great Panathenaic Procession. About four hundred feet of this frieze
remains, so that a good judgment can be formed of it. First I must tell
you what this procession means. The festival of the Panathenaea was the
most important of all the splendid pomps which were celebrated at
Athens. It is probable that this festival was held every year about the
middle of August, but _the great Panathenaic_ occurred only in the third
year of each olympiad; an olympiad was a period of four years, extending
from one celebration of the Olympic games to another, which was an event
of great importance in reckoning time with the Greeks; thus we see that
the great procession represented on the frieze occurred once in every
four years. This festival continued several days, and all were filled
with horse-racing, cock-fighting, gymnastic and musical contests, and a
great variety of games; poets also recited their verses, and
philosophers held arguments in public places.[A] But the most important
day was that on which a procession went up to the Parthenon and carried
the peplos, or garment for the great goddess, which had been woven by
the maidens of Athens. This peplos was made of crocus-colored stuff, on
which the figures of the gods engaged in their contests with the giants
appeared in beautiful, rich embroidery. In later years, after the
Athenians had fallen from their first high-minded simplicity, they
sometimes embroidered on the peplos the likeness of a man whom they
wished to flatter, as thus placing him in the company of the gods was a
very great compliment.

[Footnote A: In the Persian invasion of Greece by Xerxes, B.C. 480, that
monarch was surprised to learn that the Olympic games were not suspended
at the approach of his army.]

The procession of the peplos was formed at daybreak in the Potters'
Quarter of the city, and passed to the Dromos, then to the market-place,
onward to the temple of Demeter, round the Acropolis along the Pelasgic
wall, through the Propylaea to the temple of Athena Polias. The
procession was as splendid as all the wealth, nobility, youth and beauty
of Athens could make it. Of the vast multitude which joined it some were
in chariots, others on horses and almost countless numbers on foot.
After the most important officers of the government come the envoys of
the Attic colonies with the noble Athenian maidens, the basket-bearers,
the aliens who resided in Athens dressed in red instead of white, and a
chosen