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 p104  Apollonia

Article by Leonhard Schmitz, Ph.D., F.R.S.E., Rector of the High School of Edinburgh
on p104 of

William Smith, D.C.L., LL.D.:
A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, London, 1875.

APOLLO′NIA (Ἀπολλώνια) is the name of a propitiatory festival solemnized at Sicyon, in honour of Apollo and Artemis, of which Pausanias (II.7 § 7) gives the following account:— Apollo and Artemis, after the destruction of the Python, had wished to be purified at Sicyon (Aegialea); but being driven away by a phantom (whence in aftertimes a certain spot in the town was called Φόβος), they proceeded to Carmanos in Crete. Upon this the inhabitants of Sicyon were attacked by a pestilence, and the seers ordered them to appease the deities. Seven boys and the same number of girls were ordered to go to the river Sythas, and bathe in its waters; then to carry the statues of the two deities into the temple of Peitho, and from thence back to that of Apollo. Similar rites, says Pausanias, still continue to be observed; for at the festival of Apollo, the boys go to the river Sythas, and carry the two deities into the temple of Peitho, and thence back to that of Apollo.

Although festivals under the name of Apollonia, in honour of Apollo, are mentioned in no other place, still it is not improbable that they existed under the same name in other towns of Greece.

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