The Anthesteria was a festival of ghosts, and so far the _riddance_ of ghosts by means of placation has been shown to be an important element in ancient sacrifice and in the ancient notion of purification. But placation of ghosts does not exhaust the content even of ancient sacrifice: another element will appear in the festival of early summer that has next to be considered, the _Thargelia_. CHAPTER III. HARVEST FESTIVALS. THE THARGELIA, KALLYNTERIA, PLYNTERIA. ‘λοιδορούμενοι εὐλογοῦμεν, διωκόμενοι ἀνεχόμεθα, βλασφημούμενοι παρακαλοῦμεν· ὡς περικαθάρματα τοῦ κόσμου ἐγενήθημεν πάντων περίψημα.’ Spring-time, it has been seen in the last chapter, is the season for _purification_ by means of the _placation of ghosts_. But spring-time is not the only anxious time for primitive man. As the year wears on, a season approaches of even more critical import, when purification was even more imperatively needed, the season of harvest; in the earliest days the gathering in of such wild fruits as nature herself provides, in later times the reaping and garnering of the various kinds of cereals. In the North with our colder climate we associate harvest with autumn; our harvest festivals fall at the end of September. September was to the Greek the month of the grape harvest, the vintage, but his grain harvest fell in ancient days as now in the month Thargelion, the latter part of May and the beginning of June. This month is marked to the Greeks by three festivals, the Thargelia, which gave its name to the month, the Kallynteria, and the Plynteria. No festival has been more frequently discussed than the Thargelia, and on no festival has comparative anthropology thrown more light. The full gist of the ceremony has never, I think, been clearly set forth, owing to the simple fact that the Thargelia has usually been considered alone, not in connection with the two other festivals[186]. In the present chapter I shall consider first that element in the festival to which it and the month owe their names, i.e. the first-fruits; second, the ceremony of the Pharmakos, which has made the festival famous; third the connection with the Kallynteria and Plynteria and the light thrown on both by the Roman festival of the Vestalia. Finally from the consideration of the gist of these harvest festivals it will be possible to add some further elements to our conception of Greek religious thought, and especially of the Greek notion of sacrifice. THARGELION AND THARGELIA.