CANEPHOROS (i.e. basket-bearer), in Grecian Antiquity, a maiden whose office it was at the festivals of Minerva, Ceres, and Bacchus, to carry the sacred utensils for sacrifice in a shallow wicker basket on her head. At Athens this office was accounted so honourable, that two virgins of the highest rank were appointed for the purpose.
On an antefixa in the British museum, two caneophore are represented standing before a candelabrum.
In architecture, caneophore are figures of young persons of either sex in imitation of the above. They are sometimes confounded with caryatides.
Caneophore also denoted those virgins who, when mar-
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Cange.
riageable, presented baskets of offerings to Diana, in order to propitiate that goddess on their renunciation of the virgin state.