The Gymnopaedia was an annual festival celebrated exclusively in ancient Sparta, which helped to define Spartan identity.[1][2] It featured generations of naked Spartan men participating in war dancing and choral singing, with a large emphasis placed on age and generational groups. It is believed that celebration of this festival began in 668 BCE to honour a Spartan victory in Thyrea.[3] The festival likely evolved over time to celebrate other Spartan victories such as that over the Argives in the Battle of the Champions.[4] The Gymnopaedia was primarily in honour of Apollo, but also celebrated Artemis and Leto, who served as representations of the childhood which would soon be left behind by the young participants.[5] Though the festival was ritualistic, it should not necessarily be interpreted as religious.[6] Pausanias describes the Gymnopaedia as "a festival which the Lacedaemonians take more seriously than any other" (Paus. 3.11.9).[7]
Corybantian dance, the type of dance most likely danced on Gymnopedia festivals (image from Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities).
^Robertson, Noel. Festivals and Legends. pp. 147–166. ISBN 978-1-4426-7485-1. OCLC 1013950783.
^Powell, Anton; Flower, Michael A. (2018). "Spartan Religion". A companion to Sparta. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 425–451. ISBN 978-1-4051-8869-2. OCLC 1029549436.
^Wade-Gery, H. T. (1949). "A Note on the Origin of the Spartan Gymnopaidiai". The Classical Quarterly. 43 (1/2): 79–81. doi:10.1017/S0009838800027774. ISSN 0009-8388. JSTOR 637221. S2CID 170294020.
^Daniel, Ogden (February 2010). A companion to Greek religion. ISBN 978-1-4443-3417-3. OCLC 460062268.
^Noel, Robertson (1996). Festivals and legends: the formation of Greek cities in the light of public ritual. Univ. of Toronto Press. pp. 147–165. ISBN 0-8020-5988-0. OCLC 830654658.
^Flower, Michael A., "SPARTAN 'RELIGION' AND GREEK 'RELIGION'", Sparta, The Classical Press of Wales, pp. 193–230, doi:10.2307/j.ctvvnb97.8, ISBN 978-1-910589-33-5, retrieved 2021-04-02
The Gymnopaedia was an annual festival celebrated exclusively in ancient Sparta, which helped to define Spartan identity. It featured generations of naked...
part of an initiation rite in the transition to a hēbōnte. As well, the Gymnopaedia festival featured choral and athletic competitions between groups of...
Gymnopedie may refer to: Gymnopaedia, a festival or dance in ancient Greece Gymnopédies, a series of three compositions by French composer Erik Satie...
this qualification comes from Satie himself – the sarabande and the gymnopaedia were at least historically known as dances. The musical vocabulary of...
occasionally appear nude in certain festivals and during exercise. See Gymnopaedia. First century AD: Historian Diodorus Siculus records that the Celts...
nude, and young women as well as young men may have participated in the Gymnopaedia ("Festival of Nude Youths"). Another practice that was mentioned by many...
unlike the art of other areas of Greece. Girls might have competed in gymnopaedia, the Spartan festival of naked youths. They also competed in running...
2nd century BC. He says that songs of Alcman were performed during the Gymnopaedia festival (according to Athenaeus): The chorus-leaders carry [the Thyreatic...
education, and young women as well as young men may have participated in the Gymnopaedia ("Festival of Nude Youths"). Despite relatively greater mobility for...
Museum of Athens Other Spartan festivals: Carneian festival Hyacinthia Gymnopaedia Lévy, Edmond. (2003). Sparte : histoire politique et sociale jusqu'à...
Polymnestus, and Sacadas; and that to them was ascribed the origin of the Gymnopaedias in Lacedaemon, of the Apodeixeis in Arcadia, and of the Endymatia in...
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