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 p623  Hydriaphoria

Article by Leonhard Schmitz, Ph.D., F.R.S.E., Rector of the High School of Edinburgh
on p623 of

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

HYDRIAPHO′RIA (ὑδριαφορία) was one of the services which aliens (μέτοικοι) residing at Athens had to perform to the Athenians at the Panathenaea, and by which it was probably only intended to impress upon them the recollection that they were mere aliens and not citizens. The hydriaphoria was performed only by the wives of aliens (Pollux, III.55); whereas their daughters had on the same occasion to perform the σκιαδηφορία (the carrying of parasols) to the Athenian maidens, and their husbands the σκαφηφορία (the carrying of vessels, see Aelian, V. H. VI.1, with Perizonius; Harpocrat. s.v. Σκαφήφοροι). It is clear from the words of Aelian that these humiliating services were not demanded of the aliens by the laws of Solon, but that they were introduced at a later period (Petitus, Leg. Att. p95). The hydriaphoria was the carrying of a vessel with water (ὑδρία, Aristoph. Eccles. 738), which service the married alien women had to perform to the married part of the female citizens of Athens, when they walked to the temple of Athena in the great procession at the Panathenaea (compare Meursius, Panathenaea, c21).

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