Maiuma (festival)

This article is about the ancient festival. For the ancient port near Gaza, see Maiuma (city).

Maiuma, Maiouma
CelebrationsTheatrical and aquatic performances: games, mime shows, nude swimming
DateDuring May

Maiuma or Maiouma, also written with a final s, was a Graeco-Syrian nocturnal water festival celebrating Dionysus and Aphrodite and held during the month of May-Artemisios.[1][2] According to Malalas (Chronicle 284–285), it was celebrated in Antioch every three years as a nocturnal festival, also known as Orgies, or the Mysteries of Dionysus and Aphrodite.[1] Its most famous venue was Daphne-by-Antioch (Daphne, a suburb of the Hellenistic metropolis  on the Orontes).[3] Aquatic displays, mime and dance shows made the festival very popular in several cities of the East Roman Empire.[2] There are scholars who distinguish between the original Graeco-Syrian festival, characterised by two main components, water and rejoicing, and later celebrations of similar character from the pagan Graeco-Roman and even the Christian Byzantine world, which also adopted the original name.[4] The celebrations were so licentious that some Roman rulers attempted to ban them.[5]

  1. ^ a b Pearse, Roger. The festival of the Maiuma at Antioch, at roger-pearse.com, 2 July 2012. Retrieved 15 May 2024.
  2. ^ a b Weiss, Zeev (2014). Public Spectacles in Roman and Late Antique Palestine. Harvard University Press. pp. 31, 139–140. ISBN 9780674048317. Retrieved 15 May 2024.
  3. ^ Maiuma at The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity, Oxford University Press (2018), ISBN 9780191744457, via oxfordreference.com. Retrieved 15 May 2024.
  4. ^ Benayche, Nicole (2004). "Pagan Festivals in Fourth-Century Gaza: No Mayouma in Gaza". In Brouria Bitton Ashkelony; Arieh Kofsky (eds.). Christian Gaza In Late Antiquity. Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture (Vol. 3). BRILL. pp. 14–19. ISBN 9004138684. Retrieved 17 May 2024.
  5. ^ Cross, Andrew (2014). Baal Peor and the Marzeah Feast at arcalog.com. Accessed 16 May 2024.