At Athens, when persons in easy circumstances made a feast, as on all occasions of sacrificing they did, the custom was to send some small presents, as parts of the victim, to their friends, more especially when poor.[344] But most joyful for the indigent was the period of the Athenian jubilee, the Panathenaia,[345] on which occasion the state received presents of oxen from all the colonies founded by Athenians, so that the whole city overflowed with meat and soup, of which every person might take his share. Sometimes, however, if not generally, the meat fell into the hands of those who least needed it, while the poor got nothing but a little soup with a scanty slice of bread.[346] In times of great scarcity corn was distributed to the indigent in the Odeion, where, on ordinary occasions, it was sold.[347] A similar distribution took place at the Peiræeus in the arsenal, where loaves were given out at an obolos each. On extraordinary occasions, as when a famine raged in the country, the state applied for corn to its foreign allies, and, on receiving any, distributed it equally among the citizens. This was the case when Psammitichos made the Athenians a present of a vast quantity of wheat, of which every citizen received five medimni.[348] A peculiar kind of windfall is commemorated by Athenæus, who relates, that when Ion, the dramatic poet of Chios, won the prize of tragedy, he was so overjoyed at his success, that he presented every Athenian with a jar of the best Chian. No doubt, foreign tragedians were not every day winning prizes, or, when they won, so rich and generous as Ion; but advantages of various kinds were enjoyed by the Athenian people not anywhere else known.[349] ----- Footnote 344: Theoph. Char. c. 17. Casaub. p. 259. Footnote 345: Meursius (in Panath. c. xv. p. 22) is very unsatisfactory. Footnote 346: Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 385. Footnote 347: Demosth. cont. Phorm. § 13. Cf. Meurs. Rhod. p. 127. Footnote 348: Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 718. Footnote 349: Athen. i. 5. -----