Adonia

The Adonia (Greek: Ἀδώνια) was a festival celebrated annually by women in ancient Greece to mourn the death of Adonis, the consort of Aphrodite.

It is best attested in classical Athens, though other sources provide evidence for the ritual mourning of Adonis elsewhere in the Greek world, including Hellenistic Alexandria and Argos in the second century AD.

It was one of a number of Athenian festivals which were celebrated solely by women and addressed sexual or reproductive subjects – others included the Thesmophoria, Haloa, and Skira.

[3] Unlike these other festivals, however, the Adonia was not state-organised, or part of the official state calendar of religious celebration.

[2] Theophrastus' Enquiry into Plants (Περι φυτων ιστορια) and Plato's Phaedrus are both often taken as evidence for the Adonia having been celebrated in the summer.

[9] In Egypt and Syria in the Roman period, the Adonia coincided with the rising of the star Sirius in late July.

[11] The main feature of the festival at Athens were the "Gardens of Adonis",[12] broken pieces of terracotta which had lettuce and fennel seeds sown in them.

Laurialan Reitzammer argues that the festival described by Lucian is one that was brought back to Syria from Greece, rather than being of native Syrian origin.

[24] The Phoenician text of the Pyrgi Tablets (western central Italy) seem to indicate that the commemoration of the death of Adonis was an important rite in Central Italy, that is if, as is generally assumed, the Phoenician phrase bym qbr ʼlm "on the day of the burial of the divinity" refers to this rite.