Quick questions on Spartan religion, festivals, and ritual: HSC Ancient History

Apollo. The dominant male deity of Sparta. Worshipped under three main epithets: Apollo Karneios (the Ram-Apollo, associated with the Karneia festival), Apollo Hyakinthios (associated with the Hyacinthia at Amyklai), and Apollo Pythaeus (associated with the oracle at Delphi). The Karneia and Hyacinthia were the two great Apolline festivals.

The Karneia (Hekatombaion to Metageitnion, late August to early September). In honour of Apollo Karneios. Lasted nine days. Included athletic and musical contests, choral performances, and a foot race in which a "garlanded man" (the staphylodromos) was pursued by the "vine-pluckers." During the Karneia, Spartans observed a religious truce that forbade marching to war.

Standard Spartan burials were deliberately austere. The body was wrapped in a red cloak (phoinikis) and olive leaves and buried within the city, not (as in most Greek poleis) outside the walls. Mourning was restricted to a short period.

Religion shaped Spartan military life pervasively.

Royal priesthoods. The two kings were the chief priests of Zeus Lacedaemonius and Zeus Uranios.

Robert Parker treats Spartan religion as fully integrated with civic, military, and family life rather than as a separate domain. The festivals were the constitutive moments of the polis.

The dominant male deity of Sparta. Worshipped under three main epithets: Apollo Karneios (the Ram-Apollo, associated with the Karneia festival), Apollo Hyakinthios (associated with the Hyacinthia at Amyklai), and Apollo Pythaeus (associated with the oracle at Delphi). The Karneia and Hyacinthia were the two great Apolline festivals.

A goddess of the wild and of boys' initiation. Her sanctuary by the Eurotas, just outside Sparta, was the site of the famous diamastigosis, the whipping contest in which boys completing the agoge competed in endurance. The 5th-century BC sanctuary has been excavated, yielding miniature lead figurines (over 100,000) and ivory plaques as votive offerings.

Athena had her temple on the Spartan acropolis. The temple was named for the bronze plaques that lined its walls. King Pausanias died of starvation in her sanctuary around 470 BC after taking refuge there (Thucydides 1.134).

Sons of Zeus and Leda, the brothers of Helen. The patron heroes of the Spartan army; their images were carried into battle (the Dokana, a wooden frame, was a portable cult image). The Dioscuri were treated as living protectors of the polis.

The supreme god. The two kings were chief priests of Zeus Lacedaemonius and Zeus Uranios.

In honour of Apollo Karneios. Lasted nine days. Included athletic and musical contests, choral performances, and a foot race in which a "garlanded man" (the staphylodromos) was pursued by the "vine-pluckers."

In honour of Apollo Hyakinthios at Amyklai (a village around 5 km south of Sparta). The festival lasted three days and commemorated the death and rebirth of Apollo's young male lover Hyacinthus. Mourning on the first day; choral celebration on the second; sacrifices and a procession to Amyklai on the third.

Choral and athletic contests in the Spartan agora. Choirs of unmarried youths competed under the hot sun. The festival celebrated the warrior elite and integrated the age-graded products of the agoge into the citizen body.

Held at Plataea from 479 BC to commemorate the Greek victory over Persia. Sparta played a leading role in the commemorations.