Panathenaea

Festival of ancient Athens in honour of Athena. Held annually in late summer, but with greater ceremony every fourth year, it included sacrifices, competitions of music and poetry, and athletic games. Parts of the procession to the Acropolis, in which an embroidered saffron robe (peplos) was brought to the statue of the goddess, were illustrated in the frieze of the Parthenon, now in the British Museum, London.

The celebrations of the fourth year were called the greater Panathenaea; intervening festivals were known as the lesser Panathenaea. Musical contests were introduced by Pericles, effective leader of the city from 443 BC.