSINIAN
MYSTERIES, PANATHENJEA, etc. There were also special times set aside for the "holy games" proper. The most important of these were the Olympian, the Pythian, the Nemean, and the Isthmian. (See these heads.) As all these festivities were provided out of the public purse—from the confiscated estates of the " tyrants" and political delinquents—the individual did not suffer more than a welcome interruption of his usual business. and under that genial sky the penalty to be paid for occasional indo• lence was not too heavy. • Rome, founded amid pastoral festivities in honor of some god Pales, adopted and -acclimatized, as she went on from conquest to conquest, the foreign deities, exactly as, with her usual prudence and practical sense, she conferred her right of citizenship on her foreign inhabitants, and on whole nations subjected to her rule. Her yoke was thus less galling to the new provinces, while at the same time the populace at home found sufficient distraction in the many ancient and newly imported F., with their -quaint rites and gorgeous pageantry. Yet the Romans—more parsimonious and abstract by nature than the vivacious Greek neighbors from whom they had accepted the great -est part of their religion—never exceeded in their F. the number of one hundred, and in these, again, a distinct line was drawn between civil and religious ones. Some of the principal religious F. were the Sementime, on the 25th of Jan.—the rural fes tival of the seed-time; the Lupercalia, in honor of Pan; the Cerealia; the night festival of the Bona Dea; Matronalia; Miuervalia, etc. To the purely civil ones belong the Janualia, the 1st of Jan. and the new-year's day, when the new consuls entered upon their office, and friends used to send presents (strena) to each other; the Quirinalia, in memory of Romulus, deified under the name of Quirinus; and the Saturnalia, in remembrance of the golden age of Saturn, beginning on the 19th of Dec. The cele bration of these F. was in all respects imitated from the Greeks, with this difference -only, that the games connected with them became, with the pre-eminently bellicose Romans, terribly life-like images of war. Their sham sea-lights; their pitched battles between horse and foot, between wild beasts and men; their so-called Trojan games, -executed by the flower of the nobility; their boxing-matches (with gloves that had lead and iron sewed into them): circus, arena, and amphitheater gave, especially in later times, the greater satisfaction .the greater the number of victims.