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In ancient Athens, the spring equinox was celebrated as a feast of resurrection after death.
The two most important celebrations in Ancient Greece were the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice, both related to the concept of death and resurrection. At this time winter, where the earth is cold and unfruitful, gives its place to spring, where everything blossoms and the earth is green.
The main aim of these celebrations was to teach people to accept death as a natural phenomenon instead of something to fear all their lives.
In ancient Athens the Spring Equinox celebrated the death and resurrection of Adonis, the most handsome demigod, the male counterpart of Aphrodite, the son and lover of the goddess of beauty.
According to one of the myths of about Adonis, a young woman named Smyrna (also known as Myrrha) boasted that she was more beautiful than Aphrodite. To punish the arrogant woman, the goddess made her fall in love with her father.
With the help of her maid, Smyrna deceived her father into sexual intercourse by disguising herself, ensuring he did not recognize her. This continued for twelve days. When her father discovered the truth, he drew his sword and chased after her in fury.
Smyrna disappeared in the woods, ashamed and regretful. The gods, moved by compassion for the young woman’s suffering, transformed her into a myrrh tree. Ten months later, the tree gave birth to Adonis.
Aphrodite wanted to protect Adonis because all women wanted him. So she put him in a sarcophagus that she entrusted to Persephone, goddess of the Underworld, asking her to look after him.
The baby grew up safely and became a handsome man. Both Persephone and Aphrodite were dazzled by his beauty and fell in love with him, and fought over his love. Zeus intervened and stopped the quarrel deciding that Adonis would spend one third of the year with Persephone, one third with Aphrodite and one third however he wished.
Aphrodite made use of her magic belt and charmed Adonis who declared that he would spend one third of the year (four months) with Persephone and two thirds (eight months) with Aphrodite.
For the four months that Adonis was living in the Underworld nature froze, flowers disappeared and Aphrodite stayed in her palace waiting for his return. These four months were the winter season.
During the months that Adonis was living on the Earth, nature was green, full of flowers and fruit. The fields and woods were beautiful in full bloom and Aphrodite left her palace to enjoy her love with Adonis in the open air.
Aphrodite and Adonis were spending all their time together, in the beauty of spring and summer. Ares, the god of war, was in love with Aphrodite and very jealous of Adonis. One day when the handsome man went hunting on his own, Ares transformed him into a boar and killed him.
In another version of the myth, Adonis was wounded and killed by a boar while hunting, driven by the anger of Artemis, the goddess of the hunt.
Aphrodite cried so hard for the death of her loved one that her tears united with dead Adonis’ blood and gave birth to poppies. All white roses around the poppies turned red. Aphrodite cried over the dead body of Adonis. The lyric poet Bion of Smyrna described the tragic scene in his poem the “Epitaph of Adonis.”
Aphrodite grieved for a long time, wandering around with bare feet and her hair loose. Her deep sorrow made Echo and the Winds sigh. In despair, she begged Zeus and Persephone for help. The father of the gods and the goddess of the Underworld felt for her too and agreed that Adonis would spend six months of the year in the Underworld and six months with Aphrodite.
It was the power of love defeating death. Adonis was resurrected and came back to the Earth in the spring, when the whole Earth blossomed. That was what the people of ancient Athens celebrated at the Spring Equinox.
In Roman references, such as Metamorphoses by Ovid, the Spring Equinox myth diverges from the one celebrated in ancient Athens. Here, her father is Cinyras, is the great king of Assyria. Because of Myhrra’s beauty, the king would boast that his daughter was more attractive than Aphrodite.
When the goddess heard that, she was enraged and decided to retaliate. Using her son Eros (Cupid), the god of attraction and desire, she made Myrrha fell in love with her father. She also tricked Myrrha’s father into committing incest. Cinyras later found out about the trick and swore to kill his daughter, who escaped from her father after she found out that she was pregnant.
Myrrha, regretful and ashamed of her atrocious act, pleaded with the gods for their protection. The gods answered her prayers and turned her into a tree.
After some months, the Myrrha tree split and Adonis was born. He had his mothers’ beauty. When Aphrodite laid eyes on Adonis, she was in awe of his beauty and decided that she wanted to hide him from all of the other goddesses and entrusted him to Persephone.
The myth from then on continues as in the ancient Greek myth. The end is different, though.
Adonis was renowned as a great hunter. On one of his hunting adventures in the Afqa Forest (in modern day Lebanon), Adonis was wounded by a wild boar and started to bleed in the hands of Aphrodite, who decanted magical nectar into his wounds.
Adonis did end up dying, but his blood blended with the nectar and poured into the soil where a flower grew from the ground, the scent of which matched Aphrodite’s nectar and the color of which matched Adonis’ blood, making the anemone flower, one of the first flowers of spring.
Adonis’ blood reached the river and turned the water red, the river then became to be known as the Adonis River.
The revered goddess of fertility and agriculture, Demeter, was also celebrated in ancient Athens and other parts of Greece on the day of the Spring Equinox.
As the earth awoke from the deep winter slumber and colors adorned the air, the Greeks seized the opportunity for joyous revelry. They honored Demeter with grand processions, wearing garlands of flowers and wreaths, parading their gratitude for the fruits of the earth. They celebrated the renewal of the earth and the promise of fertile lands.
Another festival to celebrate the coming of the spring was the Anthisteria, dedicated to Chloris, the nymph turned into the Greek goddess of flowers by her husband Zephyrus, god of the west wind, new growth and spring; and to Dionysus, the god of wine and pleasure.
The festival was held in early spring, in the month of Anthesterion, the eighth month of the ancient Athenian Attic calendar, which falls from mid February to mid March.
The festival was a celebration of death, rebirth, new beginnings and the maturing of the wine made and stored the year before. The jars would now be opened, and wine offered to Dionysus.
