Tuesday, October 11, 2005
This Day in Ancient History
In Athens, long ago, this was the Annual Thesmophoria, a woman's rite in honor of agricultural goddes Demeter. Sacred offerings are cleaned from her cave. It was common knowledge back then that the offerings to the Gods were their food. Usually they were burned so that the smoke went up to the sky and the God got it. We've seen on Rome that the household Gods, the Lares and Penates, could be fed directly by placing food on their figurines. We've also seen a little girl, Lucius Vorenus' youngest, place grapes on an alter in the city replacing an older bunch, which she takes, runs home with, and everyone there ate one of the old grapes, seemingly for luck. Anyway, the year's direct offerings to Demeter in her cave near Athens were getting pretty rank and this was the day the women cleaned out the whole rotten lot and started over.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 5:03 AM 
