CARNEIA

( καρνεῖα ), a great national festival, celebrated by the Spartans in honour of Apollo Carneios. The festival began on the seventh day of the month of Carneios = Metageitnion of the A then i ans, and lasted for nine days. It was of a warlike character, similar to the Attic Boëdromia. During the time of its celebration nine tents were pitched near the city, in each of which nine men lived in the manner of a military camp, obeying in everything the commands of a herald. The priest conducting the sacrifices at the Carneia was called Agetes ( Ἀγητής ), whence the festival was sometimes designated by the name A get or i a or Age to rei on ( Ἀγητόρια or Ἀγητόρειον ), and from each of the Spartan tribes five men ( Καρνεᾶται ) were chosen as his ministers, whose office lasted four years, during which period they were not allowed to marry. When we read in Hero dot us and Thucydides that the Spartans during the celebration of this festival were not allowed to take the field against an enemy, we must remember that this restriction was not peculiar to the Carneia, but common to all the great festivals of the Greeks: traces of it are found even in Homer.