Brauronia

(Βραυρωνία), a surname of Artemis, derived from the demos of Brauron in Attica. Under this name the goddess had a sanctuary on the Acropolis of Athens, which contained a statue of her made by Praxiteles. Her image at Brauron, however, was believed to be the most ancient, and the one which Orestes and Iphigeneia had brought with them from Tauris. (Paus. 1.23.8; Dict. of Ant. s. v. Βραυρώνια.) [L.S]

(τὰ Βραυρώνια). An Attic festival held every fifth year in the little town of Brauron, in honour of Artemis Brauronia. At Brauron, Orestes and Iphigenia (q.v.) on their return from Tauris were supposed to have landed and to have left the statue of the Tauric goddess. The festival was under the superintendence of ten ἱεροποιοί; and the chief solemnity consisted in the circumstance that Attic girls between the ages of five and ten years, dressed in crocus-coloured garments, went in solemn procession to the sanctuary, 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. This rite may have simply arisen from the fact that the bear was sacred to Artemis, especially in Arcadia; but a tradition preserved in Suidas relates its origin as follows: In the Attic town of Phanidae a bear was kept, which was so tame that it was allowed to go about quite freely, and received its food from and among men. One day a girl ventured to play with it, and, on treating the animal rather harshly, it turned round and tore her to pieces. Her brothers, enraged at this, went out and killed the bear. The Athenians thereupon were visited by a plague; and when they consulted the oracle, the auswer was given that they would rid themselves of the evil which had befallen them if they would compel some of their citizens to make their daughters propitiate Artemis by a rite called ἀρκτεύειν, for the crime committed against the animal sacred to the goddess. The command was more than obeyed; for the Athenians decreed that from thenceforth all women, before they could marry, should have once taken part in this festival, and have been consecrated to the goddess. Hence the girls themselves were called ἄρκτοι, the consecration ἀρκτεία, the act of consecrating ἀρκτεύειν, and to celebrate the festival ἀρκτεύεσθαι.

There was also a quinquennial festival called Brauronia, which was celebrated by men and dissolute women, at Brauron, in honour of Dionysus.