Note 1 — Chapter III · THE THESMOPHORIAN FESTIVAL.

Brauronia (βραυρώνια), a festival celebrated in honor of Artemis Brauronia, in the Attic town of Brauron (Herod, vi. 138), where, according to Pausanias (i. 23. § 9, 33. § 1, iii. 16. § 6, viii. 46. § 2), Orestes and Iphigeneia, on their return from Tauris, were supposed by the Athenians to have landed, and left the statue of the Taurian goddess. (See Müller, Dor. i. 9. § 5 and 6.) It was held every fifth year, under the superintendence of ten ἱεροποιοί (Pollux, viii. 9, 31); and the chief solemnity consisted in the circumstance that the Attic girls between the ages of five and ten years, dressed in crocus-coloured garments, went in solemn procession to the sanctuary (Suidas, s. v. Ἄρκτος; Schol. on Aristoph. Lysistr. 646), where they were consecrated to the goddess. During this act the ἱεροποιοί sacrificed a goat and the girls performed a propitiatory rite in which they imitated bears.—Smith’s Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities. ↑