PAT ritual announcements for the Kharisteria and the Boedromia

You thought we were done, weren't you? Nope! But these will be the last two rituals until the Eleusinian Mysteries, which we will be organising a sort of ten day PAT festival for. The Kharisteria ritual will be held today. The Boedromia is for tomorrow. Both are at 10 AM EDT. Will you be joining us?

The Kharisteria
The Kharisteria takes place on the sixth of the month--a day sacred to Artemis. This festival is another commemoration of a battle, in this case, the battle of Marathon which took place in 490 BC. It was also a festival to pay off a debt to the Theoi. During the battle of Marathon, around 10,000 Hellenes stood their ground against a Persian force between 30.000 and 100.000 men. 192 Hellenes fell, opposite 6.400 Persians. That was quite a victory--especially if you consider that the Hellenes were the attacking side. The casualty numbers are known because the Hellenes set up a memorial for their fallen comrades. The Persian dead were counted for a very speciffic reason: the Hellenes had promised to the Theoi a sacrifice of one goat for ever Persian killed. In the end, they discovered they'd killed so many Persians that they couldn't find enough goats. A payment plan of sorts was divised, and over the course of thirteen years, roughly 500 goats per year were sacrificed, a practice that was still performed in Plutarch’s day. Plutarch also confirms that the sacrifice took place at Artemis Agrotera’s sanctuary at Agrai.

You can join the community page for this event here and download the ritual from here. As a personal note, this would be a great day to break out your copy of 300 because that's definitely the spirit of the battle that took place! We hope you join us for the ritual on 20 September, at 10 AM EDT.

The Boedromia
The festival that gives its name to the month. It might have been sacred to Apollon, and was thus most likely held on His sacred day--the seventh of the month. The Boedromia might have been another war commemoration. The epithet of Apollon associated with this festival is 'Boedromios', the helper in distress. The origin of the epithet and festival are explained in different ways. According to Plutarch, the name was awarded to Him (and the festival created) because he had assisted the Athenians in the war with the Amazons, who were defeated on the seventh of Boedromion, the day on which the Boedromia were afterwards celebrated. According to others, the name was awarded after the war of Erechtheus and Ion against Eumolpus, because Apollon had advised the Athenians to rush upon the enemy with a war-shout (Boê), if they wanted to win--and they did.

We have already commemorated many ancient wars but with this ritual, we would like to address the many wars currently taking place in our world. We want to plead the Theoi to bring them to a swift end and bring refuge to the many displaced. We ask that xenia--hospitality--prevail in a time where many would turn these refugees away.

You can join the community page on Facebook here and the ritual can be found here. We hope you join us on 21 September, at 10 AM EDT.