Thargelion, the 11th month of the Atik calendar, corresponds today to May-June. The most important event of this month is the Thargelia festival celebrated for the god’s Apollo and Artemis. Thargelia means harvest festival from the word thalysios.

Thargelia was celebrated on the 7th of the month and was dedicated to Apollo, this festival lasted for two days, during which bulls and goats were sacrificed to Apollo. On the first day of the Thargelia festival, a ritual purification ceremony was performed by selected scapegoats, possibly hoping for a new beginning. Before moving on to the festival, it would be appropriate to explain the religious pollution.

As in many societies, touching something unclean, breaking a religious rule, or committing a religiously forbidden crime is a condition that defiles or taints a person in Greek society. In this direction, pollution creates the effect of suffering bad consequences arising from the anger of the gods.

An example of this is the outbreak of the plague epidemic as a result of the pollution of the city of Thebes and the disappearance of fertility in the city due to the crime committed by Oedipus in Sophocles’ King Oedipus play.

For this reason, it is necessary to find the source and cause of the pollution, which is still valid today, then throw it out and be purified by religious orders. An unclean person would be considered extremely repulsive by the gods, and therefore would not be allowed to attend holy places and ceremonies by the practitioners of the religion.

The situations that led to religious pollution in ancient Attic society and Ephesus can be briefly listed as follows. In the society in question, birth, and death were polluting situations, for example, a corpse was considered a dirty thing, and touching it was considered a cause of contamination.

Not following religious rules properly or disrespecting them was another source of contamination. Sacrificing without washing the hands, touching, and blood on the hands was a state of contamination that should always be purified.

It was even believed that people who were polluted but did not get purified were either insane or had epilepsy. For all these reasons, if people and cities were polluted, the evils would be removed with purifying rituals, and for this reason, the pharmakoi, or “scapegoats”, on which all the filth of the society was burdened, were driven from the cities.

The scapegoat custom applied in Western Anatolia and Ephesus in the 6th century BC was as follows: When a city suffered a plague, famine, or another public disaster, an ugly or crippled person was chosen to take on the evils affecting the city. The chosen person was brought to a suitable place, and he was given dried figs, a loaf of barley flour, and cheese.

After the person chosen as the scapegoat ate them, his genitals were struck seven times with wild fig branches, then he was burned on a woodpile made of forest trees, and the ashes were scattered into the sea.

For the custom of pharmakos at the festival of Thargelia, held in Attica and in the cities of Ionia, some low-class, useless people were fed to the public account. Particular attention was paid to the fact that these people were ugly and poor, representing the women and men of the city.

When any natural disaster or disease such as drought or plague occurred in the city, two of these excluded people were sacrificed as scapegoats. One of the victim men wore black around his neck, and the other, dressed as a woman, wearing a string of white figs around his neck. In this way, they would perform a purification ceremony around the city.

Considering the characteristics sought in men to be sacrificed in the pharmakos tradition, it brings to mind that this may be related to magic. After the ceremony, these men are hit with fig branches and chased out of the city. Similar practices were also made in Kolophon and Ephesus.

The purpose of this ritual is to get rid of the responsibility of religious crimes through these two people chosen instead of men and women in the community.

Pharmakos shows are only seen in the Classical Period. In 5th and 4th century literature it appears only as a comic misconduct. On the second day of the festival, various offerings were made for the god Apollo, to whom the festival was dedicated. The meal, called Thargelos, containing all kinds of early grains and vegetables, was cooked in a single bowl and presented to the god.

In this month, which corresponds to May – June, the first vegetables and grains were harvested. The Thargelos meal was eaten together, and fresh vegetables and fruits were also offered to Apollo to give fertility to his lands. It is said that the act of hitting the genitals in the festival of Thargelia means to save the productive forces of nature from spells made by demons and other evil forces.

Since Thargelia was a harvest festival, it could be thought that it was intended to activate the creative and fruitful power of the plant god.

The most important element of the Thargelia festival is that young children are accepted by their fathers and registered in the phratries and blessed as a new family. This means that Apollo is the protector and master of young children and youth. In addition, on the first day of this festival, offerings were presented to Demeter Khloe.

Khloe’s title (epithet) means “green shoot, sprout”. Based on this, it can be said that Demeter is not only the goddess of wheat and grain but also of young sprouts.

Towards the end of the month of Thargelion, two more festivals were held: Plynteria and Kallynteria.

Plynteria was a festival dedicated to the Goddess Athena Aglauros and was celebrated on the 22nd of Thargelion. It is the day when the cult statue of the goddess, which has been made of wood since ancient times, is washed in the festival. This cult statue was almost the size of a human.

However, by the 5th century BC, the famous sculptor Pheidias made a huge statue of him out of gold and ivory. The statue of Athena Aglauros was the most essential cult object of the Acropolis.

The persons in charge of dressing and removing the robe of this magnificent statue and performing other ceremonial duties were called praxiergides, and the ceremony was conducted in complete secrecy. The ceremony was carried out as follows: First, the dress, jewelry, and other ornaments of the statue were taken off, then they kept the place where he stood in the temple tightly covered.

The statue was wrapped around and taken out, possibly so that the temple could be cleaned. The day of Plynteria was considered “apophrades” or “diesnefasti”, an unlucky, black day among Athenians. This is because the goddess cannot protect the city on the day of the festival. Indeed, on a day like this, no Ephesian would dare to undertake any serious business.

While the statue was going towards the sea to be washed, dried figs called “hegetaria” were carried in their hands, accompanied by a procession. The temple was washed away by the waters carried by the Kephisos and Ilissos rivers, which were flooded with rainwater. Seawater purification was only done in mysteries. The statue, which was transported to the sea, was washed by two young women.

At the same time, the statue’s clothes were washed and cleaned. When the purification process was over, the statue was dressed again. The statue was brought to the temple after the parade, accompanied by military guards and torchlights. The cult officers, called Praxiergides, who were responsible for the statue, put on the ornaments and ornaments of the statue and placed it in its place in the temple.

Kallynteria is the continuation of the Plynteria festival and is the festival where spring cleaning is done to the temple of Athena. Starting from ancient times, there was a torch that burned day and night in the temple of Athena. When the famous sculptor Kallimakhos made the Erechtheion, he made a lamp made of gold that burned day and night for 12 months.

The festival, which was held on a day between the 20th and 25th of the month of Thargelion every year, on the day when both the oil reservoir and the lamp itself were cleaned, was called Kallynteria, which means “spring cleaning”.