The gate of the year

The Kronia

Pottery vase, dating to about 460-450 B.C., now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The painting represents the goddess Rhea handing to Cronus a stone enveloped in swaddling clothes, in substitution of the infant Zeus. Rhea and Cronus, children of the Sky and the Earth, belonged to the generation of the Titans, the primordial divinities who preceded the Olympic gods. Cronus, having been advised of the danger to be dethroned by one of his offspring, devoured all of his children. That is why Rhea conceived the stratagem to save the last born child, Zeus.
In Athens, the year began with the first new moon after the summer solstice, and the first month was called Hekatombaiòn, because of the sacrifices (hecatombs) celebrated in honor of Athena. This month was dedicated to Cronus, and the first festivity of the year was that of the Kronia. These feasts comprised sacrifices and a banquet, during which masters and servants exchanged their roles, as a commemoration of the primordial disorder of the age of Cronus, to be replaced by the establishment of the social and cosmic order by Zeus and Athena. To the latter goddess were, indeed, dedicated the great festivities of the Panathenaia, which opened in the immediately subsequent days. The feast of Cronus are defined by Fritz Graf as “a carnival-like interregnum during which the order of Zeus was temporarily suspended” (Graf, 1987, p.63).

[Source: http://library.artstor.org/library/]




Seasonal Cycles

Back

The Kronia Pottery vase, dating to about 460-450 B.C., now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The painting represents the goddess Rhea handing to Cronus a stone enveloped in swaddling clothes, in substitution of the infant Zeus. Rhea and Cronus, children of the Sky and the Earth, belonged to the generation of the Titans, the primordial divinities who preceded the Olympic gods. Cronus, having been advised of the danger to be dethroned by one of his offspring, devoured all of his children. That is why Rhea conceived the stratagem to save the last born child, Zeus. In Athens, the year began with the first new moon after the summer solstice, and the first month was called Hekatombaiòn, because of the sacrifices (hecatombs) celebrated in honor of Athena. This month was dedicated to Cronus, and the first festivity of the year was that of the Kronia. These feasts comprised sacrifices and a banquet, during which masters and servants exchanged their roles, as a commemoration of the primordial disorder of the age of Cronus, to be replaced by the establishment of the social and cosmic order by Zeus and Athena. To the latter goddess were, indeed, dedicated the great festivities of the Panathenaia, which opened in the immediately subsequent days. The feast of Cronus are defined by Fritz Graf as “a carnival-like interregnum during which the order of Zeus was temporarily suspended” (Graf, 1987, p.63). [Source: http://library.artstor.org/library/]