PANIO´NIA
PANIO´NIA (
πανιώνια),
the great national panegyris of the Ionians on Mount Mycale, near Priene and
between Ephesus and Miletus (from which Grote conjectures that these towns
were the primitive centre round which the other Ionian settlements gathered,
forming gradually the confederation of twelve cities), where their national
god Poseidon Heliconius had his sanctuary, called the Panionium (
Hdt. 1.148;
Strabo
viii. p.384;
Paus. 7.24.4). One of
the principal objects of this national meeting was the common worship of
Poseidon, to whom splendid sacrifices were offered on the occasion (
Diod. 15.49). As chief priest for the conduct of
the sacrifices, they always appointed a young man of Priene, with the title
of king. But religious worship was not the only object for which they
assembled at the Panionium; on certain emergencies, especially in case of
any danger threatening their country, the Ionians discussed at these
meetings political questions, and passed resolutions (
Hdt. 1.141,
170), as was usual at an
amphictyonic panegyris [see
PANEGYRIS].
Diodorus (
15.49) says that in later times the
Ionians used to hold their meeting in the neighbourhood of Ephesus instead
of at Mycale. Strabo, on the other hand, who speaks of the Panionic
panegyris as still held in his own time, not only does not mention any such
change, but appears to imply that the panegyris was at all times held on the
same spot, viz. on Mount Mycale. Diodorus therefore seems to consider the
Ephesian panegyris [
EPHESIA] as
having been instituted instead of the Panionia. But both panegyreis existed
simultaneously, and were connected with the worship of two distinct
divinities, as is clear from a comparison of two passages of
Strabo viii. p.384, xiv. p. 639. The truth
probably is that the more splendid festival of the Ephesia attracted a
larger concourse than the real Panionia and threw it in later times into the
shade; and although the old festival continued, yet as early as
Thuc. 3.104 the Ephesia was looked upon as the
representative Pan-Ionic gathering.
(Compare Tittmann's
Griech. Staatsv. p. 668, &c.; C.
F. Hermann,
Lehrb. der Gottesd. Alterth. § 66, n. 2,
3; Grote's
Hist. of Greece, iii. p. 229 ff.)
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L.S] [
G.E.M]