The Mediterranean World in the First Millennium (1000–30 b.c.)

The twenty-eighth day of the month Hekatombaion, the first month in the Athenian calendar, dawned bright and clear. Already the city was astir with activity, for this was the festival of Athena’s birthday, the day of the Panathenaia, the great procession. Early in the day the procession assembled on the edge of the city, marshals organizing the various groups into their proper order: young men on horseback, chariots, people on foot, youths bearing water jars, men playing pipes, and others with the stringed instruments known as citharas. Near the front of the procession were the key players in the ceremony. A group of men led cattle and sheep for sacrifice. More important still was the contingent of young girls, past puberty but not yet married, escorting the wheeled cart that carried the embroidered peplos itself, raised high above the crowd on a wooden mast. Slowly, the procession passed through the city gate and made its way along the stone-paved Sacred Way through the agora. Ahead of them stood the gleaming marble buildings of the Acropolis; there in the shrine of Athena Polias, the ceremony itself would take place. The ancient statue of the goddess would receive the peplos, her new robe, and the city would rejoice in another year of Athena’s patronage .