Eleutheria
（
τὰ ἐλευθέρια). The feast of liberty; a festival which
the Greeks, after the battle of Plataea (B.C. 479), instituted in honour of Zeus Eleutherius
(the deliverer). It was intended not merely to be a token of their gratitude to the god, but
also as a bond of union among themselves; for, in an assembly of all the Greeks, Aristides
carried a decree that delegates from all the Greek States should assemble every year at
Plataea for the celebration of the Eleutheria. The town itself was at the same time declared
sacred and inviolable, as long as its citizens offered the annual sacrifices which were then
instituted on behalf of Greece. Every fifth year these solemnities were celebrated with
contests (
ἀγὼν τῶν Ἐλευθερίων) in which the victors were
rewarded with chaplets. The annual solemnity at Plataea, which continued to be observed down
to the time of Plutarch (
Arist. 19 and 21), was as follows: On the sixteenth of the month of
Maemacterion, a procession, led by a trumpeter, who blew the signal for battle, marched at
daybreak through the middle of the town. It was followed by wagons loaded with myrtle-boughs
and chaplets, by a black bull, and by free youths who carried the vessels containing the
libations for the dead. No slave was permitted to minister on this occasion. At the end of
this procession followed the archon of Plataea, who was not allowed at any other time during
his office to touch a weapon or to wear any other but white garments, now wearing a purple
tunic and with a sword in his hand, and also bearing an urn, kept for this solemnity in the
public archives (
γραμματοφυλάκιον). When the procession came
to the place where the Greeks who had fallen at Plataea were buried, the archon first washed
and anointed the tombstones, and then led the bull to a pyre and sacrificed it, praying to
Zeus and Hermes Chthonius, and inviting the brave men who had fallen in the defence of their
country to take part in the banquet prepared for them. See Thuc. iii. 58.
Eleutheria was also the name of a festival celebrated in Samos, in honour of Eros.
