thalysia

THALY´SIA(θαλύσια), a festival celebrated in honour of Dionysus and Demeter (Menand. Rhet. quoted by Meursius), or according to others of Demeter alone, as it is described by Theocritus in his seventh idyll, and by the grammarians who wrote the arguments to the same. It was held in autumn, after the harvest, to thank the gods for the benefits they had conferred upon men (Spanheim ad Callimach. Hymn. in Cer. 20 and 137; Wüstemann ad Theocrit. Idyll. 7.3).