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ASCOLIA

Volume 2 · 71 words · 1815 Edition

in Grecian antiquity, a festival celebrated by the Athenian husbandmen in honour of Bacchus, to whom they sacrificed a he-goat, because it destroys the vines (Ovid. Fast. i. 457.) and, to show the greater indignity to an animal hated by Bacchus, the peasants, after having killed him, made a foot-ball of his skin. Virgil has beautifully described the occasion of the sacrifice and manner of celebrating the festival, Georg. ii. 380.