ABSTRACT
In the Panathenaia the central ritual act in the performance of which the whole polis articulates itself was the offering of the peplos to Athena Polias, Athens’ poliouchos deity. The myth associated with the City Dionysia says that Pegasos of Eleutherai brought Dionysos’ statue to Athens, but the Athenians did not receive the god with honour. It is usually assumed that the City Dionysia arose from, and celebrated, a real life annexation of a cult of Dionysos from Eleutherai when the latter became part of Athens. The author suggested that the thing that developed into tragedy was performed as part of the ritual of Dionysos’ entertainment at the Prytaneion. For, of course, the myths of resistance to Dionysos and his cult do not reflect historical reality; they articulate ritual tensions and symbolic oppositions, a contrast between divine madness and human order.
