Note 727 — Chapter LXXV · FROM THE REBUILDING OF THE LONG WALLS OF ATHENS TO THE PEACE OF ANTALKIDAS.
Reading edition
It is common to represent the festivals at Athens as if they were so many stratagems for feeding poor citizens at the public expense. But the primitive idea and sentiment of the Grecian religious festival—the satisfaction to the god dependent upon multitudinous spectators sympathizing and enjoying themselves together (ἄμμιγα πάντας)—is much anterior to the development of democracy at Athens. See the old oracles in Demosthen. cont. Meidiam, p. 531, s. 66; Homer, Hymn. Apollin. 147; K. F. Herrmann, Gottesdienstlich. Alterthümer der Griechen, s. 8.