The Eiresione, Pausanias says, was fastened before the door of the sanctuary of Apollo. Plutarch[197], in his rather clumsy aetiological account of the Oschophoria, connects the Eiresione with vows paid to Apollo by Theseus on his return from Crete to Athens. Harpocration[198] says ‘The Thargelia was celebrated in the month of Thargelion, which is sacred to Apollo,’ and the author of the _Etymologicon Magnum_[199] states ‘The Thargelia, a festival at Athens. The name is given from the _thargelia_, and thargelia are all the fruits that spring from the earth. The festival is celebrated in the month Thargelion to Artemis and Apollo.’ From Suidas[200] we learn that there was a musical contest at the Thargelia, and that the actors dedicated their prize tripods in the sanctuary of Apollo known as the Pythion. All this makes it quite clear that at some time or other the festival of the Thargelia was connected with the Olympian Apollo, and more vaguely with his sister Artemis, but the connection is obviously loose and late. The Eiresione was fastened up not only over the door of the sanctuary of Apollo, but over the house-door of any and every Athenian. The house of Demos was no sanctuary of Apollo. Moreover, when the scholiast on Aristophanes[201] is commenting on the Eiresione, he says, to our surprise, that it was carried and hung at the Thargelia and Pyanepsia in honour, not of Apollo and Artemis, but of ‘Helios and the Horae.’ Porphyry[202] does not definitely name the Eiresione, but he is clearly alluding to it when he speaks of the procession that still took place at Athens in his own day to Helios and the Horae. It is evidence, he says, that in early days the gods desired in their service not the sacrifice of animals, but the offering of vegetable first-fruits. ‘In this procession they carried wild herbs as well as ground pulse, acorns, barley, wheat, a cake of dried figs, cakes of wheat and barley flour, and a pot (χύτρος).’ It is abundantly clear that the Eiresione is simply a harvest-home, an offering of first-fruits that was primarily an end in itself, but that could easily be affiliated to any dominant god. It will be remembered[203] that Oineus got into trouble because, when all the other gods had their feasts of hecatombs, he did not offer first-fruits to Artemis, great daughter of Zeus. Oineus, we may conjecture, was the faithful conservative worshipper of earlier gods; the Athenians were wiser in their generation; their ancient service of the primitive Helios and the Horae they somehow affiliated to that of the incoming Olympians. * * * * *